Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio, Ladies.
Speaker 2: And Gentlemen, Our guest today is legend wait for it, Dairy. Seriously,
Speaker 2: I am fanning out. Okay, just a brief, brief side note.
Speaker 2: We are we're zooming this particular episode, so I'm looking
Speaker 2: at it right now and I'm flustered. That's I'm fanning
Speaker 2: out right here. Because she has been an unavoidable presence
Speaker 2: in every aspect of my life, from those from those
Speaker 2: legendary n. C. Martin videos from the early nineties and
Speaker 2: early nineties kind of world Hint Hint, as a legendary choreographer,
Speaker 2: as the host rat of the b Tea Staple Rap City.
Speaker 2: One of the first times I was on the show
Speaker 2: is because she's interviewing us. I mean, even her dancing
Speaker 2: silhouette and the living single credits is etched in all
Speaker 2: of our brains. As an actress, as a journalist, as
Speaker 2: a fitness instruction, as a radio host on Dash Radio.
Speaker 2: I'm certain I'm getting on her nerves.
Speaker 3: Right now as a bad bitch.
Speaker 2: Yes, I cannot believe I'm saying this. Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 2: please welcome big less Leslie. Wait, pronounce your last name
Speaker 2: for because I always get it wrong everybody I always want.
Speaker 4: To say, I usually say cigar. As long as you
Speaker 4: spell it right on the check, I don't even care.
Speaker 2: All right, no, because I was calling you sugar for
Speaker 2: the longest. He used to always correct me. All right, Yes,
Speaker 2: ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to Quest Love Supreme, Leslie
Speaker 2: big Les Cigar.
Speaker 5: Thank you, yes, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2: Oh I got this is amazing. So where are you
Speaker 2: right now?
Speaker 4: I am in Los Angeles by myself and uh, you know,
Speaker 4: trying to keep the sunshine, keep the smiling because it's
Speaker 4: been crazy, between the protests, between you know, quarantining, it's
Speaker 4: been an emotional rollercoaster. For real.
Speaker 2: Wait, I was gonna say, right now, you seem like
Speaker 2: you're ready. You're like camera ready for a red carpet, like.
Speaker 5: It's for real, for real.
Speaker 2: This is a casual flex for you, like you just
Speaker 2: wake up in the morning.
Speaker 4: Like I wish, you know, our whole lives one zoom now,
Speaker 4: So you know, I gotta look presentable at least a
Speaker 4: little bit, at least from the waist up.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, waist down. I still got my
Speaker 2: old Navy underwear on.
Speaker 5: So yeah, yeah, what is your skincare regimen? Before we
Speaker 5: can get into your career? What is your skincare regimen?
Speaker 4: What come on this genetic? Yeah? Okay, whatever side of
Speaker 4: our team, So you know.
Speaker 1: Steve take notes.
Speaker 2: I wanna.
Speaker 5: I want to have that shine.
Speaker 1: Hr C.
Speaker 3: I want We ain't got no department.
Speaker 4: It's okay.
Speaker 2: Hey man, I almost went down the ship earlier.
Speaker 4: So I'm so proud of everything that you're doing. Congratulations.
Speaker 4: It's nice to meet all of y'all, and thank you
Speaker 4: preaching out to me again. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 5: We've been trying to get you for a long time.
Speaker 5: This has been one of our bucket list episode.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely a bucket list movement.
Speaker 6: And it was nice to be able to walk up
Speaker 6: to Big Lass and say can I have your nub
Speaker 6: We'll be on our show and her go yes, of course.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 4: I'm so lonely everybody in their hang ups and I'm
Speaker 4: just like, it is what it is. You know, that's
Speaker 4: my brother right there. So you know good. Plus, you know,
Speaker 4: if you really got to find somebody, I can hunt
Speaker 4: you down. I can call hunt you down.
Speaker 2: You can find me, you can find me, So we
Speaker 2: we basically at a course Love Supreme, go through the
Speaker 2: journey of everyone's life. So I always start with question
Speaker 2: number one and they tease me for it. Where were
Speaker 2: you born?
Speaker 4: I'm from Queens, New York, East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, Corona.
Speaker 4: That's where I am born and raised. My family my
Speaker 4: mom is from Augusta, Georgia. My father's family from Virginia,
Speaker 4: but he's a New Yorker too, So.
Speaker 2: So what what was the environment like? Like normally on
Speaker 2: the show, we have music figures, and you know, the
Speaker 2: story either starts out in church or some sort of uh,
Speaker 2: there's always some sort of entry that leads to music.
Speaker 2: But for you, though, like what was your environment like
Speaker 2: in Queens?
Speaker 4: It's it's interesting because you start off in a two
Speaker 4: family household and then your parents get divorced. Came from
Speaker 4: a middle class family. Literally, Like you know, every neighborhood
Speaker 4: in Queens or New York really is a mixed neighborhood. Dominicans, Borricans,
Speaker 4: go Lamias, Kuvano's, Jewish, Europeans, whatever, And that's kind of
Speaker 4: what my neighborhood was. Even my high school was considered
Speaker 4: like the United Nations of New York because everybody was
Speaker 4: so mixed, and so even moving out to California and
Speaker 4: people going or realizing that the only Latinos that they
Speaker 4: were familiar with were just Mexicans. I'm like, what are
Speaker 4: you talking about? What about the Epidorians, what about the legions?
Speaker 4: But you know what I mean. So that's kind of
Speaker 4: what I grew up around. And when my parents got divorced.
Speaker 4: You know, my mom was very independent, very structured, very strict.
Speaker 4: She didn't play no games. And I only moved two
Speaker 4: blocks away from my father, so he was still like
Speaker 4: in my life, I have an older sister. We don't
Speaker 4: get along. We are like night and day. She's four
Speaker 4: years apart, and you would think we grew up in
Speaker 4: a completely different household, a miserable human being. But that's
Speaker 4: a whole other chapter.
Speaker 5: Still to this day, like y'all still don't get along now.
Speaker 4: Oh no, not at all. We're actually in court over
Speaker 4: some stuff. When my father thought, real, yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 4: like that to the point where her and my mother
Speaker 4: don't even speak. So's it's you don't stop. When you
Speaker 4: stop speaking to a parent, then you know there's a
Speaker 4: problem that somewhere, and you know, but my parents. My
Speaker 4: mom was an educated she went to nursing school, you know,
Speaker 4: raising us me and her, my sister. And my dad
Speaker 4: was he didn't finish high school, but he worked in
Speaker 4: US medal. He was a good guy but turned out
Speaker 4: to be an alcoholic. But he was really like one
Speaker 4: of those calm alcoholics, you know what I'm saying, Very loving,
Speaker 4: very friendly to everybody. But he just I think fell
Speaker 4: into a depression really when my parents got divorced, which
Speaker 4: is the irony of it, all right, because while out
Speaker 4: and womanize and you do all these things. But I
Speaker 4: don't think he ever healed from my mother finally leaving him,
Speaker 4: and when my mom remarried, it's like the drinking intensified
Speaker 4: for him. So as much as I love my father,
Speaker 4: I always knew I didn't want a man like my father.
