Speaker 1: Post Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: welcome to another episode of Poorest Love Supreme. I'm your host, Questlove.
Speaker 1: We have the family with us right now. Sugar Steve,
Speaker 1: the fastest man in the universe. I am fast, I'm here.
Speaker 1: I'm so very excited about this. Yes, wow, wait, that's
Speaker 1: what device was that?
Speaker 2: Hey?
Speaker 1: Bill?
Speaker 3: This is my very fancy whiskey glass. Thank you for asking.
Speaker 1: It's not a device, it's advice, Billy. Our guest has
Speaker 1: a good trick too. Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, I'm having giant sun kiss FDA.
Speaker 1: Apple.
Speaker 5: Only a shot a mirror, only a shot?
Speaker 1: Layah? How are you with your uh your fan? You good?
Speaker 2: Yes, shout us to all the perimenopause the ladies. Yes
Speaker 2: it is here, and yes we are.
Speaker 4: Too if we're talking about.
Speaker 5: It, Yes we are. Don't you love it?
Speaker 4: I love it?
Speaker 5: Hey, Hallie, thank you Hallie Berry.
Speaker 1: Well, ladies and gentlemen, First, don't succeed. You try, and
Speaker 1: you try, and you try again, and we will say
Speaker 1: that the wis this is the third or fourth time?
Speaker 1: Is the charm? It's finally happening. Our guest is a
Speaker 1: multi hyphened powerhouse of a talent and a human being.
Speaker 1: You know, I understand the term that they want to say,
Speaker 1: but I don't believe in egot. I believe in ghetto.
Speaker 1: So right now you're a get okay, I'll take it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I'm trying to go for ghetto. I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to go for egott. You are a Grammy Award winner
Speaker 1: and you.
Speaker 5: Don't want to want to go back to the ghetto.
Speaker 6: I love it.
Speaker 1: Yes, and a multiple Tony Award winner, a musician, an
Speaker 1: actor and activist, an author, humanitarian, a Time Magazine one
Speaker 1: hundred Most Influential Person recipient. You know, there's nothing the
Speaker 1: scoff at Uh. We are currently ahead of our guest
Speaker 1: brand new project, which is called The Black Mona Lisa
Speaker 1: Volume two cookout Sessions. Most importantly, you are from Pittsburgh?
Speaker 2: Are you at a title?
Speaker 1: I was about to say my mom's from Pittsburgh, but
Speaker 1: I do not know the proper way to address agains YenS.
Speaker 7: Is just you, you all, y'all?
Speaker 6: Whatever, it is, just put.
Speaker 1: How ya doing?
Speaker 4: Hey?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: Talk him out? Please? Welcome to Quest lof Subrie. Finally,
Speaker 1: Billy Porter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not at a title. He's also a joy
Speaker 2: Bringer he's a joyer.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, So wait, what is the proper way to use
Speaker 1: Yen's Because I feel like I'm an honorary Pittsburgh and
Speaker 1: pittsburghen you're.
Speaker 4: Dealing with multiple people, and you're talking to multiple people's plural.
Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, it's like y'all, it's a Southern y'all,
Speaker 3: it's a Pittsburgh and y'all.
Speaker 4: You all y'all ying.
Speaker 1: I get it. See, I didn't know that it was
Speaker 1: plural because I see a singular person. I'm just like Yen's.
Speaker 4: OKAYLORA, It's the only way to use it.
Speaker 6: It's floral.
Speaker 1: Jacob is awesome from Pittsburgh just informed me that the
Speaker 1: term fuckings is a term for ye.
Speaker 6: I don't know that many people say that, but.
Speaker 4: That's proper. You will be using it correctly in a sentence.
Speaker 1: What part of Pittsburgh are you from? So?
Speaker 4: I grew up in the East Liberty slash Homewood area,
Speaker 4: like right on the cuff in the hood hood.
Speaker 1: I've heard my mom mention this place often, so okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: East Liberty, Okay, that is what's liberty?
Speaker 6: Just combine it sliberty.
Speaker 1: How long have you lived there?
Speaker 4: I lived there until I essentially graduated from college. I
Speaker 4: went to Cardigial Melain And.
Speaker 1: What's your major drama?
Speaker 4: Oh? Okay, I was in the drama department. Honey, your
Speaker 4: whole life, no classical theater calledge Daddy is trained. It's
Speaker 4: not a mistake. It's not by accident.
Speaker 1: What I want to know is because one of the
Speaker 1: last conversations I had with you was I was watching
Speaker 1: everyone on the show knows my obsession with Soul Train
Speaker 1: and owning all thousands of episodes, and I remember your
Speaker 1: careers as far as back as I think you were
Speaker 1: on the show. I believe in ninety four, ninety five.
Speaker 4: I believe, yes, I would say ninety five or ninety
Speaker 4: six because the untitled came out and on AM Records.
Speaker 4: That was my first album in ninety six, and I
Speaker 4: was on with ll clo J. Was on the same
Speaker 4: episode as.
Speaker 5: Me Marmore Soul Drain Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, posted on Souldrain. Yeah. So that's when I
Speaker 1: first became aware of you. Like, for some reason, I
Speaker 1: didn't connect that as you, even though I remember that
Speaker 1: episode well because I religiously record that show. So I'll
Speaker 1: start off like I ask everyone, what is your first
Speaker 1: musical memory in life. Then I stumped you.
Speaker 4: Well, it's not just one, and so it's hard to
Speaker 4: like because there are many different.
Speaker 1: When you thing of your childhood. Yeah, what's the first
Speaker 1: moment of music? Church?
Speaker 4: Okay, singing in church, singing that friendship Baptist church, being
Speaker 4: five years old, singing a solo, being the adult choir
Speaker 4: because I could sing so good, so they let me
Speaker 4: in the adult choir till I was out of concert.
Speaker 4: It was a it was a mass choir, conor clert.
Speaker 4: I was marching up. I was in the front in
Speaker 4: the soprano section because I was a gospel soprano until
Speaker 4: I was thirty. It's recorded so you can go and
Speaker 4: listen to it and see that I'm not lying or
Speaker 4: here that I'm not lying. But yeah, that's the first memory.
Speaker 4: And I was marching up and this really really mean
Speaker 4: lady snatched me out of the line because she decided
Speaker 4: that I was out of place and I shouldn't have
Speaker 4: been there because I was a little child.
Speaker 1: But did she have the authority to do that or
Speaker 1: was she the really no, she did not.
Speaker 6: It's in my book. It was very traumatizing.
Speaker 1: How old were you?
Speaker 6: I was like seven or eight, maybe.
Speaker 1: You were that powerful of a singer.
Speaker 4: You know the Clark sisters, right obviously of course, so
Speaker 4: you know Maddie Boss Clark essimply was the female James
Speaker 4: cleavey okay, right. She was in the KOJC Church, the
Speaker 4: Church of God in Christ. He was Baptist. He was
Speaker 4: the Baptist Convention of whatever. And he would go around
Speaker 4: the different cities and get singers from all the different churches,
Speaker 4: put them together and make those albums.
Speaker 6: So she did the same thing in the Pentecostal Church.
Speaker 4: And so I was such a good singer that somebody
Speaker 4: took me down there to Mill Street Church of God
Speaker 4: in Christ to be in the choir. And you weren't
Speaker 4: allowed to be in the choir and unless she was sixteen, But.
Speaker 1: What if your voice was excellent? What if you were
Speaker 1: the Aretha frames I'm about to say. Okay, So I.
