WEBVTT - Questlove Supreme: Reverend Al Sharpton 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.080 Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:11.880 There he is, Hello, how you doing? 0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:13.240 Hello there? 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:14.400 What's going on? 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:17.120 What's happening? 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:17.920 All right? 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:20.360 I know you got limited times that I want to 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:24.760 start the clock it immediately because we got a trillion question. 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:26.280 Ladies and gentlemen. 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:30.560 Welcome to another episode of Course Love Supreme. 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:34.320 I Quest Love. We get here with Steve Supreme Shugar, 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:35.160 Steve in the house. 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:37.320 Hello, how are you? 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:39.000 Congratulations on Sun Dange. 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:43.320 Hello, Reverend now Hello there that's right, Reverend now also 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:45.760 the star of Summer Soul. 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:50.800 I forgot uh congratulations, but power to the people. 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:51.600 The people got the power. 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:53.360 Reverend is here. 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:56.400 Yes, absolutely, Uh, I'm Bayville. 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:57.120 How are here? 0:00:57.880 --> 0:00:59.560 I'm fantastic. I'm a little off. 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:00.319 Let's do it. 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:05.440 Monticolo from North CAFLEC Yeah yes, indeed, yeah. 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:08.039 Man, you just called it North Carolina. No one calls it. 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:15.920 No one says no. No says New York City either. 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:17.440 Yeah. 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:20.800 It's like people saying Philip Dell or ill Fresh or 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:21.720 Phila whatever. 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.200 It's just no one says North caclating, No Carolina. 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:30.160 Sho No, okay know what uh people, we cannot call 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:30.960 it North Carolina. 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:37.480 North Caclac. All right, So our yesterday, how shall I say? 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:41.560 Our guest today is is cut from a rare cloth, 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:47.400 the cloth of justice. He's a gentleman who, at the 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:51.840 ripe age of four knew what his calling was. I 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:56.240 believe that at the age of four, my parents allowed 0:01:56.280 --> 0:02:01.000 me to watch Soul Train unchaperoned. So that's give me 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:05.600 some comparisons. Anyway, he was practically baptized in the civil 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:10.240 rights movement, appointed as leader of the youth movement from 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:13.800 the one and only Jesse Jackson's Operation bread Basket. 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:23.480 Our guest today is literally black Ghostbusters, the person, the 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:25.679 person whom you call when it's time. 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:30.560 To put wills, when the white folks aught tripping, bringing 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:34.120 attention to justice name it. He's there, literally on the 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:38.680 front lines. You're always exciting, ever loss of words or 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:41.600 the right words. Always there on the front lines. Ladies 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:44.360 and gentlemen, Welcome to questlev Supreme, the one and only 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:45.840 Reverend Al Sharpton. 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:53.360 Yes, thank you, Yes are you today? How are you today? 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:57.560 I'm doing good, I'm doing very well. And congratulations on 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:02.000 some soul. You really a masterpiece on now. 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:03.919 Wow, I appreciate that. 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:07.960 But I got to ask you and I'm a self 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:10.320 admitted former reluctant leader. 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:12.720 How how hard is. 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:17.800 It to still want to lead and be on the 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:21.000 front lines and always have the answers because there's many 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:23.760 a day where I mean, my version of leading is 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:27.919 more like make it, yeah, make it a music or 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:31.200 having a lunch with somebody, but you know, not not 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:36.040 to your level, but still like, once you decide that 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:38.880 that's the path that your life is on, you gotta 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:42.640 see it through. And what what makes you get out 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.120 of bed every morning to fulfill this role? 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:49.960 I think that I put it this way. Michael Brown, 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:53.160 who was killed by police, and Triggerson's mother spoke one 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:56.400 night and she said something that clicked with me. She 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:59.720 said that Mark Twain, and you gotta remember when the 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:03.400 middle of this whole battle and Ferguson and for the 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:06.280 mother of a victim to quote Mark Twain was like, 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:08.960 what what is she getting ready to do? And she said, 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:12.400 Mark Twain said something that she never forgot. She said, 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:15.320 the two most important moments in your life is the 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:17.760 moment you're born and the moment you find out why 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:21.480 you were born. And that's what clicks with me. I 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:24.800 believe I was born to do what I do. I've 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:26.839 been doing it since I was four. Like you said, 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.400 I started preaching as a kid an acost the church. 