Speaker 4: He was physically abusive, even though he was the nicest
Speaker 4: man on the lot. It was that thing that happened.
Speaker 4: And my mom even said, I don't know what happened
Speaker 4: when he turned forty. He became somebody else. And I've
Speaker 4: seen it happen even within the relationships of what happens
Speaker 4: when men change, or that there are men that have
Speaker 4: a broken history or something that kind of rears his
Speaker 4: head somewhere down the line. Oh yeah, no, I mean
Speaker 4: I think even for women too. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: whether they're going through menopause or all this other stuff.
Speaker 4: It happens to both people at the same time. So
Speaker 4: their mid life crisis and your hormones and everybody. You
Speaker 4: don't recognize it. It becomes crazy. So when you see
Speaker 4: that in your parents, you don't understand it until you
Speaker 4: get there. But you know, I was very structured. I
Speaker 4: was like in Girl Scouts, I was in gymnastics early.
Speaker 4: I never missed a day of school in high school,
Speaker 4: so I got like attendance awards. I was in honors
Speaker 4: classes in third grade. I studied French for eleven years.
Speaker 4: Like all these things that my mother made sure that
Speaker 4: we were in, you know. And it's crazy because even
Speaker 4: though I grew up in a mixed neighborhood, I literally
Speaker 4: was like the black girl and mostly the only black
Speaker 4: girl and everything. I was the only black girl in
Speaker 4: my Girl Scout troop for seven years. I was the
Speaker 4: only black girl on both my young gymnastic team and
Speaker 4: my college gymnastic team. I was the only black girl
Speaker 4: one of four and like all of my honors classes.
Speaker 4: So it's interesting.
Speaker 2: So when you're training for the gymnastics, in your mind,
Speaker 2: is the goal like, okay, I might be an Olympic
Speaker 2: hopeful or like or is it just to get college tuition?
Speaker 2: Like when one enters the world of gymnastics, like what
Speaker 2: are you aspiring for?
Speaker 4: Initially for me, it was because one I was a
Speaker 4: tomboy and two I had too much energy. I couldn't
Speaker 4: keep still, So my mother put me in trampoline class,
Speaker 4: and like a month or two later, the guy was like,
Speaker 4: she needs to be in gymnastics because you know how
Speaker 4: you do all the street tumbling and all that other stuff.
Speaker 4: But it was refined and literally within a year. I
Speaker 4: started late. Most of didn't start when they're like two
Speaker 4: and three. I started when I was ten, but by
Speaker 4: the age of eleven I was competing in national competences.
Speaker 4: So my mom made the switch. And at first it's
Speaker 4: really you just are thinking week to week of beating
Speaker 4: someone in the competition, right, you just kind of want
Speaker 4: to be the first on bars, the first on floor.
Speaker 4: You want to win. Overall, you want to win a
Speaker 4: team because it's a team sport and it's an individual sport,
Speaker 4: and it's interesting that as close as I am to
Speaker 4: my coach, the coach, of course never signs up to
Speaker 4: be anyone's parent, but you end up spending more time
Speaker 4: with your coach than you actually do your parents who
Speaker 4: are working all the time, or being a lash key
Speaker 4: kid in New York. So I learned a whole lot
Speaker 4: of structure from the rules of gymnastics, from showing up
Speaker 4: and being in a team sport and being held accountable for,
Speaker 4: you know, if I fall off a beam, or if
Speaker 4: I show up late, or if I you know, did
Speaker 4: thirty push ups instead of the fifty we were supposed
Speaker 4: to do, like there was no cheating otherwise you're punished
Speaker 4: as a group. So therefore you take accountability. And those
Speaker 4: are the kind of things that have you structured or
Speaker 4: going into this business. But it wasn't until you know,
Speaker 4: you get older and you realize, okay, I'm not Olympic material,
Speaker 4: because of course that's the goal. Then it was like, well,
Speaker 4: I'm going to college. Now, let me see if I
Speaker 4: can get a scholarship. And I was able to do that,
Speaker 4: got a four year gymnastics scholarship, which was a blessing.
Speaker 6: Were you like a gymnastics head, Like I remember. It's
Speaker 6: interesting because in the eighties gymnastics was kind of like
Speaker 6: a thing, right, Like it was the Mary lou Retten,
Speaker 6: Nadia Komaniche.
Speaker 3: And stuff like that.
Speaker 6: American anthem were like, were you like ahead, did you
Speaker 6: become a fan of it?
Speaker 4: No? Absolutely, you know, wild world sports on Saturday, Gymnastic me,
Speaker 4: gymnastic posters all around the room and the names escaping me.
Speaker 4: But there were only like two black genasts that I
Speaker 4: had seen come before me, you know.
Speaker 5: What I mean, girl the black that did that that
Speaker 5: she did the black the backflip.
Speaker 3: Not Dominique Dolls because that.
Speaker 5: Was no, no, no, not Dominique Dolls. It's the other girl,
Speaker 5: Syria Bonley were tripping.
Speaker 4: But it'll come to me.
Speaker 2: I was like, wow, I was like too, so I
Speaker 2: was going to say, yeahie Thomas.
Speaker 4: Wait, but yeah, So it was you know, being a
Speaker 4: black gymnast was really like being a unicorn for most people.
Speaker 4: And then you get in high school. I only competed
Speaker 4: on my high school team for one year because they
Speaker 4: had really bad equipment and my private gym was just
Speaker 4: like you're gonna get hurt, so they only let me
Speaker 4: do it for one year, and that one year was
Speaker 4: the year where they had like the Big Apple Games.
Speaker 4: I won the whole region, you know, the whole thing,
Speaker 4: and it was it was a blessing. And so when
Speaker 4: I got my scholarship, it was like, shoot, you know,
Speaker 4: your mother is like, thank God, all right, I don't
Speaker 4: have to come out of my pocket anymore. You know.
Speaker 4: It's that whole thing. You know, there weren't any HBCUs
Speaker 4: that had gymnastics, so I literally, you know, and I
Speaker 4: knew I was going to go out of state. Like
Speaker 4: I only applied to like one New York school which
Speaker 4: was upstate to Courtland, which was eight hours away. I
Speaker 4: applied to Penn State, which I got into, and I
Speaker 4: got a partial gymnastics scholarship and a partial academic scholarship.
Speaker 4: But I got a full scholarship to Springfield College. So
Speaker 4: that's what I took.
Speaker 2: So how did dancing into your life? Like, I mean,
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, I mean, you've done
Speaker 2: so many things, but like, what what was your aspiration
Speaker 2: as a ten year old or an eleven year old?
Speaker 4: To my core, I'm literally like if I could do
Speaker 4: surf to so lat and dance, like that's who I am.
Speaker 4: Ice skating all those artistic things is really who I am.
Speaker 4: And it really wasn't until two things. The TV show
Speaker 4: Solid Gold, where Wayne, Oh my god, you don't understand.