Speaker 4: Get there and they're like, he can't be here, and
Speaker 4: they were like, just listen to him sing, and I said,
Speaker 4: and she was like sit out. She said, come on,
Speaker 4: she said, sit right here in front row. So you know,
Speaker 4: so I sat in the front row and worked with
Speaker 4: Mattign's Clark. I haven't really.
Speaker 6: Retold that story.
Speaker 4: In a long time, and I thank you for making
Speaker 4: me think about it, because I would say those are
Speaker 4: the two that's a major major musical milestone for me.
Speaker 1: Okay, like the beginning, the.
Speaker 6: First time that I really knew.
Speaker 1: All Right, I want you to explain something to me
Speaker 1: because oftentimes, you know, and we've had gospel lessons on
Speaker 1: the shows, and of course you know, for any black
Speaker 1: singer I know, I'll say that eighty five to ninety
Speaker 1: percent of their entry into music is coming through the church. Yeah,
Speaker 1: can you please explain to me? Is there a difference
Speaker 1: between a Baptist church a Pentecostal church?
Speaker 4: So I would say, we're not a monolis right, So
Speaker 4: like back in the day, the difference between Baptists and
Speaker 4: Pentecostal was the charismatic.
Speaker 1: Part, okay, shouting, the speaking in.
Speaker 4: Tongues and all of that was reserved for the Pentecostal people.
Speaker 6: The Baptist people at that time.
Speaker 4: Were still pulled up, okay, and they were still closer
Speaker 4: to ame, which was African American Episcopals. So if you've
Speaker 4: been to African American Episcopal you were probably singing classical music.
Speaker 6: You were probably.
Speaker 4: Singing, you know, your choir was singing hymns that were traditional.
Speaker 6: You probably had, like you know, Leonting Price.
Speaker 4: Was your soloist, okay, at the Ame church, Lanting Price
Speaker 4: was your soloist. At the Baptist church, Mahela Jackson was
Speaker 4: your soloist. And I do it with music. If you
Speaker 4: think of Mehelia Jackson balls to the walls belting. Okay,
Speaker 4: Pentecostal and I'm breaking it down through. Music was all
Speaker 4: about the coloring and the riffing and all of that.
Speaker 1: So if I were drumming, I would probably be at
Speaker 1: home drumming in a Pentecostal church.
Speaker 4: Yes, it was freer at the time. Now Baptists and
Speaker 4: Pentecostal are the same.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm a seventies church person, so I think the
Speaker 1: last time I really really played in church was like
Speaker 1: eighty seven. And of course, you know, as a teenager
Speaker 1: and listening to hip hop or whatever, I would try
Speaker 1: to sneak in songs that were like Breakbeats or play
Speaker 1: Top Billing by Audio two or Peter Piper by run DMC,
Speaker 1: and the older people would look at me and start scowling,
Speaker 1: like m M, don't play any like? Was it looked
Speaker 1: down upon in terms of contemporary music, or.
Speaker 4: In the Baptist Church at the time, it was expanding. Okay,
Speaker 4: you could play, you could push it, but not too far, like,
Speaker 4: for instance, the Clark sisters were everywhere, but when you
Speaker 4: brought the sunshine happened and it crossed over into the clubs,
Speaker 4: it was a problem.
Speaker 3: Just like the.
Speaker 6: Hawkins family and Oh Happy Day, you know.
Speaker 4: But those people were like, but we're over here preaching
Speaker 4: to the choir. They were pioneers because they were like, well,
Speaker 4: we're over here preaching to the choir, and you're mad
Speaker 4: at us because we've broken through to essentially centers secular
Speaker 4: secular right, So isn't that the point the Bible says,
Speaker 4: go out into the world and preach my gospel. That's
Speaker 4: what the Bible says. So I was in that era
Speaker 4: where it was becoming more and more accepted. I mean
Speaker 4: now essentially, you know, I mean and and R and
Speaker 4: B and soul and gospel. They've always borrowed from each other,
Speaker 4: you know. And nowadays gospel artists are a hip hop artists.
Speaker 4: You know, Mary Mary is a hip hop artist. They
Speaker 4: came out they were hip hop artists, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, Like, there's a whole generation of folk.
Speaker 6: Now, you know, you listen to Jake Marsh, she may
Speaker 6: as well be.
Speaker 4: It's like, you know, King Keith heard when she first
Speaker 4: came out, Like they're very contemporary and they're borrowing heavily
Speaker 4: right from the hip hop tradition.
Speaker 2: Now his house, we were just talking to bb Winings
Speaker 2: about the work that he's been doing with Louis Vega,
Speaker 2: and it's yeah, and you and you with Freda, right,
Speaker 2: like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, what's motivational music in that way?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, Belly.
Speaker 3: Do you consider yourself a church singer still to this.
Speaker 6: Day, Yeah, I'm a gospel singer.
Speaker 3: That's how you defined yourself.
Speaker 4: I'm a gospel singer. Anywhere I go, I'm a gospel singer.
Speaker 4: You know my mom, you know, I left the church
Speaker 4: when I was sixteen because I'm a big old queen
Speaker 4: and I wasn't out, and so I left and I
Speaker 4: was like, I'm not changing, I'm God made me who
Speaker 4: I am. I'm leaving.
Speaker 6: And my mom had a problem with it, and she
Speaker 6: came around and whatever.
Speaker 4: Before she passed, she passed it every word, but before
Speaker 4: she passed, every time every time she would come.
Speaker 6: And hear me or see me do something. She was
Speaker 6: so sweet.
Speaker 4: She would be like, I know you left the church,
Speaker 4: and you left it for good reason, But every time
Speaker 4: you open up your book, nothing but.
Speaker 3: Jess nothing but Jesus nothing, Jesus nothing.
Speaker 6: And it's true.
Speaker 4: It's like when I listen to myself, I got you
Speaker 4: can't take the gospel.
Speaker 3: How do you feel when someone writes a song for you,
Speaker 3: because I know that this happens with you and it
Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily sound like you. What is your thought process
Speaker 3: in that?
Speaker 4: Well, people who are writing music for me are generally
Speaker 4: writing it because they want me to sing it. So
Speaker 4: for me coming from a church background where it's about
Speaker 4: the spirit, it's about sharing your gifts with the congregation
Speaker 4: and the message and the ministry, and then moving that
Speaker 4: into training as a classical actor and learning how to
Speaker 4: tell the story because the story is most important. So
Speaker 4: in the secular world it's the same thing. The ministry
Speaker 4: and telling the story is the same. They fold into one, right.
Speaker 2: Bill, didn't you guys do this in a way. I
Speaker 2: know you did Sesame Street at some point.
Speaker 3: So I was like, Billy was on Sesame Street and
Speaker 3: he sang an ebby winning song called Friends with the Penguin,
Speaker 3: and it was one of the one of the I
Speaker 3: will say, in the fifteen years i've been there in
Speaker 3: one of my top five moments was this moment. And
Speaker 3: my girlfriend, who was a producer of the show, was like,
Speaker 3: it was one of the greatest moments you ever had
Speaker 3: on the show. Was you and that outfit seeing a
Speaker 3: song and it was fucking magical, and so like, I
Speaker 3: just want to say thank you very much because it was.
Speaker 4: Recognize your name. I'm like, I'm not a name, but
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of friends we have.
Speaker 3: We have James Sampleiner, I'm talking to the stark Sands
Speaker 3: over here, who's like, ask them about this, Like it's
Speaker 3: a whole Yeah, we have a lot of the same
Speaker 3: Literally just got off the phone with James Sampliner.
Speaker 2: Y'all like cousins, theatre cousins, right, like theatre cousins.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, the small world.