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:32.760 I became Jesse and Bill Jones you directed at twelve, 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:36.440 so I don't know nothing else. And even as I 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:40.080 got older and got around James Brown and others in entertainment, 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.119 I kept going back to activism. James Brown would saying 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:45.560 he can't make a living doing that, He'll be back 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:49.680 out here, and I wouldn't go back because that's where 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:54.159 my comfort zone was. And as you have developed into 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.840 a leader, you can drop the reluctant you do it 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:01.800 questioning yourself. You do it because you can't do anything 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:04.599 else because that has become you, and people look for 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:08.720 you to do that. And what you are ambiguous about. 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.760 That ambiguity is what attracts people because they know you 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:13.599 don't have an agenda. You're doing it from your heart. 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:16.279 Wow, okay, I gotta take that. 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:20.040 So there's never a time where you feel like you 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:22.880 know where you're in a situation and you don't know 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:29.240 the right words to say, or Okay, there's a moment, 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:31.599 let me back up. So there's a there's a moment 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:37.880 that President Obama told me about in which he knew 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:41.240 that he was going to do that the funeral service 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:48.839 for in South Carolina. Yeah, in Charleston, he knew he 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:54.720 was going to do that service. And with a good 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:58.920 eight day lead, he knew that, you know. 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:02.640 He had the He he crafted the perfect. 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.279 Speech that he felt that was going to fit the tone, 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:07.440 and he said, like three minutes into that speech, he 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.960 knew that wasn't the tone, and he didn't know what 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:13.800 to do, and he just like took a breath and 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:18.039 something said just start singing amazing grace. And it was 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:22.039 a risk for him, but he did it and it 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:26.320 opened the people up. So I'm just saying, like in leading, 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:30.200 some oftentimes you have to think on your feet in 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:30.800 real time. 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:33.600 How does that come to you? 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:36.000 I think I come from a place where, like we 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:39.000 now have to watch our words, and I don't want 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:39.679 to get canceled. 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:40.960 I don't want to say the wrong thing. 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:44.040 So you know, often get caught in my head and 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:47.520 leading because you don't want to say the wrong thing 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:48.800 because of the repercussions. 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:50.839 But how do you get over that? 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.720 I think you go with the flow and the energy 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:57.960 and no matter how much you plan, and all of 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:01.000 us are worried about if I say this wrong, Am 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:02.800 I gonna hurt the cause? Am I gonna hurt the 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:06.080 family I'm representing them, I gonna hurt the organization. But 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:08.279 then you get in an energy and you just flow. 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:12.520 I'll give you an example, and or President Obama Trola 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:14.400 the same serve by amazing grace. I was in the 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:17.400 audience that they worked, and I didn't know that he 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:21.520 didn't plan it. But when I walked on the pulpit 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:26.040 to preach George Floyd's funeral, I had no plans of 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:28.920 doing that whole thing of get your knee off our neck. 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.600 It just came as I was speaking, and I just 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:35.000 went with it, and it worked, and I just kept 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:37.560 doing it. Then, and I think that you've got to 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:41.520 be disciplined enough to put some borders on yourself in 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:44.880 your own mind, but then free enough to say, I'm 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:47.920 gonna pressed as far as I can inside these borders 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:52.320 and let it flow. The advantage I had starting as 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:56.160 a boy preacher. The disadvantage is before I could read 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:59.600 and write well, I was preaching. The advantage is I 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:02.960 never learn how to use a manuscript, so I can't 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:05.280 speak from a manuscript. That's why when I started my 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:08.160 MSNBC show, hardest thing in the world for me was 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:10.800 to speak with a telepromt because I never read a sermon. 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:16.080 So I'm like, I'm messing up that life. Good old Yeah, 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:20.160 I never I never used a manuscript until I started 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:23.320 on MSNBC. I was fifty seven years old learning how 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:25.480 to speak it and read at the same time. 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:28.080 So you're saying you're a freestyler. You saying you freestyle 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:28.760 for I. 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:31.360 Was freestyling before y'all call it freestyle. 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:33.360 I was. 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:39.160 I was freestyling when we were still saying North Kacilaki. 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:45.839 Do you remember what you spoke about when you were four? 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:46.560 Yeah? 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:48.360 What was your parents' reaction to this? 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:52.480 Like or whoever was in charge of you speaking, how 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.560 do they know that this four year old had the 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:57.680 the gumption of the right words to lead. 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:01.960 We had in church what they call the Junior usher Boy. 