Speaker 4: She had Darcel Wayne own black gazelle legs. She wore
Speaker 4: this Leo tar ponytail, and I'd be in my house
Speaker 4: knocking over furniture, you know, pulling my underwear out of
Speaker 4: my hast, trying to be like her. And I mean
Speaker 4: last year I had a chance to have her actually
Speaker 4: on my show, and I almost cried like a baby.
Speaker 2: Darcel Wayne is what she and.
Speaker 4: She looks exactly the same, son, Oh my god. And
Speaker 4: you know when people say you don't want to meet
Speaker 4: your idols, like, be careful when I tell you she
Speaker 4: like I could call her any day. She's given me
Speaker 4: her number. You go out to like you don't understand.
Speaker 4: And that's what I watched and was like later for gymnastics,
Speaker 4: I want to dance like this. And then when fame came,
Speaker 4: I was like, I'm sold.
Speaker 2: I was gonna.
Speaker 3: I was gonna ask, was you a Debbie Allen baby?
Speaker 4: Like yes, and Debbie are my two right here? But
Speaker 4: once you finish gymnastics, like I knew I wasn't going
Speaker 4: to the Olympics. But you can only compete for four
Speaker 4: years in college for NT double A, and I had
Speaker 4: a five year bachelor's program that I got into where
Speaker 4: I was studying sports medicine and physical therapy. But year
Speaker 4: four you can't compete more past four years. I'm like,
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna sit around even if I'm gonna get
Speaker 4: my master's. Like, I gotta go, I gotta dance, I
Speaker 4: gotta whatever. So I actually left early after I got
Speaker 4: my bachelor's and my mother, of course to this day
Speaker 4: is still giving me the side because here to get
Speaker 4: my masters. But once I left, we came back to
Speaker 4: New York and started auditioning. You know, everything was in
Speaker 4: the newspaper back then, backstage and all this other stuff.
Speaker 4: I pretty much booked everything that I auditioned for probably
Speaker 4: the first year two years out the gate, and my
Speaker 4: mother was like still giving me the side when you
Speaker 4: go back to school, when you go backward. Still to
Speaker 4: this day, my mother can't believe that cartwheels is the
Speaker 4: thing that travel around the globe and TV shows and me.
Speaker 4: She's like, how did this happen? She's still scratching her
Speaker 4: head and less.
Speaker 6: At what point did you know that you were physically
Speaker 6: different than the other ladies that usually exceed in these things.
Speaker 4: But my body has always been a topic of discussion,
Speaker 4: you know. Third grade, I was literally wearing a bra,
Speaker 4: so I was bigger, tested and I had to deal
Speaker 4: with the boy snapping my bra, called me like ubani
Speaker 4: great hard, I was wearing a bro so, and then
Speaker 4: like being tall. I'm five ft six, so being taller
Speaker 4: of the genus. You look at, you know, somebody like
Speaker 4: some own biles and that she literally is up to
Speaker 4: like my breast, and most gymnasts of people think that
Speaker 4: you can only do genastics if you're like four for eight. So,
Speaker 4: but when you see college genists, we're really probably all
Speaker 4: around the same size. You know. Most started late, but
Speaker 4: it took a long time. Like if you see me now,
Speaker 4: I'm making half the time like I've never done any nudity.
Speaker 4: But I had issues growing up because I was always
Speaker 4: very muscular. I was always very athletic, and guys would
Speaker 4: just be like, you look like a linebacker, why are
Speaker 4: you so muscular? Me? So, I really didn't even take
Speaker 4: my shirt off at the beach until I was like
Speaker 4: a junior senior in college. So now you can't keep clothes.
Speaker 6: On me, and now your body is the model to
Speaker 6: what a lot of women pay to look like, which
Speaker 6: is ill right.
Speaker 4: But it's crazy too because even the name big Les
Speaker 4: came based on who's the big girl doing backflips? And
Speaker 4: that was like how he asked the producer of that
Speaker 4: and they were like, oh, that's just less and somebody
Speaker 4: just literally said big Less come here. And that's literally
Speaker 4: how it happened. Who's the big girl doing backs? And
Speaker 4: I say to people even who don't know me, well,
Speaker 4: I do gymnastics, and they're like, yeah, right, maybe you
Speaker 4: run track, maybe you play basketball, gymnastics never, and I'm like,
Speaker 4: I can't even dribble, what do you sorry? You know?
Speaker 4: And then I have to kind of show approve and
Speaker 4: it's happened to a lot of gigs, like you don't
Speaker 4: do gymnastics, and I'll be like, can you move over
Speaker 4: three backhands rings and a full twist? And they're like, oh, okay.
Speaker 2: Can you still achieve that? Now?
Speaker 4: Absolutely?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: If you've seen my Instagram, I do try to do
Speaker 4: things with softer landings. Now I do trapeze and I
Speaker 4: do tramp. I had to have some major surgery a
Speaker 4: couple of years ago, which I'm actually working on my documentary,
Speaker 4: so I'll take everybody through it. But I didn't think
Speaker 4: i'd be able to tumble again, so I just have
Speaker 4: to have softer landings. Or even if you saw the
Speaker 4: don't the don't rush challenge, we did one with the dances.
Speaker 3: I was so dope.
Speaker 4: Yeah I'll flipping the cement pools and yeah, I can
Speaker 4: still tumble. I just made need some groken after a
Speaker 4: little ice. Mama said that.
Speaker 2: What prompted you. I know that you said that you
Speaker 2: started well with al but you mentioned backstage newspaper. I
Speaker 2: remember that that was such a staple in my household
Speaker 2: because my sister would, you know, try to land auditions
Speaker 2: and all those things. So, like, I mean, at the time,
Speaker 2: how did you get into the rotation of what is
Speaker 2: known as choreography work or your video work? Like what
Speaker 2: was your first professional job that you booked?
Speaker 4: Oh? God, be actual, because I was doing It's crazy,
Speaker 4: you know, being a club kid in New York. And
Speaker 4: I don't know how much you guys know about the
Speaker 4: club scene, but back then in the nineties, everybody hung
Speaker 4: out right all the record label execs, all the artists.
Speaker 4: There were cyphers over there, there were dance battles over there,
Speaker 4: and everybody actually had business cards. And that's kind of
Speaker 4: how work happened for me because there was no internet,
Speaker 4: there was no telephones. There was nothing that was a
Speaker 4: business card or calling the receptionist or watching the music
Speaker 4: video saying MCA Records, let me call front desk find
Speaker 4: out blah blah blah. There were two major jobs that
Speaker 4: happened for me that really weren't mainstream ones. That I
Speaker 4: got hired to be a cheerleader for a full force
Speaker 4: game that they were doing for WBLS. I never really cheerleader,
Speaker 4: but it was mostly danced anyway, and I got to
Speaker 4: do backflips across the gym. By the time I finished
Speaker 4: and we had to head back into the locker room,
Speaker 4: there must have been about six people from different labels,
Speaker 4: some artists. I need you in my video, I need
Speaker 4: you to dance for my artists, blah blah blah. Then
Speaker 4: I did an off Broadway play. Auditioned for that, and
Speaker 4: ironically the play was me y Clet Lauren came somewhere
Speaker 4: along the line and we were all just club kids
Speaker 4: from New York to New Jersey whatever, and Big Beat Records.