Speaker 4: I'm always trying to tell the story and because my
Speaker 4: voice was so high and it was so different and
Speaker 4: it didn't fit into anything or anywhere, you know, Like
Speaker 4: my voice was so high that regular tenor roles in
Speaker 4: theater had to be transposed up a third or a
Speaker 4: fourth for me. So like I would go into auditions
Speaker 4: singing a regular tenor song like let's say Anthem from Chess,
Speaker 4: a song that everybody in that era say, right, and
Speaker 4: I would go in and I would have to sing
Speaker 4: it a fourth higher from where it was written. So
Speaker 4: I would take the music in and put it in
Speaker 4: front of a piano player, and it was like Mitton's McCluskey,
Speaker 4: because they're so used to playing it in a you
Speaker 4: know that they couldn't even like. So I had to
Speaker 4: start taking my own piano player with me to auditions
Speaker 4: because people wouldn't be able to even looking at it.
Speaker 6: They wouldn't be able to understand this transla.
Speaker 1: When I deal with singers normally, it's like you got
Speaker 1: to lower it a few notches usually win in concert.
Speaker 1: They want to go lower, yeah, but you want to
Speaker 1: raise it higher at that time.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I feel like I've heard you sing Luther
Speaker 2: before and I have.
Speaker 4: Time. But I was very good with female altos with extension.
Speaker 4: I could sing those songs in the regular keys. I
Speaker 4: could sing I have nothing in the original key, Like
Speaker 4: I could sing that for real, with no like effort,
Speaker 4: no screeching note, like my top note. If you go
Speaker 4: and you google oh Holy Night on the Rose O'donald
Speaker 4: Christmas Special.
Speaker 2: Yes, I guess I thought that video you was seeing Google.
Speaker 4: Oh Holy Night, that's that's Billy Porter prime at that time.
Speaker 4: Listen to Love Is on the Way from the First
Speaker 4: Wives Club, that's Billy Porter like at my highest prime.
Speaker 4: I mean the high note that I hit at the
Speaker 4: end of Holy Night was a high. I think it
Speaker 4: was F above or f a G above that high
Speaker 4: soprano see beltic.
Speaker 1: Who are the three singers that you pattered in yourself after?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: Who were the singers that? Who your north star? Who's
Speaker 1: your top three? Okay, Karen Clark.
Speaker 5: Here and Aretha Okay, Trinnedy Trinity.
Speaker 1: I would imagine that you know, those are the three
Speaker 1: that are everyone's choice. Is there a singer that's sort
Speaker 1: of out of that circle that people will be surprised
Speaker 1: that you gravitate towards?
Speaker 6: I don't think it would be a surprise.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, men, I like Tom Waits, and Tom Waits
Speaker 1: has a horrible voice. I love that you love Tom Waits.
Speaker 6: God, you're making me atlantis.
Speaker 5: Martha that was random? Does love her?
Speaker 4: Love that that okay, and I'm sure there are more.
Speaker 6: You know, you put me on the spot. Now I
Speaker 6: can't take it.
Speaker 2: Nobody not to step on your toes, B But I
Speaker 2: was like, why are you thinking I'm curious about the
Speaker 2: first secular show that you experienced, because that's a part
Speaker 2: of your musical moment too.
Speaker 5: I know you mentioned church for real, for real, but
Speaker 5: what was the first.
Speaker 1: Your first concert or this will be a surprise. Wait
Speaker 1: before we get to that. Did you live in a
Speaker 1: no secular music household? Or was that allowed no secular
Speaker 1: music at all? Uh? All right, so who would you
Speaker 1: sneak and listen to nobody? Oh? You followed the rules.
Speaker 4: Well until a certain age, right, it was only secular music.
Speaker 4: And the music that I heard was on the radio
Speaker 4: or at somebody else's house. Okay, and it was always
Speaker 4: in passing. That's where you do all your bad shit
Speaker 4: at somebody else's house.
Speaker 6: So it was somebody else's house.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I loved Michael Jackson, I loved Shaka, I loved you know, Prince.
Speaker 5: Was a little oho much.
Speaker 4: I liked it, but it was like I felt like
Speaker 4: my mom could hear me listening to it.
Speaker 1: I got on punishment for prince. So I understand all that,
Speaker 1: and it was a little nasty, so had a night,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 4: But what's interesting about my journey is that it was gospel, gospel, gospel, gospel.
Speaker 4: And then in the sixth grade, I was bussed to
Speaker 4: Risingstein Middle School during the second sort of desegregation moment,
Speaker 4: and I was introduced to theater. I was introduced to
Speaker 4: musical theater, and I got bit by the bug. And
Speaker 4: so then it became I went right from gospel music
Speaker 4: to theater. And theater for some reason was okay with
Speaker 4: my mother.
Speaker 6: He didn't really understand it.
Speaker 4: And so I was going to the Carnegie Library and
Speaker 4: taking out ten albums a week and.
Speaker 6: Listening to it while I was doing my homework.
Speaker 4: But I have to say it wasn't until I was
Speaker 4: about fifteen when I got a job working at Kenny
Speaker 4: Wood Park Kadywood Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which is the
Speaker 4: amusement park.
Speaker 1: It's still there, Okay, it's.
Speaker 6: Still privately owned.
Speaker 4: It's one of the last privately owned amusement parks that's
Speaker 4: still owned by the family that started.
Speaker 6: It in the country.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, because a lot of them have been bought up.
Speaker 5: By like six flags flag.
Speaker 6: And so I was by myself.
Speaker 4: I was living with the grown ups, and by grown
Speaker 4: ups I mean the college kids in the motel out
Speaker 4: by the park. Because my mother was now going to
Speaker 4: drive me out to that park every day and come
Speaker 4: and pick me up. She trusted me enough to do that.
Speaker 4: She signed off on me having a job. I did
Speaker 4: six shows a day, six days a week. Four of
Speaker 4: them were different.
Speaker 1: How old were you fifteen? So were you emancipated? I was.
Speaker 6: No, it was I wasn't answer.
Speaker 5: She gave you permission to me permission I had.
Speaker 4: To have written permission from her and take it downtown
Speaker 4: to whoever it was, or she had to go with
Speaker 4: me or something to give me permission to work.
Speaker 6: And we were ports. So like I wanted Georgiana ask James.
Speaker 6: I wanted to.
Speaker 1: And myself if you shot Damn.
Speaker 4: I forgot about Jumber. I'm fifty five and September. I
Speaker 4: needed my Sergyovalente. I needed my stuff. And she said,
Speaker 4: you know, she looked at me at one point and
Speaker 4: she's like, you have champagne taste on the beer budget.
Speaker 4: And so I came home one day for the job
Speaker 4: and she said what And I'm like, yeah, and I
Speaker 4: get to perform and I get to do you know what,
Speaker 4: I'm doing this and that and that.
Speaker 6: She was like, oh, and then she met the people.
Speaker 4: She went and she met the people who hired me
Speaker 4: because I went on a flute to the audition.
Speaker 6: I went with somebody else, okay, to.
Speaker 4: Accompany somebody else who had done it the year before.
Speaker 4: Curtis Clark, he had done it the year before. He's like,
Speaker 4: you need to come an audition because you get this job.
Speaker 6: And I did.
Speaker 4: And six shows a day, six days a week. Four
Speaker 4: of the shows were different.
Speaker 1: And we had costume spontaneous or no with So there
Speaker 1: were two groups.
Speaker 4: There were two groups, and they were like ten shows
Speaker 4: a day or something or seven shows a day at
Speaker 4: the same place. So there was Rasmatas, which was a band,
Speaker 4: a live band with three singers, three female singers. They
Speaker 4: had their four shows a day, eighty five.