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:04.560 That's the kids that would hand out their little programs 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:07.199 and help see people. It was a cute little thing 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:11.240 to keep kids involved. Once a year they'd have the 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:16.960 Junior Usherboard anniversary. So the adult supervisor said, what do 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:19.200 y'all want to do at the anniversary? And it was 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:21.679 about ten of us. One of them was a guy 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:24.040 who ended up being a pretty big singer, Ronnie Dyson. 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:28.520 He was about yeah. Ronnie Dyson had a quarius in hair. 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:31.640 He was a kid with me in Washington Temple Church 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.920 in Brooklyn. He said that he wanted read a poem. 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:39.320 My sister wanted to sing. I said, I want to preach, 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:44.480 so everybody laughed. The doll Avis said let him preach. 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:47.199 Maybe God's gonna use him because this is a Pentecostal church. 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:52.240 And my mother said, I prayed that God would use 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:55.240 my son. My father said, Yo, this is crazy. But 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:57.600 they let me preach, and I preached the Anni versions about 0:09:57.640 --> 0:09:59.560 nine hundred people. That they put me on a box 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:02.320 because the couldn't see me up on the roster, and 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:05.719 I preached from Saint John's fourteenth chapter, Let not Your 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:08.960 Heart Be Trouble. And I've been preaching ever since. By 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:11.160 the time I was seven, I was doing the Youth 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:13.920 Days and other churches. By the time I was nine, 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:15.679 they did the World's Fan in New York and they 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:18.120 put me up to preach before Maya Jackson. That's why 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:21.120 I loved a Soul Somersa, because I ended up doing 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:23.880 two or three cities with Maya and the rest was history. 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:26.160 That's how Jesse them heard of me. I was called 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:27.200 a wonder boy preaching. 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:29.840 Wow, okay, So. 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:31.640 How would you figure out what your sermons was going 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:31.920 to be? 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:36.480 I would listen to older ministers because I grew up 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:38.640 in Pentecostal church. We was in church all the time, 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:41.760 and I would in many ways just preach back what 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:45.679 I heard out of memory, and I could put the 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:47.079 sermons together in my head. 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:48.040 Wow. 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:50.320 Do you do you have any of like the recordings 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:53.400 of your your sermons as a kid? 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:54.160 Do you have you? 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:57.080 I have one when I was nine. When I was nine, 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:00.199 they did a forty five record me preaching, and this 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:02.480 guy that was a radio guy at the time, Doc Wheeler, 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:04.760 made a record. I have that, a little forty five 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:07.920 record of me and I was doing more, you know, 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:11.320 going back to what I heard other preachers did. And 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:13.560 then you go through the holler in the shout, and 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:16.800 because you was cute, you got away with it. When 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:18.360 you got older you had to say something. You can 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:20.920 get away with a lot when you're old. 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:25.920 Accident, can you okay, can you explain to me? I 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:28.920 know that you're a Pentecostal preacher. But what are the 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:38.440 exact what are the difference between Baptist or you know, 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:40.800 the various because I just thought like Southern preaching was 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:41.400 one thing. 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:44.920 Yeah, well I was raised by Southern parents, though I 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:48.360 was born raised in Brooklyn, Kojak, which I grew up 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:52.200 until I was like fourteen. Then I wont Baptists. Kojak 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:57.480 was more grassroots, h what James would call gut bucket. 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:00.319 We would do the singing in the shout and then 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:06.599 hallelujah dance. Baptists was a little more refined, and Methodists 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:10.000 was even more refined. It's a matter of style. It 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:13.720 is a matter of music. Like I remember when in 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:15.640 some big Baptist churches when I was growing up, you 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:18.520 wouldn't have drums in the church, but you wouldn't have 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:22.840 choirs that would sing emotional songs. So when I would 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.520 go to Baptist churches and Methodist church, they be singing anthems. 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.120 We didn't do that. All of our stuff was Shirley 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:32.640 Caesar kind of singing. And then you got more refined 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:36.719 with the Baptists, so it's more cultural and class. Grassroots 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:41.760 people were more to Pentecostals and as I grew up 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:44.360 and then got in the civil rights movementhen I was twelve. 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.679 They were all Baptists, and then I later became I 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:50.000 would re baptized the Baptist and they were a little 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:55.120 more learned. We were all spirit and that's probably why 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.120 I gravitated to sol to James, because James was a 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:00.959 secular version of the Holy Rolla. I mean, well Jans 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:03.000 would do wasn't much different than we're doing the choir 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:03.960 in the Holiness Church. 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.160 Okay, where are your parents from? You said they were 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:07.680 from the South. 