Speaker 4: Big Beat Records was going to grab a play and
Speaker 4: produce it. And what's his name, Calmen Hellman, right, had
Speaker 4: an artist, Jay Williams. I'm gone to Sweat Sweat, Sweat
Speaker 4: Sweats and I'm silking with those of you who know
Speaker 4: house music. That was a huge, huge, huge record. That
Speaker 4: was my first artist. And we toured all over the
Speaker 4: country and literally from people seeing me on that as
Speaker 4: one of his dancers, we would call hugs and kisses,
Speaker 4: and we were doing every club, the sound factory, the garage,
Speaker 4: I mean just every club late night, three clubs a night,
Speaker 4: four clubs a night to four or five o'clock in
Speaker 4: the morning, and people would be in the clubs. And
Speaker 4: that's how I got my work. And so I was.
Speaker 2: You went to the legendary garage.
Speaker 4: Oh I still have my garage card. Let me pull
Speaker 4: it up on the phone. Wow, car of course, the world,
Speaker 4: the choice, I'm telling you.
Speaker 2: The music that Larry Levin's.
Speaker 4: Louie Vega, Robert Owens, all of them.
Speaker 2: Man, just yeah, how how immersed were you in New
Speaker 2: York club? Oh?
Speaker 1: Here we go.
Speaker 4: The club scene, like you know, breaking her through the
Speaker 4: whole bit. But most people think, is I mean because
Speaker 4: you were being up from Queen's right. I actually went
Speaker 4: to school with you know, kid and Play Herbie Wiz
Speaker 4: and I DJ Wiz and I went to elementary school together.
Speaker 4: They're a little older than my sister's age, but we
Speaker 4: all grew up in the same area. So all the
Speaker 4: jams in the park with them and the disco twins
Speaker 4: and stuff is really like from my era and my people.
Speaker 4: And so I was immersed into hip hop early on,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, like all the battles, sneaking
Speaker 4: into all the clubs, and somehow I got into house music,
Speaker 4: like really hardcore. So I'm a house dancer before I'm
Speaker 4: a hip hop dancer, which most people don't know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I would love to see that, oh my god, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because it just offers some sort of spirituality that
Speaker 4: I don't get as a dancer from hip hop, right,
Speaker 4: because the movements are just liquid and you just kind
Speaker 4: of close your eyes and stand by the speaker and
Speaker 4: it just is infectious to you. And that's kind of
Speaker 4: what it did for me and got me into like
Speaker 4: really battling and stuff. I was a house Battle Dancer
Speaker 4: before I was anything regarding hip hop. So trying to
Speaker 4: find my garage card for you and talking to you.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's you still carry your garage card.
Speaker 4: It's on my phone somewhere.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: See the year looking like a scary Did.
Speaker 5: You ever actually get this here? Larry spin I can't
Speaker 5: remember what did you eat?
Speaker 4: Got? Yes?
Speaker 5: You got to hear wow? So dope?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, I mean the garage was just you know
Speaker 4: between Grace Showns showing up and Liz Torres and all
Speaker 4: these artists and performing at like four or five o'clock
Speaker 4: in the morning, and you would leave the garage drenched.
Speaker 4: You'd always bring a different pack of clothes. You'd be
Speaker 4: leaving by the time people were going to work and
Speaker 4: the sun would be coming up, you know, And it
Speaker 4: was a lifestyle. You could be broke as hell, but
Speaker 4: all the security guards knew who the dances were, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, who just like kept the parties going.
Speaker 4: So even if I was under age or didn't have
Speaker 4: any money, I never had to pay to get in.
Speaker 4: And Washington Square Park was like the hangout. That's kind
Speaker 4: of where we all just manifested. Learn new who knew
Speaker 4: about this audition or whatever, and it was just kind
Speaker 4: of like that was our pipeline. We were all broke,
Speaker 4: knapsack kids, whatever. But that was like the best times
Speaker 4: of my life.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, especially what we're going through
Speaker 2: right now in New York City, a lot of people
Speaker 2: are kind of hoping that with the mass exodus of
Speaker 2: the factor that's leaving New York, which I'll say is
Speaker 2: the gentrification factor. You know, everyone, all of them are
Speaker 2: running to the hills. Now, people are sort of wondering,
Speaker 2: you know, what type of New York will develop post
Speaker 2: twenty twenty. And you know, a friend of mine said that, well, hopefully,
Speaker 2: you know, the creativity and the artists will come back
Speaker 2: downtown as they used to before, you know, the gingrification culture.
Speaker 2: But for you, like, are you one of those people
Speaker 2: that just has a romantic feeling of of New York
Speaker 2: when it was its most dangerous per se or is dangerous?
Speaker 2: Sort of like a subjective opinion.
Speaker 4: Oh no, I love my old school, grimy, large rats,
Speaker 4: trash in the street, deep shows on forty second Street,
Speaker 4: the Israelites on the corner talking like great dances, like
Speaker 4: that's my quintessential New York And I feel bad for
Speaker 4: the people who come to New York for the first
Speaker 4: time now and it's like Universal Studios, Like you don't
Speaker 4: get to see the graffiti on the train, which to
Speaker 4: me was like the artwork of artwork, you know, the
Speaker 4: you know, the late the clubs are just whatever, and
Speaker 4: they still don't know the difference between you know, Bridge
Speaker 4: and Tunnel Night, which is in regular Friday and Saturday
Speaker 4: night and all that other stuff. And for those who
Speaker 4: don't know what that is, it's like true New Yorkers
Speaker 4: only go to the club literally from Sunday to Thursday,
Speaker 4: Bridge and Tunnels. People from Jersey, Connecticut, Philadelphia who want
Speaker 4: to come to work for the weekend and get in
Speaker 4: a way, they just get in our way.
Speaker 2: Okay, I get it, I get it.
Speaker 4: I love you, really I do.
Speaker 2: The day that I arrived in New York City was
Speaker 2: literally like day one of the disneyfication of forty second Street.
Speaker 2: So I thought it was great. I was like, oh man,
Speaker 2: this is really amazing, you know, and only to find
Speaker 2: out that no everyone else was mourning the loss of
Speaker 2: New York City.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's cute and sure, you know, we all
Speaker 4: have to be progressive and all that other stuff, but
Speaker 4: you kind of want New York to be what it's
Speaker 4: always been known for. And I'm not afraid of the growth.
Speaker 4: It's cute, it's beautiful and sure, and I mean, I'm
Speaker 4: actually kind of selfishly glad that I got to experience it.
Speaker 4: And it's still my version of New York. I don't
Speaker 4: even recognize it when I go home anymore. I barely
Speaker 4: even recognize queens, all the restaurants, all the people, all
Speaker 4: the things that were so culturally ours seems to be
Speaker 4: you know, stripped away. Yeah, and I don't know if
Speaker 4: it's ever going to come back.