Speaker 1: They've been out since seventy nine, weren't they?
Speaker 6: They were there and seventy nine and this group was there.
Speaker 1: I know, Oh my god, you've seen it. I wasn't heard.
Speaker 1: I've heard of Ramatas like no, I did hard time
Speaker 1: in Pittsburgh. I know this name good.
Speaker 4: And we and we were flashed and Flash did our
Speaker 4: shows to track, and all the shows were themed, you know,
Speaker 4: so like there was a TV show, there was a
Speaker 4: Broadway show, there was a dance show, there was a
Speaker 4: you know, and so ours had three male dancers and
Speaker 4: three female dancers. And so we did two different shows
Speaker 4: a day. Razmatast did two different shows a day, alternating.
Speaker 6: That was during the daytime. Then in the evening, both
Speaker 6: casts would come together.
Speaker 4: And we would do a show at seven which was
Speaker 4: one thing, and then a show at like nine thirty
Speaker 4: which was a whole different show, combined casts. As your
Speaker 4: first audition, that was my first professional audition, and I
Speaker 4: worked my ass off for three seasons.
Speaker 6: I did it for three seasons.
Speaker 1: What point did you realize I have a dream to
Speaker 1: chase and it's not where I am now? What was
Speaker 1: your goal? Like at thirteen.
Speaker 4: The summer of eight after I did my first musical,
Speaker 4: which was What which was Babes and Arms, and I
Speaker 4: played Gus Fielding And there were so many people that
Speaker 4: I auditioned for it that every role was double cast.
Speaker 4: And they told us at the beginning, every single part
Speaker 4: will be double cast. The cast lists spent up every
Speaker 4: part was double cast, but mine, And I'm like, what
Speaker 4: does that mean? You know, because I was bullied so
Speaker 4: relentlessly for not being able to play sports and being
Speaker 4: a book person, that all of a sudden, I'm looking
Speaker 4: at this extracurricular thing and if I'm not double cast,
Speaker 4: that means.
Speaker 6: I'm doing something right.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 6: So I was bit by the bug.
Speaker 4: And then that summer was dream Girls was on the
Speaker 4: Tonies and I just happened to be washing my dishes
Speaker 4: in the kitchen the Tony Awards came on.
Speaker 6: I didn't even know what it was.
Speaker 1: You never heard of dream Girl.
Speaker 4: I had never heard of dream Girls. I had never
Speaker 4: heard of the Tony Boards. I didn't know what was happening.
Speaker 4: But all I knew I was eleven, But all I
Speaker 4: knew was that I was watching black people on a stage,
Speaker 4: the same kind of stage that I had been on,
Speaker 4: doing the same kind of thing that I had just done. Right,
Speaker 4: But it was black people who weren't poor. They were
Speaker 4: they were in gowns, they were and so I was intrigued.
Speaker 4: And they did that fight section into and I'm telling you,
Speaker 4: and then Jennifer Holliday gets up and starts singing like
Speaker 4: I sing in church. I did Babes and arms. I
Speaker 4: didn't think that was a possibility to sleepless nice to
Speaker 4: daily fine.
Speaker 1: Yes, of course.
Speaker 4: In elementary school theater. You know, it's middle school theater.
Speaker 4: So there was nothing black about it. There was nothing
Speaker 4: current or urban about right. So I didn't make the
Speaker 4: connection A that this was something that people did for
Speaker 4: a living and B that I could actually have a
Speaker 4: place in it inside of my authentic self. So I
Speaker 4: knew that wherever those people are is where I have
Speaker 4: to go. And they're in New York and they're on Broadway,
Speaker 4: so that's where I'm going. And I made that decision
Speaker 4: at eleven.
Speaker 5: Was your first time seeing theater in New York?
Speaker 6: Or did you?
Speaker 4: After you watched the Chonnes, were you like, I need
Speaker 4: to go to a show.
Speaker 6: I need to see this. I started seeing.
Speaker 4: Theater in Pittsburgh, and I started immersing myself and finding
Speaker 4: places to train and putting myself in the right. But
Speaker 4: I didn't see my first Broadway show until I went
Speaker 4: to audition for colleges when I was seventeen.
Speaker 6: I didn't have any way.
Speaker 4: To get there. Really, I didn't know how to get there.
Speaker 4: I didn't know you know, there was no Internet. There
Speaker 4: was no like you have to this is nineteen eighty five, Like,
Speaker 4: there was no I didn't understand how to get there.
Speaker 4: So I had to figure out how to get there
Speaker 4: in Pittsburgh. And it was through the theater that it
Speaker 4: happened because there's no music industry in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1: Question. So my relationship with I'm telling You I'm Not
Speaker 1: Going is, you know, due to the numerous times that
Speaker 1: song gets chosen as showtime at the Apollo. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I found out about dream Girls long after. You know,
Speaker 1: they're on the cover of Ebony and Jet and it's
Speaker 1: already like five years after the fact. So like I
Speaker 1: knew Jerdani I Holaday when she got her record deal,
Speaker 1: like I Am Love and all that stuff. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then eventually learned about it. So I've never as a
Speaker 1: watcher of award shows as a kid, I didn't see
Speaker 1: that performance, but I do know it was a game changer.
Speaker 1: So is that moment a seminal moment for black actors
Speaker 1: and whatnot in terms of the importance of I'm telling
Speaker 1: You I'm Not Going. Was that really the flag planning
Speaker 1: moment for Black Broadway to establish itself? That we don't
Speaker 1: have to sing in jazz hands like proper Broadway style,
Speaker 1: like we're allowed to.
Speaker 4: It didn't happen often, but it had happened before.
Speaker 1: Well, I knew about like Stephanie Mills, I saw the
Speaker 1: whis when I was a kid.
Speaker 4: And all of that, but like full out balls to
Speaker 4: the walls gospel like that and authentic had really only
Speaker 4: happened prior to that. With Your Arms You Short the
Speaker 4: Box of God, which was Carol, which was also Jennifer Howick.
Speaker 1: Okay, she was also in that.
Speaker 4: She was okay, yeah, but that was like the last
Speaker 4: and don't bother me, I can't cope. Had some gospel
Speaker 4: and it, you know, but like I actually have written
Speaker 4: a gospel musical with Kirk Carr.
Speaker 6: But I'm trying to.
Speaker 4: Get going because the last time there was an authentic
Speaker 4: gospel musical on Broadway with authentic gospel music sung by
Speaker 4: the people was Your Arms She Short The Box of God,
Speaker 4: which was in the mid seventies. You know, dream Girls
Speaker 4: is not a gospel musical. She's a gospel singer, but
Speaker 4: it was not a gospel musical.
Speaker 6: There have been gospel.
Speaker 4: Singers in musicals, including myself in Greece. Lily is white
Speaker 4: and everything she's ever done, you know, like we have
Speaker 4: been in those spaces.
Speaker 5: But fascinating, but not our stuff.
Speaker 1: So when Melbourne Moore won heard, I've never seen Pearly,
Speaker 1: so I don't know what roles he played. But when
Speaker 1: she won, that was that she was the leading Okay,
Speaker 1: but does she have a moment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she sang I Got loved. Okay, she sang a
Speaker 4: few things, but she sang I Got loved. And that
Speaker 4: was real gospel singing. But it also wasn't really a
Speaker 4: gospel musical.
Speaker 5: Mm hmm right, give me consistent gospel music.
Speaker 4: In the musical. Yes, it wasn't. There was gospel. There
Speaker 4: was gospel in it, and she was an art She
Speaker 4: was more of a traditional.
Speaker 6: Black belting singer.