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:08.600 I was worried. 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:13.000 My mother mother's from Dothan, Alabama. She passed. My father 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:16.079 was from you follow Alabama. Neither one of them was 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:16.640 on the map. 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:22.760 Wow, Wait, what's it Isama? 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:27.800 You follow? You follow flowed? I love that name. 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.520 You follow, You follow follow Alabama? 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:33.280 Okay, Okay. 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:37.080 As a musician, I do want to know, like right now, 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:41.280 as a record collector, I'm kind of on my my 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:45.840 my seventies gospel kick right now, and I'm noticing that 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:49.640 it's very hard to find rare to find like gospel 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:52.280 records that have like a certain groove to it or 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:54.960 a certain soul to it. And I realized that a 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:56.400 lot of it is that, you know, they thought it 0:13:56.440 --> 0:14:00.880 was sinful or whatever, but you know, knowing that you're 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:05.520 cut from the cloth of the James Brown shadow if 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:09.160 you will, How I mean, how hard was it for 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:14.960 kind of secular sounding music to finally break through to 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:20.640 the Black church where it wasn't considered simple or that 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:23.440 sort of thing. Because even when I was drumming in church, 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.600 like if I started playing too good, I would get 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:30.840 looks from like the elders, like you're playing that rap music. 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:33.440 I know that you're playing run DMC right now, like 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:36.560 that sort of thing, Like right, how. 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:41.400 It was hot? I remember that in the early days 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:43.960 of the sixties when I was still like eight or 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:48.360 nine and Sam Cook left the church because Sam Cook 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:52.400 started with a gospel group and he left and started 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:56.760 singing secular. They said, oh, he's backslid, He's going to hell. 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:00.240 And Lil Richard would go in and out, and after 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:03.480 a while people would be in and out. Ronnie was 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:06.360 in and out Ronnie Dyson, And after a while people 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:10.480 started getting comfortable that it was all right. It became 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:14.080 all right because those was that was kids got older 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:15.960 and we didn't see the difference but it was a 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:19.920 lot of tension. You're right. If I would go to 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:23.239 a political rally when I was twelve, I had backslid. 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:25.160 You in the world. You were supposed to deal with 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:27.640 going to heaven, nothing on earth. So it was the 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:30.160 same in the music, it was same in our social life. 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:33.240 But this was the era where Doctor King got killed. 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:35.720 It was a Black Power era. I was still thirteen 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:39.560 years old and I wanted to be with my contemporaries, 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:43.800 and we were activists, and many of them didn't stay 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:45.880 in activism like I did. But that was the time 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:48.840 where everybody was a member of something. You were either 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:51.920 with us, with Doctor King, or you were with the Panthers, 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:54.960 which were more militant, or you joined the Nation that's alon. 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:57.840 But everybody in New York was something, and your whole 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:00.440 life was around what you were a member of. What 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:04.920 girls you dated was based on what silo you were 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:08.840 in and uh and the church became had to make 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:13.600 adjustments to that because people started changing. When I was 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:16.400 first starting the Pentecostal Church, it was a sin for 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:19.760 women to wear lipstick or pants. And I remember we 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:23.680 went to Detroit. Yeah, I remember we went to Detroit 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:27.160 to speak of a youth convention, and I saw my 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:30.880 bishop's wife come out of the motel with some slacks on, 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:34.160 and I called my mother collecting and said, Madam Washington's 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:41.000 going to hell, she's wearing pants. My brother got mad 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:42.880 at me for calling her collect. 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:59.400 Wow man, Okay, So as of this recording, we're a 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:05.240 few days ahead of the passing of of the infamous 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:12.120 uh Danny Ray. James Brown's now see his his his his, uh, 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:15.639 I guess you could say his, uh, his mouthpiece his 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:20.359 Paul Revere, can you talk? When's the when's the first 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:21.680 time you met James Brown? 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:23.879 And what was that like? 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:27.600 All right? When we when we were growing up? When 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:31.280 I started, uh growing up. I was born in Brooklyn, 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:34.960 Like I said, my father had a successful business and 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:37.520 he bought a house in Hollis, Queen's. At that time, 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:41.639 we thought Queen's Hollis was like the suburbs. And uh, 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:46.080 James Brown had a big match in Saint Albans, and 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.120 all the kids in the neighborhood gold and stand outside 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:52.040 the gate on to see James Brown. So he was 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:55.320 my hero. My father did his hair like James Brown, 0:17:55.720 --> 0:18:00.680 and but I never met him. So fast forward, I'm 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:04.960 now known as a teenage preacher. And I had a 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:09.960 youth movement that you mentioned, Questlove, and a kid came 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:12.080 and joined the youth movement the same age as me, 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.320 and he said he was from the South. He came 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:17.080 to New York. He wanted to go to Columbia to 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:20.720 go to law school, and he joined my youth group. 