Speaker 2: You know, it will, That's what I was going to ask.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like it will return? Or I just.
Speaker 4: Feel like the inspiration deep, the inspiration that New York
Speaker 4: bore was an originality of thought that came from the
Speaker 4: things that you see. Like, because I'm trapped in my
Speaker 4: car here in LA all the time, my sensibilities have
Speaker 4: dumbed down, right, because I'm not around, my senses aren't
Speaker 4: as sharp. I don't get to see or smell or
Speaker 4: hear other languages and other things like. But when I
Speaker 4: go home the first couple of days, I'm like soaking
Speaker 4: it all in. I'll walk from Central Park all the
Speaker 4: way down to Canal Street just cause, and I feel
Speaker 4: like I've learned or gained so much culture just because
Speaker 4: I've been away. But for those people who were in
Speaker 4: New York used to creating this culture that's now been
Speaker 4: stripped away, I feel like, you know, they're kind of
Speaker 4: moving to the outskirts or downtown or whatever, and they're
Speaker 4: not as creative or original as they used to be
Speaker 4: or the people that before them came, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Yes, it makes sense. So when you're when you're I'm
Speaker 2: jumping back to your your first gigs as a dancer,
Speaker 2: when you were first hired as a dancer, did you
Speaker 2: start off as choreographer or is that sort of like
Speaker 2: a chain that you have to work your way up to.
Speaker 4: Usually you kind of have to work your way up
Speaker 4: to it. It really kind of happened to me. Nothing's
Speaker 4: an accident. My first major tour was the Key Sweat
Speaker 4: Triple Threat Tour BBD Johnny gill Keith Sweat Wow. Literally
Speaker 4: my jobs after that came from being seen by the
Speaker 4: artists and the audience who would come backstage like Guy
Speaker 4: Teddy Riley and Aaronhole would be like, you have to
Speaker 4: dance with us and meet me by the dressing room,
Speaker 4: or happen the same thing with Heavy d You know
Speaker 4: when hev lost the guys and was like, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: have girl dancers. He literally I saw him in the
Speaker 4: audience and by the time we got to the dressing room,
Speaker 4: he was standing in front of our doors like I
Speaker 4: need you to dance for me. So that's kind of
Speaker 4: how those things happened. I got I'm sorry I missed
Speaker 4: your question, did I answered, I don't think I did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, you told me the process of it. But
Speaker 2: what I wanted to know was who was, Oh, who
Speaker 2: was the the choreographer of the moment when you entered
Speaker 2: the game of doing these legendary videos, like did they
Speaker 2: trust you to make up the steps? Or who was
Speaker 2: the person that was at the helm.
Speaker 4: So to answer your original question, choreography happened for me
Speaker 4: because people always thought that I was the principal answer
Speaker 4: because I was in front and they assumed that I
Speaker 4: choreographed up And a lot of times the choreographers who
Speaker 4: had the job would show up unprepared and be like, Okay,
Speaker 4: I need a count or I need a four count
Speaker 4: over here and we ended up doing more of the
Speaker 4: work and I just was like, aren't you getting paid
Speaker 4: for this? Like wait what? And so the next time
Speaker 4: somebody asked me, I said, yeah, I choreographed it, which
Speaker 4: was kind of a lie good I wouldn't. And that's
Speaker 4: kind of how I switched up the deal is I
Speaker 4: was probably getting paid more than anyone else as a dancer,
Speaker 4: and then I started realizing how much money choreographers were making,
Speaker 4: like oh Schnepp, But choreographers then there weren't really many
Speaker 4: any females. They were like Peakaboo Donovan. They were the
Speaker 4: guys from the Mop Top crew, like Stretch and Henry
Speaker 4: and Link. Rosie Perez probably was one of the females
Speaker 4: who are around. And Rosie will be the first to
Speaker 4: tell you, like she's a creative visionary versus being a
Speaker 4: dancer dancer, you know what I mean. She's somebody who
Speaker 4: could move well, and we seen her throw it back,
Speaker 4: you know, on Soul Train and stuff. But she'll tell
Speaker 4: you she's not a dancer dancer, but she has great vision,
Speaker 4: you know. So those were some of the people who
Speaker 4: really from me, were hiring me a lot. Darren Henson
Speaker 4: started to do a lot of choreography music Factory, so
Speaker 4: he was hiring me a lot, and then I was
Speaker 4: getting hired by the directors directly. Lionel, Martin, Millicent Shelton
Speaker 4: was really doing a lot of the music videos then
Speaker 4: that I had, you know, danceing Arris Barcoley, he did
Speaker 4: around the Hey Girl, you know, into TV and stuff.
Speaker 4: But I was there for a lot of beginning, you know,
Speaker 4: Jeff Bird uh well, even while you know, Benny Boone
Speaker 4: was moving apple boxes for Lionel, like, you know, I
Speaker 4: was all there at the beginning of these careers. Nobody
Speaker 4: everybody was just getting put on, you know, and so
Speaker 4: there were a lot of Rosie was probably the only
Speaker 4: one who initially first was the head choreographer as far
Speaker 4: as females go. And then to Randon as well, you know,
Speaker 4: land he was doing Janet on the West Coast, and
Speaker 4: I was still dancing and then really transitioning into choreography.
Speaker 4: And then you kind of have to decide for yourself
Speaker 4: can you do both? Now? Can I put myself in
Speaker 4: the front? Am I going to be subjective to knowing
Speaker 4: what the choreography looks like as well as dancing it
Speaker 4: and being that whole thing, and I did it for
Speaker 4: a while and the reason I ended up stepping out
Speaker 4: of dance rat City came along, which you know was
Speaker 4: a blessing.
Speaker 6: Can I just ask on a dancing tip at some
Speaker 6: point because you made that transition to choreographer because you're
Speaker 6: a New York dancer, did other folks of other generations
Speaker 6: and genres reach out to you?
Speaker 3: Because in my mind, I'm.
Speaker 6: Like, wow, did you get to talk to like the
Speaker 6: Judith Jamison's, the George Faison's and the that b Allens
Speaker 6: of the world that were.
Speaker 4: No because they weren't really they were I think doing
Speaker 4: more Broadway and TV at that time. They just tapped
Speaker 4: into music videos and touring and even hip hop per se.
Speaker 4: They may have maybe started to introduce it a lot
Speaker 4: if they were still teaching class.
Speaker 3: Because you got Oprah. At some point, you are Oprah.
Speaker 3: They got to know who is this girl?
Speaker 4: Right right?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: But I mean, and you never know who's watching. Like
Speaker 4: It's the crazy thing. You just when you meet people
Speaker 4: and they're like, hey, you know, I saw you dance,
Speaker 4: and you're like, oh my god, that's George Clooney, you
Speaker 4: know me, Like and I'm just I've never Metgined, but
Speaker 4: I'm just as a name and you're just like, oh snap,
Speaker 4: you never know who's watching you. So I didn't get
Speaker 4: to meet them during that time or really dance in
Speaker 4: their world. They were more theatrical. One person I did
Speaker 4: get a chance to meet, obviously, was Otis Salite, who
Speaker 4: really is up that genre. And he's the one who
Speaker 4: did the living single intro.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 4: Otis Salit is the one who is like a directiographer.