Speaker 4: It was you could say it was gospel, you know,
Speaker 4: it is gospel, but it was it wasn't like Jennifer.
Speaker 1: Jennifer was just so you're seeing that Jennifer was allowed
Speaker 1: to go zero to five hundred and really.
Speaker 4: Okay, and Melbournemore did too, Don't get me wrong, Melbourneore
Speaker 4: did too, and Stephanie Mills did too.
Speaker 6: However, the music that they were.
Speaker 5: Singing it's gospel. It wasn't gospel.
Speaker 4: It was not gospel. And I'm telling you was actually
Speaker 4: written to be a gospel you know, to be in
Speaker 4: that space musically, if that makes sense, just like Home
Speaker 4: was not?
Speaker 1: Right, is the off Broadway lane with a slew of
Speaker 1: gospel plays? There? Is it that that lane had to
Speaker 1: be created because mainstream Broadway.
Speaker 5: Won't allow, won't open the door that level of gospel.
Speaker 4: And I think you're probably talking about the gospel plasic.
Speaker 1: Bro had I created, because I mean, I'm asking you,
Speaker 1: is that the reason why that lane exists?
Speaker 4: Well, it's always existed, you know, it's an extension of
Speaker 4: what the Chipman circuit was.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know, so it's in that space.
Speaker 4: And I'm and I say that with reverence and not
Speaker 4: as it disc you know, it's like, yeah, necessity is
Speaker 4: the mother of invention. Yeah, if you wanted to go
Speaker 4: see people in a in a narrative singing gospel music,
Speaker 4: you went to a.
Speaker 5: Tyler Perry play mm hmm, or.
Speaker 4: Or yeah, David Talbert or whatever they were before he
Speaker 4: came into the picture, before those giants of that space
Speaker 4: came into the picture. Right. You know, it's difficult because
Speaker 4: Broadway is very secular. Broadways very white.
Speaker 5: The Great White Way, and Jesus It's correct.
Speaker 3: Okay, no, but that's very funny. It works.
Speaker 4: But Jez Great Superstar worked because it's written by white
Speaker 4: people from a white perspective. You know, everything that has
Speaker 4: anything to do with something biblical were written by white,
Speaker 4: secular artists, white men, whether it's Andrew Lloyd Weber, The
Speaker 4: Amazing Technically Dream Coade and or Jesus Christ Superstar. They're
Speaker 4: good stories. Mm hmmm. They chose a good story, you know,
Speaker 4: the Prince of Egypt. It's a good story. These people
Speaker 4: are looking for stories to tell, you know, Biblical stories
Speaker 4: are stories that very often have wide ranging audiences.
Speaker 6: That's why they're doing them.
Speaker 4: But if you listen to those those musicals, they're not
Speaker 4: gospel music unless you rearrange it and make the gospel,
Speaker 4: which then you get into the rights issues and you
Speaker 4: got to get permission and all of that.
Speaker 1: Your accolades and your legacy, and I don't mean do
Speaker 1: you have it in you to with stand the abuse
Speaker 1: that it will take to establish or to get your
Speaker 1: production on Broadway. But with the claim that you have
Speaker 1: and the proof of your acting, how easy is it
Speaker 1: for you to uh manifest the gospel play that you
Speaker 1: would like to see on Broadway, stories that you want
Speaker 1: to be told.
Speaker 4: It's still it's still like Sisyphis.
Speaker 6: It doesn't matter. It's still like.
Speaker 5: Thanks Bill, It's still like sorry.
Speaker 6: To tell you.
Speaker 4: I was just having this conversation with my with the
Speaker 4: head of my production company, and all of the passes
Speaker 4: that I've gotten on my film and television projects for
Speaker 4: the last you know, two years, they passed on you know,
Speaker 4: seven different people have passed on a documentary about me.
Speaker 4: I have three Tonys and Emmy and a Grammy, and
Speaker 4: I'm still getting passed on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you still got more material. Maybe it's not
Speaker 2: time for that yet because you still do.
Speaker 4: What I'm saying.
Speaker 6: What I'm saying is what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: Is it doesn't matter who.
Speaker 6: It's different. It's not any easier thout.
Speaker 4: The hill is still it's still a mountain that must
Speaker 4: be scaled.
Speaker 6: For everything.
Speaker 4: It's all good, But as we all know, it's.
Speaker 2: Like, you're at a point that I think that you
Speaker 2: would be the one person as far as this gospel situation.
Speaker 2: And it's probably and actually we're probably speaking it too power.
Speaker 2: This is just the process. But you're going to be
Speaker 2: that one person to bring all this together and put
Speaker 2: it on a stage.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you then, because I know so. My
Speaker 1: my question to you is how fucking exhausting is it
Speaker 1: to constantly have to push through life being resisted from
Speaker 1: childhood on? And how do you not self sabotage your journey?
Speaker 1: How do you not give up? I have friends who
Speaker 1: literally have given and aren't here with us now, Like,
Speaker 1: how do you just not just throw your hands up
Speaker 1: in the air, and like, like.
Speaker 4: I throw my hands up at least three or four
Speaker 4: times a week.
Speaker 5: Okay, I was put on this earth.
Speaker 4: To do exactly what I'm doing. M. I have been
Speaker 4: given a gift. It is my purpose, it is my ministry,
Speaker 4: it is my calling. I know that this much for sure. M.
Speaker 4: That's the only thing that I can return to in
Speaker 4: the moments where I feel like giving up, And when
Speaker 4: I tell you today was a dad where I said
Speaker 4: I can't do this anymore?
Speaker 1: Do you mind sharing us specifically what happened today? Are
Speaker 1: you allowed to?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 4: It was the last three people who I pitched from
Speaker 4: my music documentary who said, no, that's literally about can
Speaker 4: one become a pop star in their fifties.
Speaker 6: Can that happen?
Speaker 4: If it can.
Speaker 6: Happen, it would be me.
Speaker 4: And that is the journey of this documentary that my
Speaker 4: whole life and the thing is is that I'm a
Speaker 4: black fagot in America. And I use that word sagot
Speaker 4: because that's how I'm treated.
Speaker 6: It's a violent word.
Speaker 4: And everybody should hear it, right, just like grab her
Speaker 4: by the pussy, right, everybody got on the news and
Speaker 4: change the word.
Speaker 6: Don't change the word.
Speaker 4: Bleep it out so people can remember.
Speaker 6: What the fuck he said.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the reason why he has ascended to the heights
Speaker 4: that he's ascended is because every person has given them
Speaker 4: a pass. I don't get passes like.
Speaker 6: That, you know.
Speaker 4: And and so for me it's like I was never
Speaker 4: supposed to be here to begin with. I was never
Speaker 4: supposed to be this person ever ever, ever, ever, ever,
Speaker 4: ever ever ever ever, KICKI Boots wasn't supposed to happen.
Speaker 4: And then when KICKI Boots happened, he was like, well, yeah,
Speaker 4: he's playing a drag ring. Yeah we can see that,
Speaker 4: but that's it. That's where the capital is.
Speaker 6: Gonna be in me movies, you know, like you know.
Speaker 4: My biggest dream at fifteen years old, when I was
Speaker 4: finally able to buy my own music go hearkening back
Speaker 4: to that, you know, I went and started. I mean,
Speaker 4: by the time I was eighteen years old, I had
Speaker 4: like seven hundred CDs because I was like just trying
Speaker 4: to you know, just like who is that?
Speaker 6: And what is this?
Speaker 4: And why don't I know that? And you know, like
Speaker 4: you know, just educating myself about bodies, about black music
Speaker 4: outside of the church. You know, my biggest dream was
Speaker 4: to be the male Whitney Houston, you know, and then
Speaker 4: all of this and then here I am.