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:24.240 His name was Teddy. He ended up being James Brown Slunt. 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:29.120 And about seven months after he was in our youth 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:31.840 group trying to get in law school, he got killed 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:34.679 in a car accident in Albany. He was driving with 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:39.800 some friends and Teddy got killed. James was having problems 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:43.760 then because he had endulged. This is seventy three. I'm 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:47.399 eighteen now, and he had endorsed a year before Richard 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:51.199 Nixon for president, and a lot of the brothers was 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:53.119 mad at him for going with Nixon. He was a 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:56.280 seller and all, and they picking at him when he 0:18:56.320 --> 0:19:00.240 was at the Apollo in seventy two when Teddy got hill. 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:03.439 The next year, he came to New York about Teddy, 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.639 and the lead disc jockey in New York at that 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:10.520 time was Hank Span on WWRL AM. This before FM 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:15.720 got big, before Bright and Hank Span told him, he said, 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:18.880 if you want to do something in memory of your son, 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:21.600 your son joined this little youth group with this young preacher, 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:24.920 you should do something for them, and nobody will picket 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:27.760 you because everybody likes this little kid running around being 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:31.040 a civil rights guy. And they set up for me 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:35.359 to meet James Brown at his office on seventeen hundred Broadway, 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:37.800 and I went in. I'm meeting God. That's why I 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:40.320 told you the whole background of I stand at his 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:44.120 gate and James Brown looked at me, and he looked 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:46.720 me up and down, and he started talking and you 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:49.240 had no idea what he was talking about. And he 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:54.080 was looking at me, well, you know, if you do 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:56.439 what I'm to do, I'm gonna do it whatever and 0:19:56.520 --> 0:20:00.440 all of that, and finally he shook my hand, which 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:03.120 was dismissing me. So when we got outside, I told her, 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:05.280 you know you with me, I think he said he's 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:08.520 gonna do the show. So he told me what to do, 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:11.720 how to pass out the flyers, how to promote. Hankspan 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:14.400 pumped it up, and we did it at the Rko 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:18.000 Alby Theater downtown Brooklyn, which is now the Alby Square mall. 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:20.160 But it used to be a theater there and they 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.879 had about two thousand seats and two shows was going 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:26.639 to sell out four thousand seats. Now, I didn't know 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:28.720 they had picked to James Brown, and I didn't know 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:31.240 that they were worried about what was gonna happen. I 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:34.160 went out there and did everything he said. And he 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:38.560 pulls up that night in seventy three in the limousine 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:42.119 and he jumps out the limousine and the driveway behind 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:45.360 the backstage and he looks at his manager, mister Bobbitt. 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:49.280 Mister Bobbitt, how they do Mister Bobba said, they sold 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:51.760 every ticket out and there's about five hundred people outside. 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:55.720 He said what he said? Yeah, and he told me 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:58.480 you come with me, son, And I walked behind James 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:02.199 Brown in the building and he went and combed his 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:04.679 hair out, and he's talking and again I don't know 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:08.600 what he's saying. And he gets ready to go on stage. 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:12.520 Danny raised introducing him the band that hit. People are screaming, 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:15.840 and he walks on the stage in the wings at 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:19.080 my show. Now, mind you'm eighteen years old? Was Miles Davis. 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:22.560 And Miles had come to see James perform and I'm 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:25.560 standing there between James Brown and Miles Davis and I 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:30.399 thought I had died and went them. In the middle 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:33.879 of the show, James stopped the music. I think he 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:35.960 had done trying me or something that was slow, and 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:39.000 he stopped and told the band hut it and they 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:41.400 stopped and he called me out. He said, I want 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:43.640 to bring out this young man who made the night happen. 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:46.160 His youth movement, y'all help. My son was a part 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:48.399 and I want him to lead us in prayer memory 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:51.280 of my son. So I'm like nervous. I'm used to 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:53.840 every report, but I've never been on a show business stage. 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:55.760 I walk out to the mic and I look at 0:21:55.800 --> 0:21:58.240 him and he said, pray, go on and pray. You 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:02.400 know how to pray, don't you. I started freak and uh. 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:06.240 And when I came off, Uh. James Brown sent for 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:08.560 me in his dressing room after the show, and he 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:10.640 was sitting on the hair drive because he would always 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:13.720