Speaker 4: He did school days choreography, you know, good and bad
Speaker 4: hair and all that stuff. Malcolm X like he's a genius,
Speaker 4: a genius, and I was just so grateful that he
Speaker 4: even called me because I was still I was on
Speaker 4: tour when they were doing auditions for Malcolm X and
Speaker 4: Lindy Hop is my favorite genre of life, and I
Speaker 4: found out about us and too late, but I was
Speaker 4: able to go to one of the rehearsals introduce myself
Speaker 4: to him. He kind of Lorianne I think was working
Speaker 4: on that maybe introduction, but I was too late, So
Speaker 4: I got to do extra work in the film. Cut
Speaker 4: to a year or a month later, whenever it happened.
Speaker 4: I get a phone call and it's otis on the
Speaker 4: other line, and you're like, is this really you? Like,
Speaker 4: it's like Michael Jackson calling your phone? Like that's what
Speaker 4: it felt me like, No, this campy, the otist elite.
Speaker 4: Sure whatever you need, you know, Wow, So.
Speaker 5: What was it like when Michael Jackson actually called your phone?
Speaker 5: Now I think about it like them.
Speaker 2: So what I what I want to know is, though,
Speaker 2: is how how competitive was it? And I don't mean
Speaker 2: from like a caddy sort of thing, but like in
Speaker 2: terms of booking gigs? Uh, were you your own agent?
Speaker 2: Were you your own manager?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: How is one able to secure gigs? How's one able
Speaker 2: to solidify? Because it's like, as far as I know
Speaker 2: growing up watching these specific videos, I mean, there was
Speaker 2: a point where either I mean you already named Millicent
Speaker 2: in Paris, but like Lionel C. Martin damn near did
Speaker 2: like at one point I'm certain that he did sixty
Speaker 2: to seventy percent of all the output on Rap City
Speaker 2: that I saw. And so it's like, on the other
Speaker 2: side of that coin, what was the environment like as
Speaker 2: far as being chosen, Like, yes, we definitely know who
Speaker 2: you are, but like you know, there's also jo C.
Speaker 2: Harris's there's like other household names that I know in
Speaker 2: the game, like how does one navigate? Like was it Caddy?
Speaker 2: Was it? Just like, hey, there's enough work for all
Speaker 2: of us, Like what was the environment?
Speaker 4: Like? It's interesting because at first it started off where
Speaker 4: everybody's calling each other like, Yo, there's an audition for this,
Speaker 4: there's an audition for that. Then for me, it got
Speaker 4: to a point where I would always call everyone. Remember
Speaker 4: I come from team sports, so it's like, even if
Speaker 4: you compete against somebody one weekend and they beat you,
Speaker 4: you got a whole week or two weeks to come
Speaker 4: back and beat them, right, So it's all fair game.
Speaker 4: The industry is not like that. There's a lot of
Speaker 4: jealousy and animosity. So I remember going to an audition
Speaker 4: and the people that I normally call or we call
Speaker 4: each other, suddenly nobody called me. And I got the
Speaker 4: call like at the last minute, and I show up
Speaker 4: and all my friends are there, and I'm like, how
Speaker 4: come nobody call me? And one of my really close
Speaker 4: friends said, because you book all the jobs. We just
Speaker 4: want to work. And that's when I literally was changed
Speaker 4: from that. I became somebody who was like this, now
Speaker 4: I'm not saying anything to anybody. I'm keeping the work
Speaker 4: to myself and that's not even my character. And literally
Speaker 4: it just was like, now I'm really going to book
Speaker 4: these gigs. Now I'm really going to show up and
Speaker 4: show out and make sure that I take this opportunity
Speaker 4: away from you, just because it's my blessing. And I
Speaker 4: work harder than everybody else because I'm the chick who
Speaker 4: gets up earlier in the morning and still works out
Speaker 4: and does what needs to be done. But okay, if
Speaker 4: that's your hate, then that's what it is. But back then,
Speaker 4: like I said, everybody was their own agent. I remember
Speaker 4: making calls as my own assistan changing my voice, you know,
Speaker 4: sending different nutters or whatever case is, and booking gigs
Speaker 4: and no negotiating my price and stuff. But the calls
Speaker 4: back then came direct, where you just gave people your number.
Speaker 4: They gave you either the business card or the number
Speaker 4: to the label, and they were just calling me direct
Speaker 4: and I just would have to pretend to be someone
Speaker 4: else to negotiate my rate.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Okay, now I really got to get into
Speaker 2: the business. Is there such a thing as a union?
Speaker 2: And if you don't mind me asking, Okay, if it's
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety or nineteen ninety one, what was considered a
Speaker 2: good booking? I'm certain that.
Speaker 3: Rate wise, right, you're asking a marriag.
Speaker 2: Yeah, rate wise, like you know in my field, Like
Speaker 2: if I like somebody nine times out ten, I'm not
Speaker 2: you know, I won't charge them. I mean, I'm at
Speaker 2: a place now where I'm comfortable. But you know, if
Speaker 2: you're using this to survive day to day, what's like
Speaker 2: a friends and family discount? Like, all right, I'll hook
Speaker 2: you up because you guys have a little budget. And
Speaker 2: I really liked the song versus like, what's a good booking?
Speaker 4: Well, I don't think. And when I talk to dances now,
Speaker 4: because there was never a union back then, you really
Speaker 4: had to expeast their famine, and artists always made you
Speaker 4: feel like, dancers come a diamond us and we can
Speaker 4: get somebody else. So either you would underbid another choreographer,
Speaker 4: which has happened, or you would just settle for less
Speaker 4: money just so you can get the gig. And now
Speaker 4: that even though there are more agencies and stuff like that,
Speaker 4: I think what the scale is is still not where
Speaker 4: it should be. So dancers really are doing it for
Speaker 4: the passion and not for the money. Back then, I
Speaker 4: think day rates were probably like two fifty four rehearsal.
Speaker 4: We're talking like anywhere from four to eight hours, maybe
Speaker 4: five hundred for a shoot day. Choreographers would get more,
Speaker 4: maybe than seven hundred, and maybe you might get one
Speaker 4: thousand a week if you were going on tour. Like
Speaker 4: that's when you look at the big scheme of things
Speaker 4: and all that we're doing and contributing to this artwork
Speaker 4: and these visuals. It's not a lot of money based
Speaker 4: on other people, but.
Speaker 6: Artists try to put you on retainer and just hold
Speaker 6: you so nobody else could.
Speaker 4: Oh no, no, there was no such thing as retainer.
Speaker 4: They're not spending that money contracts, they're not doing it.