Speaker 5: So that's why this documentary is going to be dope.
Speaker 2: And can I tell you, Billy, when you watch that
Speaker 2: Rosie old Donald clip that you were on back in
Speaker 2: the day. In my mind, because I follow your career heavily,
Speaker 2: as not too many things that I haven't watched that
Speaker 2: you have been in in my mind, I think he
Speaker 2: wants that so bad.
Speaker 5: And like, so now that I know that Mona.
Speaker 2: Lisa is the story of you becoming this pop star,
Speaker 2: it's got to be gut wrenching. And also people must
Speaker 2: have all kinds of misunderstandings as to why you don't
Speaker 2: totally feel fulfilled, even with.
Speaker 5: All of those awards, with all that stuff.
Speaker 2: You go back to that Rosie ol Donald video, you
Speaker 2: go back to when you were signed as a solo artist,
Speaker 2: and it seems like that piece, right there is one
Speaker 2: of the lone pieces that's missing for you is the gift, right, yeah.
Speaker 4: Man, and the thing is the gift. For the first
Speaker 4: twenty five years of my career, I couldn't.
Speaker 8: Break through in the acting world because the gatekeepers of
Speaker 8: that world, well, he's just a singer.
Speaker 6: So then I scale that mountain.
Speaker 4: I went Emmy's for Best Lead and Emmy for Best
Speaker 4: Lead after in a Drama series as a said yes
Speaker 4: for the first time in history. And now it's like, oh,
Speaker 4: I didn't know bras Out is sing.
Speaker 5: That's true. That's true. They were surprised when you started
Speaker 5: singing in polls.
Speaker 6: That's true.
Speaker 1: See, I didn't know you acted. I knew you could sing.
Speaker 1: I didn't know you acted.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, well yeah yeah, no, no, no, no, no again,
Speaker 2: I know you, you knew I knew ninety six, like
Speaker 2: I didn't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but people got on the Billy Porter train. People
Speaker 4: because my career is over thirty years now, right, and
Speaker 4: Black on cracking. I don't look like what I've been through.
Speaker 4: People have gotten on the Billy Porter train at different stops.
Speaker 1: True, right, So let me tell you this story.
Speaker 6: So do you remember Sandy Gallen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the man used to work with Michael Jackson.
Speaker 4: Michael Jackson Janney Barb saying Neil Diamond like so Rosie o'donald.
Speaker 4: He represented ros O Donald. When I was in the
Speaker 4: Revival of Greece. This is nineteen ninety four. I sang
Speaker 4: Beautiful Dropout. I did the arrangement. Go listen to that too.
Speaker 4: It's a gospel arrangement of you. Ooh, I did the
Speaker 4: arrangement nine minutes long. They destroyed it for me because
Speaker 4: they made me a coon.
Speaker 6: Essentially.
Speaker 4: They dressed me in a white space suit, put me
Speaker 4: in fourteen inches of orange rubber hair. Just don't watch it.
Speaker 4: You also have to read the memoir. You understand all
Speaker 4: of it. But I meet with Sandy Gallen. He asks
Speaker 4: me what I want to do, and all of the
Speaker 4: things and multi hyphenates that I'm doing right now is
Speaker 4: what I said.
Speaker 6: And he said to me, you can't do everything.
Speaker 4: You have to choose one thing because audiences can't.
Speaker 6: They can't receive more than one thing.
Speaker 4: And I said at twenty four years old, and I
Speaker 4: don't know how I had the presidence of mind to
Speaker 4: do this, but I said, with all due respect, mister Gallan,
Speaker 4: once again, I'm a black saggot in America. If I
Speaker 4: choose one thing and it doesn't work out, I am
Speaker 4: asked out. All these years later, I've proven him wrong
Speaker 4: in every single way.
Speaker 6: Exactly. The music.
Speaker 5: The music. That's what I felt.
Speaker 4: The music is the gift. What are y'all talking about?
Speaker 2: It's but you know what, sometimes here's the songs to
Speaker 2: Sometimes have you realized the song part of the music,
Speaker 2: Like you know, your voice is fucking stupendous.
Speaker 5: I mean explain it's more intellectually than I am.
Speaker 4: But sometimes they've been saying that for years Black MoMA
Speaker 4: lise I has the song.
Speaker 5: No you got it? But no more excuses now now, no.
Speaker 4: More excuses about that Black MoMA lise I has the songs.
Speaker 4: I was there. I'm there with the top writers in
Speaker 4: the business, Andrew and Martin.
Speaker 6: Three months before she died.
Speaker 4: Mmm, justin trantl who's the number one pop writer in
Speaker 4: the business. Another thing that I wanted to talk about
Speaker 4: in the documentary is that because I'm theater based.
Speaker 5: I'm corny. So that is a thing.
Speaker 1: Bill, I'm theater.
Speaker 4: Based, and because I come from the theater, I'm corny.
Speaker 4: Theater is corny until these motherfuckers want an ego.
Speaker 5: Yeah, how they want to go to a show?
Speaker 4: Yes, so they want to take.
Speaker 3: Their wife to a show or whoever the fuck it is?
Speaker 4: Yeah, all of a sudden, No shame right, everybody has
Speaker 4: dreams and should you know.
Speaker 2: But it's an interesting thing, nobilly, because who are the
Speaker 2: successful theater after singers who have translated.
Speaker 5: It's like Bett Mitler.
Speaker 7: The doors are bolt headed shut for us does nothing
Speaker 7: but open our arms to everybody, and the gatekeepers of
Speaker 7: the music industry keep the those doors bolted shut.
Speaker 4: It's not just me anymore. It's me, it's Leslie Oldham Junior.
Speaker 4: It's Cynthia Arinbo. It's so short to bean, you see,
Speaker 4: so short of being now because you need her to
Speaker 4: play your mother's.
Speaker 1: This is the weird thing, because ah, man, I'm frozen
Speaker 1: only because I'm realizing how close our stories are parallel.
Speaker 1: Because so the thing is is that I don't know,
Speaker 1: like if you were born in a musical fan I
Speaker 1: don't know what your childhood journey was.
Speaker 6: Like, do you think of Jayson family?
Speaker 1: Yes, you know, if I were a betting man, you know,
Speaker 1: I would have thought that I'm going to make it
Speaker 1: with the first love of my life, which is music. Now, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm also insatiable by nature, so of course, like you know,
Speaker 1: you got you gotta get outside of yourself to to
Speaker 1: to see it. But this kind of tortoise and hair
Speaker 1: journey I've been on with music has been so slow
Speaker 1: that even despite despite the accolades, I still feel like
Speaker 1: I've not made it. Of course, other people have really
Speaker 1: sit on the sidelines get angry when I say that,
Speaker 1: because it's like, dude, we would chop our left bum.
Speaker 1: Yeah you as a person, well yeah. But my whole
Speaker 1: point is that when my third chapter started happening, i e.
Speaker 1: Directing movies, it's like, all right, good news, bad news here.
Speaker 1: Everything you ever dreamed for your life to happen is
Speaker 1: going to happen. And I'm like, what's the bad news?
Speaker 1: It's not going to be music that gets you there. Correct,
Speaker 1: And despite me getting to a place where I don't
Speaker 1: feel like a sealist artist or whatever, there's this itching,
Speaker 1: this longing I have to just if I can just
Speaker 1: get what I have now, But it's were my music
Speaker 1: because it's like, dude, when you grow up with five
Speaker 1: thousand records in the house, when you play radio city
Speaker 1: music hall at at twelve, when you everything I've done
Speaker 1: with music, it's like, ah, cannot just can I just
Speaker 1: have this one thing? God? Like can you?
Speaker 4: And there are people on this planet that don't even know.
Speaker 4: I say, I sang on the show?
Speaker 6: Did you watch the show?
Speaker 4: But it doesn't register when you're and it goes the
Speaker 4: opposite way. For musicians. It's like when you are considered
Speaker 4: an actor and you sing on a show, audiences do
Speaker 4: not receive you as a singer or a recording.
Speaker 6: They receive you as a character who is singing on
Speaker 6: a show.
Speaker 4: When recording artists come and try to act, there's a
Speaker 4: little bit of the same resistance.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, but.
Speaker 1: Not nearly as much as thesite.
Speaker 3: But like, what if you look at it from opposite perspective,
Speaker 3: like if you if you have those other things that
Speaker 3: they're working great, it makes it makes the music thing
Speaker 3: a mirror, Like you've been saving on music for your
Speaker 3: whole life, and those other successes make you want to
Speaker 3: get to that level of success with your music, like
Speaker 3: you want to win the Oscar of Documentary as a musician,
Speaker 3: but you haven't gotten to yet. And I feel like
Speaker 3: that's is that.
Speaker 1: A bad thing?
Speaker 3: I know, if it's a bad thing, that's how I
Speaker 3: look at it.
Speaker 1: The thing is, during the pandemic, I learned a lot
Speaker 1: about myself, and I learned there was one week, I
Speaker 1: think all of July, you know, like it was hard
Speaker 1: to walk outside and want a mask. So I had
Speaker 1: a car and that was the one place where I
Speaker 1: could just take my mask off and be out in
Speaker 1: the world and not have to you know. And I'm
Speaker 1: living out in the country, so sometimes I would do
Speaker 1: these four hour drives, you know, upstate New York to
Speaker 1: go to you know. And I decided the entire month
Speaker 1: of July, I'm gonna listen to the entire roots discography
Speaker 1: and have a long conversation with myself, like what is
Speaker 1: it about these sixteen records that isn't fulfilling the dream
Speaker 1: of like I made it and some of these records
Speaker 1: are actually you know, someone platinum, someone awards, But what
Speaker 1: is it about? So this is my conclusion, and a
Speaker 1: lot of it happened because again, you know, I DJ'ed
Speaker 1: a lot. You know, during the pandemic, I was DJing online,
Speaker 1: and because I wasn't doing my club set, I was
Speaker 1: actually playing music I liked. So essentially all of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty I spent nine ten months, damn near three to
Speaker 1: five hours every day playing every type of music, which
Speaker 1: is somehow I started to say, wow, I don't think
Speaker 1: I know how to write a song, and then I realized,
Speaker 1: oh shit, every Root song came from soundcheck, came from
Speaker 1: da da da da. We don't know what a melody is.
Speaker 1: So suddenly I'm realizing I have to write learn how
Speaker 1: to write songs. So in the last five years, I've
Speaker 1: gotten a crash course on what a melody is. So
Speaker 1: similar to you. With this Mona Lisa project, I'm literally
Speaker 1: putting the farm on this next Roots album into because
Speaker 1: it just now I'm embarrassed. I'm like, how do I
Speaker 1: have seventeen records and people are like, oh, you guys
Speaker 1: are the earth win and Fire of hip hop. No no, no, no,
Speaker 1: the grateful dead of hip hop. And it's like we're
Speaker 1: still struggling to get to the place we should be.
Speaker 5: Right, So was that the goal though, Yeah, that's an
Speaker 5: interesting with the goal to.
Speaker 3: Write singles, I feel like the goal is is like,
Speaker 3: you're the greatest live hip hop and in the history
Speaker 3: of hip.
Speaker 5: Hop with one of the greatest ympsees of all time.
Speaker 3: End of story, Like does it matter if you have
Speaker 3: any singles?
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 3: What about?
Speaker 2: Can I just shout out to Rich Nichols and Diyce
Speaker 2: Raw who actually did make some really help make some
Speaker 2: great roots albums, like are you serious?
Speaker 1: Like yeah, but come on, dog eat Layah. You're the
Speaker 1: first person to plant it in the seed when things
Speaker 1: fall apart came out you fua. You asked me, Hey,
Speaker 1: how come the big single that is breaking you guys out?
Speaker 1: Why is that buried at the end of side too? Yes,
Speaker 1: I did say that because my logic was, Okay, in
Speaker 1: this hour fifteen minute record, I'm going to place the
Speaker 1: bait towards the end to make you guys listen to that.
Speaker 1: And you kind of eye rolled, But come on, liya,
Speaker 1: you understand that we live in a single society now
Speaker 1: and not to hijack this interview because I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: back to you, billy. But my point was the goal
Speaker 1: for me and people all diden say that, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you guys don't care like you are the roots either.
Speaker 1: People often I care because it's like the thing is,
Speaker 1: that's the thing like with this pedigree of knowledge of music,
Speaker 1: like the level of commitment. I have more commitments to
Speaker 1: music than I do to besides my relationship with Tarik,
Speaker 1: I don't think I've committed to anything as long as
Speaker 1: I've committed to music. And to not like to be
Speaker 1: able to tell people stories and to study people and
Speaker 1: to write their books, but not to do it for
Speaker 1: myself is almost rather jarring. And then yes, I know
Speaker 1: it's the subjective opinion, but when you watch people significantly
Speaker 1: less talented than you are, it just it burns me inside.
Speaker 1: And so but here's the thing though, and this is
Speaker 1: why I went through that whole field to ask you,
Speaker 1: because sometimes I ask myself, Okay, was it ever meant
Speaker 1: in the cards for music to be my path? Because
Speaker 1: now I believe in listening to the universe. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I know I'm stubborn. I know I'm stubborn as fuck,
Speaker 1: and I want to control every thing and I want
Speaker 1: my version of how I want my life to go
Speaker 1: to be gospel. Now I'm just learning, like, all right,
Speaker 1: what do y'all want me to do? And it's like
Speaker 1: my world is opening up everywhere by music. So I'm
Speaker 1: asking you, are you willing to walk away from music
Speaker 1: knowing that other avenues have opened for you?
Speaker 4: I wouldn't call it walking away because I've already done it.
Speaker 4: The reason why I've been able to have such an
Speaker 4: expansion in my life, you know, there are a few reasons,
Speaker 4: but the biggest one was nine to eleven, nine to twelve,
Speaker 4: two thousand and one. I lost my voice to severe
Speaker 4: acid reflux for about five to seven years, and I
Speaker 4: had been asking the universe. I've been asking God, whatever
Speaker 4: it is that you know, I'm more than my voice.
Speaker 4: I'm more than my voice. I'm more than my voice. Lord,
Speaker 4: Please help me understand and help the world understand that
Speaker 4: I'm more than my voice.
Speaker 1: Were you in New Yorker? Like what was the I
Speaker 1: was all over, I was in LA I was psychological or.
Speaker 4: It was totally psychological. And so when I lost my voice,
Speaker 4: I literally knew why, and I was like, okay, Lord,
Speaker 4: you know because my voice, my singing voice, was my identity,
Speaker 4: My singing voice was my savior. My singing voice was
Speaker 4: what got me out, like the basketball players, like the
Speaker 4: sports people. It got me out of my circumstance. It
Speaker 4: allowed for me to be in spaces where I could
Speaker 4: learn how to dream beyond my circumstance. So my entire
Speaker 4: identity was wrapped up in that. And I had and
Speaker 4: the universe, God whatever knew that if I could keep
Speaker 4: singing and just get them jobs and the jobs that
Speaker 4: I didn't mark, then I would just keep doing that
Speaker 4: because I wouldn't have the courage to do anything else.