Speaker 4: My first job on the Key Sweat tour, I cried
Speaker 4: like a baby because I had a real job and
Speaker 4: so I was able to take a leave of absence,
Speaker 4: which I didn't even know was an option. He broke
Speaker 4: his foot on that tour, and I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: this tour is about the end. I have to go
Speaker 4: back to a real job. But he kept going. But
Speaker 4: there's no concrete safety net about what's going to happen.
Speaker 4: It's you know, a tour or a project dissolves. There
Speaker 4: may be more coverage now, depending on whether it's a
Speaker 4: commercial or a TV show where the union kind of
Speaker 4: gets involved and it's under sagging after. But there's no
Speaker 4: There are barely any artists who ever pay retainer for
Speaker 4: their band or for the dancers. They like, really want
Speaker 4: to have to have you and keep and not want
Speaker 4: to share you with somebody else for that to happen,
Speaker 4: and then you know, it's always they're always in some
Speaker 4: what a financial disagreement with the label anyway about their
Speaker 4: money being spent. So the last thing on their mind
Speaker 4: is keeping dancers. We're the first to go. They don't
Speaker 4: want to. They don't want to have to buy us,
Speaker 4: you know, stage where they don't have to get here
Speaker 4: and makeup, they don't have to do any of that stuff.
Speaker 4: But you know, our own separate tour buses, hotels, rooms
Speaker 4: like yeah, that comes with a price for your stage show.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wait, Because I know that you were part of
Speaker 2: the Bobby campaign his third album, of which when I
Speaker 2: saw y'all it was like ninety seven people on stage.
Speaker 2: I was wondering how that p DM worked. What do
Speaker 2: you consider the first video that was your breakout moment?
Speaker 2: Was it Mary or like, oh no, before.
Speaker 4: I think it might have been around the Way Girl.
Speaker 4: For most people, I'm not going to like. It doesn't
Speaker 4: highlight my best work. The video for me that highlights
Speaker 4: my best work as a dancer is the artist a Diva,
Speaker 4: She's the House. Yeah. We had a video called it
Speaker 4: should Have Been Me, and we did a scene that
Speaker 4: was kind of like the Blues Brothers where Jim Beluchi
Speaker 4: or John Belush excuse me, did backflips down the church
Speaker 4: aisle and that was the whole theme of the video.
Speaker 4: And I actually got hired to be a dancer with
Speaker 4: the ensemble cast and Big Mike Ellis was the first
Speaker 4: a d on that and I forget who's actually directing it,
Speaker 4: and they had hired somebody to do trampoline work and
Speaker 4: tumble and they were horrible. So I was like, Mike,
Speaker 4: tell them I can do it. Well, Mike told whoever
Speaker 4: the director was that she can do it, but I
Speaker 4: could do it, and the director was like yeah right,
Speaker 4: and I'm like no, And again it became one of
Speaker 4: these like tell everybody to clear the aisle and literally
Speaker 4: did you can see it on YouTube? Did like three
Speaker 4: or four backflips down the aisle whatever, and of course
Speaker 4: it made the film and they had to pay me
Speaker 4: for that too, So shout to Mike Ellis making that happen.
Speaker 3: Oh, flipping is extra.
Speaker 5: Flipping, flipping another invoice.
Speaker 4: But it takes you a minute to realize that you're
Speaker 4: worth and that you can actually these things because you
Speaker 4: don't realize, you know, and there's no standard that was
Speaker 4: set for you as a dancer, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: So you kind of figure it out as you're going on,
Speaker 4: and then you try it, Like if you say, if
Speaker 4: you find out one choreographer is making you know, five hundred,
Speaker 4: forget how bad you want the job, Well, I'm worth
Speaker 4: fifteen and you're like, well we only have Nope, you
Speaker 4: came to me, and then you kind of like think
Speaker 4: out for it that So that's gonna be my bord
Speaker 4: now on, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So uh, let's let's let's go there. Remember the time
Speaker 2: no with remember the time with Michael Jackson being at
Speaker 2: his somewhat apex. I mean I kind of consider that
Speaker 2: probably Okay, I'll let scream go in there too. But
Speaker 2: like back when a Michael Jackson video was an event,
Speaker 2: was that a mount Fiji of achievement as far as
Speaker 2: videos was concerned, Like, was that the best treatment? Was
Speaker 2: that the most professional atmosphere? Or you know, was it
Speaker 2: the story of like oh the bigger, the artist, the
Speaker 2: cheaper and you know, like what was that experience?
Speaker 4: Like that was everything that you wish for as a dancer.
Speaker 4: I found out about the audition like on a Wednesday night,
Speaker 4: Like on a Wednesday, I was in New York a
Speaker 4: bunch of dances, like, oh my god, we're scrambling. It's
Speaker 4: on Saturday, or maybe like even that Thursday, I found
Speaker 4: out broke as fuck, had to beg my mother for
Speaker 4: money to get on a plane, like mom, please, please please.
Speaker 4: Found out Fatimo was choreographing it. We were hanging out.
Speaker 4: She was like, you can come, you can audition. I
Speaker 4: can't make promises to anybody, so I was like cool.
Speaker 4: I end up staying with her. She's like, I can't,
Speaker 4: you know, the director has final say blah blah blah.
Speaker 4: A bunch of us were able to get on a
Speaker 4: plane and literally John Singleton have been a fan of
Speaker 4: New York dancers, so he kind of knew who a
Speaker 4: lot of us were. When we showed up at the
Speaker 4: audition and once you book the gig and you make
Speaker 4: that call home like oh my god, mom, I got it.
Speaker 4: So then we're having auditions, I mean rehearsals, and we
Speaker 4: haven't met Michael yet. Right, we're probably two three weeks
Speaker 4: into rehearsals and we still haven't seen Michael yet because
Speaker 4: Michael's having his private rehearsals with Fatima.
Speaker 5: So indeed know beforehand that it was going to be
Speaker 5: for Michael Jackson video.
Speaker 4: We knew exactly how I got on a plane, Like
Speaker 4: that's the only reason why you start begging for money,
Speaker 4: is like I know I can book this. Just get
Speaker 4: me there please. And so once we get into rehearsals,
Speaker 4: we're also given a book that looks like the phone
Speaker 4: book for those who don't know, it's like this big
Speaker 4: which is a contract pretty much don't look at him,
Speaker 4: don't talk to him, don't talk to bubbles, don't ask
Speaker 4: the questions they'll take, no picure, like just whatever you
Speaker 4: can think of is in this contract. So Michael shows
Speaker 4: up and it is literally, now, oh, let me back
Speaker 4: up a little bit. Because once John singles and said
Speaker 4: we want you you you you you, which say, let's
Speaker 4: say ten dancers from New York hopped on a plane.
Speaker 4: Maybe eight of us got hired, and so they gave
Speaker 4: us for dim. They put a lot of people up
Speaker 4: in a hotel or you know, we have places to
Speaker 4: stay because everybody kind of planned on. You know, we
Speaker 4: all broke finding places to stay. But they gave us
Speaker 4: per diem because you knew we flew out there and wardrobe, hair, makeup.
Speaker 4: To show up to Universal Studios is the dream of dreams, right.