Speaker 6: It was in that five.
Speaker 8: To seven year period where my mind was able to expand.
Speaker 8: It's like I've been given more than just one gift.
Speaker 8: I can act, I can direct, I can write. I
Speaker 8: went to screenwriting school, you know. I was like, wait,
Speaker 8: I don't have to wait for somebody else.
Speaker 1: And George C.
Speaker 4: Will's my one of my mentors, said, you can't wait
Speaker 4: for anybody to ever give you permission to practice your art.
Speaker 4: You have to be doing it all the time, even
Speaker 4: when no one's listening, and most of the time no
Speaker 4: one will be listening. That's why I have five albums.
Speaker 4: This is not my second album, it's my six catch
Speaker 4: up people. I'm doing it whether y'all listen or not.
Speaker 4: I'm doing it whether you're watching or not. And all
Speaker 4: of the albums are fierce, so y'all can catch up
Speaker 4: when it's time. But for me, it's like most of
Speaker 4: the time, I can feel like that. Most the time,
Speaker 4: I can harness the power of just being present and
Speaker 4: letting the universe take me where I'm supposed to go.
Speaker 4: I have ascended to heights that I never dreamed. I
Speaker 4: have a star on the Hollywood Walk and saying that
Speaker 4: wasn't a dream. I didn't even think anything, you know, like,
Speaker 4: it's like it's been magical and simultaneously my question. I
Speaker 4: start to ask myself the question today, when is it enough?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 6: When is it enough?
Speaker 4: I am enough? Just as I am, I am enough.
Speaker 6: I have to say it to myself multiple times a day.
Speaker 5: Is this just COVID Billy? Do you feel?
Speaker 2: Because I remember some of your posts you were making
Speaker 2: during these COVID times and I really appreciated your truth
Speaker 2: and telling where life really is. You see what you
Speaker 2: see and what you don't see. So how you feel today?
Speaker 5: Is that post?
Speaker 2: That feeling now that you've hit with people you know
Speaker 2: from perception, people might say a little bottom in that way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I was always headed in this direction
Speaker 4: because of my spirituality, because you know, I choose joy,
Speaker 4: I choose to be positive.
Speaker 6: These are choices that you have to make. They're active.
Speaker 4: I choose love. Love is active. I choose all of
Speaker 4: these things for myself so that I could just stay sane,
Speaker 4: because because this world will drive you insane if you
Speaker 4: let it. So, I mean, so for me, it's about
Speaker 4: always landing on You're enough, Philly, because everything on the
Speaker 4: planet will tell you the opposite of that.
Speaker 6: Many things will tell you the opposite of that.
Speaker 1: What year did your last album come out? What year
Speaker 1: did my not Black Mona Lisa Volume one? Yes, Volume one.
Speaker 6: Black Mona Lisa came out last November?
Speaker 1: Theyab before that, beyond before that.
Speaker 6: The album before that was Billy Porter Presents the Soul of.
Speaker 4: Richard Rogers okay and twenty seventeen, and then before that
Speaker 4: it was Billy's Back on Broadway twenty fourteen, and then
Speaker 4: before that it was at the Corner of Broadway and
Speaker 4: Soul Live from Joe's Bud.
Speaker 6: And then the first one was ninety four untitled.
Speaker 1: On A and m Okay.
Speaker 6: But this poet, you know this So the.
Speaker 4: Cookout sessions have come about because instead of simply just
Speaker 4: being mad, instead of you know, feeling sorry for myself
Speaker 4: and what have you, you know, for me, it's like, well,
Speaker 4: what's my plan? And how am I going to overcome this?
Speaker 4: Because I just have to keep working. I just have
Speaker 4: to keep pressing. I just have to keep pressing forward
Speaker 4: and be the best version of whatever it is.
Speaker 6: So I hired a new manager, We.
Speaker 4: Hunkered down, We made a business plan.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: The cookout session is about harnessing my message, making sure
Speaker 4: that everybody knows who I am.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: One of the things that I realized in trying to
Speaker 4: figure this out is there is confusion. How do I
Speaker 4: stop the confusion?
Speaker 6: Is he a singer? Is he you know?
Speaker 4: Like you know, Sandy Galla said, confused people get confused.
Speaker 4: There will be no confusion, you know, because what I
Speaker 4: landed on is, oh, as a recording artist, I need
Speaker 4: a persona. I have to do what Donald Glover did.
Speaker 4: I have to be my version of Talvis Schambino so
Speaker 4: that people are it's like, oh, that's a different person,
Speaker 4: that's a different the team.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: I'm excited about that.
Speaker 4: So my documentary is Billy Porter is black Mona Lisa.
Speaker 4: You're coming to see black Mona Lisa. That's a whole
Speaker 4: different thing. So I Beyonce even did it with I
Speaker 4: Am Sat Fears on her fourth album. I feel like
Speaker 4: I have hit on something that has the possibility to
Speaker 4: take me to the next level. Whatever that level, whatever
Speaker 4: the level is. The dream is to be playing out stadiums,
Speaker 4: but the reality is, I just want people to listen
Speaker 4: to my music.
Speaker 1: So question, should you make it as black Mona Lisa.
Speaker 1: We still have that itching, like, ah, okay, now i
Speaker 1: want to do this as Billy.
Speaker 4: Porter because I'm still Billy Porter, okay, And I've already
Speaker 4: established myself as Billy Porter, right So now when the
Speaker 4: gigs come in and somebody wants me to go and
Speaker 4: do a theater, when PBS calls, right it says like
Speaker 4: they have and says, we want you to do Billy
Speaker 4: Porter and Friends for New Year's Eve.
Speaker 1: Nice, I can do Billy Porter.
Speaker 4: In that space, black Mona Lisa is somebody else, So
Speaker 4: then I could bring back Mona Lisa on inside of
Speaker 4: my Billy Porter. So it really has to be that distinct.
Speaker 4: I think, at least I'm gonna try to do it
Speaker 4: like that. At least I'm trying to do it like
Speaker 4: that now because I've tried all the other ways. So
Speaker 4: you know, let's see who knows, you know, But I
Speaker 4: think there's something in it.
Speaker 6: I'm really excited about it.
Speaker 4: And with these summer tours and with you know, my
Speaker 4: tour last year, and you.
Speaker 6: Know my imaging now you know, and.
Speaker 4: Like when you look at my visuals, when you look
Speaker 4: at that stuff, it now can make sense because there's
Speaker 4: a separation. People who know Billy Porter from theater are
Speaker 4: confused by this music because they know me as a
Speaker 4: theater person. They know Kinky Boots, so they're confused, you know.
Speaker 6: But you turn on bonut saying and don't have problems.
Speaker 4: So if I'm black Mona Lisa, then you can make
Speaker 4: the separation.
Speaker 1: Got it?
Speaker 6: See what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: Oh that's your soul, you fears? Okay, yeah, what's your side?
Speaker 5: Your fears?
Speaker 1: Hold up?
Speaker 2: This is where part one is, but you have to
Speaker 2: come back next week or check out your podcast for
Speaker 2: part two of that QLs with Billy Porter, because in
Speaker 2: that episode, Billy is more real and more raw about
Speaker 2: his activism for several causes and shout out to all
Speaker 2: my polls fans.
Speaker 5: This is the conversation about his character. Pray tell that
Speaker 5: you have been waiting for. Also, don't forget.
Speaker 2: Make sure you check out Billy's new EP, Black Mona
Speaker 2: Lisa Volume two, The Cookout Sessions, which is out now,
Speaker 2: see you next time.
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