Speaker 4: It's everything that you can imagine when you pull up
Speaker 4: the first day and you see these gates and say
Speaker 4: Universal Studios and you're actually allowed on and you hear
Speaker 4: the wind blowing and the heart playing and all that,
Speaker 4: Like that's what it was. The rehearsal was great. We're
Speaker 4: three weeks into rehearsals. Two weeks into rehearsals, Michael comes
Speaker 4: in a couple of days before we shoot, and he's
Speaker 4: speaking everybody like, hey, everybody in his soul wise, Hi,
Speaker 4: how you guys doing. Everybody is so paranoid, like don't
Speaker 4: look at him, don't talk to him, We're not allowed
Speaker 4: to kind of like this, And so he shows us
Speaker 4: what the routine looks like first. So we do we
Speaker 4: watch him through the routine and all of us are like, uh, oh,
Speaker 4: we didn't learn it, Like no, no, his stink, his
Speaker 4: groove like he was on some other ship. He were
Speaker 4: just like five sic. Michael's like had one, two, three.
Speaker 6: Like he was.
Speaker 4: We were all like, oh now, so literally, thank god
Speaker 4: had like two or three more days before the shoot
Speaker 4: to get in there and step our game up. And
Speaker 4: then when we got on set, that was like a
Speaker 4: whole other euphoria because then Michael's hanging out with us,
Speaker 4: and artists tend to hang out with the dancers, right,
Speaker 4: we're like the cool kids. We kind of don't care
Speaker 4: or we're over there just practicing our stuff, and so
Speaker 4: he's talking to us, and here Michael Jackson curse, like
Speaker 4: now fuck that.
Speaker 2: Man, Like like.
Speaker 4: You forget that he's cursing, or that he's like you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, right, and he's like, wow, he's hip,
Speaker 4: But you forget that they're home by themselves watching the
Speaker 4: l L Pool Jay video jamming and Mary J. Blige
Speaker 4: grooving the guy or whatever they're doing, and you just
Speaker 4: think that they're not human or in this bubble. And
Speaker 4: he really was like cool with us and to be
Speaker 4: on that set. Every star that you could imagine was
Speaker 4: coming to visit just to hang out, whether it was
Speaker 4: John Singleton or hang out with you know, his Magic
Speaker 4: Johnson's and his kid friends and the whole Lakers team
Speaker 4: is rolling up and you're just like, we didn't hang
Speaker 4: like you know, you're just kind of scared to like
Speaker 4: step over any boundaries. But everybody's coming. They want to
Speaker 4: take pictures with us because they love our costumes. You know,
Speaker 4: we're on set with everything and everybody, Like it was
Speaker 4: just match anything that you can dream of as a dancer.
Speaker 4: This was the dream Pinnacle project, hands down of all time.
Speaker 4: It's amazing and it was an event. And when it
Speaker 4: was time for it to like debut on MTV, it
Speaker 4: literally was like twenty of us in a hotel room
Speaker 4: telling all of our family, oh my god, it's gonna
Speaker 4: hit it like it was a thing thing. And then
Speaker 4: to see and then to see that you made the.
Speaker 8: Edit like again, like come on, and you wait, you
Speaker 8: couldn't play it back then, so you had to wait
Speaker 8: for it to re air, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Like, but can we talk about everybody's favorite edit?
Speaker 6: I know the guys ain't gonna say because they ain't
Speaker 6: gonna say it, but the paper edit when it's the
Speaker 6: part when Les is doing her thing and then it's
Speaker 6: a dude to go under and its just the whole
Speaker 6: world just okay, never mind? Did nobody never ever notice
Speaker 6: that let's whole world gets shaken up in the middle
Speaker 6: of her dancing and the guy.
Speaker 5: Comes in between, Like I remember, okay.
Speaker 3: I'm I the only one that I mean.
Speaker 2: I was like, you're going to ask all the questions.
Speaker 6: I'm talking maybe, just like I didn't say that this is
Speaker 6: a professional interview.
Speaker 3: Sorry about that list.
Speaker 4: It was just me no, but I get that a
Speaker 4: lot even from you know, this quest was talking about
Speaker 4: Bobby Brown, the humping around video. Here I am with
Speaker 4: the handstand, you know, mapping on death copy jam and
Speaker 4: Marton fools me on stage and it's the head you know.
Speaker 3: So that being said, let me ask you a serious question, then.
Speaker 2: God damn it, because I want her to tell me
Speaker 2: the polar opposite story. Okay, you told me, you told
Speaker 2: me the greatest video story for you. We don't even
Speaker 2: have the name names. Now give me the polar opposite story.
Speaker 2: What was a bad experience?
Speaker 4: Hmm?
Speaker 2: You you know the name names if you don't want no, no, I.
Speaker 4: Don't think it was. I don't remember a really horrible
Speaker 4: project for me. It was touring scenarios. There were two
Speaker 4: artists that I toured with where and I'm sure Bobby
Speaker 4: probably he said it when you talked to him about
Speaker 4: like all the dancers and stuff, arguing and whatever. But
Speaker 4: it's family members too, Like it's just you get all
Speaker 4: these people who are on tour who don't do any
Speaker 4: of the creative work, but by nepotism take I can
Speaker 4: do whatever, and I'm here and I'm not going anywhere.
Speaker 4: So the crew, the cousins, the whoever. But you can't
Speaker 4: say anything because that's their family. So you'll get fired
Speaker 4: before they do. And here they come, whether they're smoking
Speaker 4: on the dancers bus or they're selling like tickets on
Speaker 4: the side, and like that's your brother and you're selling.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. But there was like one
Speaker 4: artist that I worked for who really was just like,
Speaker 4: y'all ain't shit, I can get new dances in here tomorrow.
Speaker 4: And we were on a tour with other artists that
Speaker 4: had dances. I need you to bust their ass every day.
Speaker 4: And he was so arrogant and so obnoxious that I
Speaker 4: never spoke to him ever, ever, ever spoke to him
Speaker 4: unless I absolutely had to. And I probably reveal this
Speaker 4: when I do my documentary about who it is. But
Speaker 4: it's funny how years happen or how many people end
Speaker 4: up respecting you because you didn't kiss their ass. I
Speaker 4: ended up living in the same building as this artist
Speaker 4: years later, and we became really not really good friends,
Speaker 4: but to a point where he asked me to be
Speaker 4: part of like his radio show and all this other stuff.
Speaker 4: Later I was like, frequently he probably had respect for
Speaker 4: me that wasn't trying to kiss his ass or be
Speaker 4: his friend. Because that's what happens, right, is everybody wants
Speaker 4: to be friends with the artists, but as opposed to,
Speaker 4: you know, creating really true friendships, right just because of
Speaker 4: the hype of Yeah, I can call Usher up every
Speaker 4: day because I dance with him, as opposed to you
Speaker 4: and Usher really having a bond like that become a
Speaker 4: best friend. So yeah, it's.
Speaker 2: How so how toxic is the proverbial casting couch during
Speaker 2: this period between the nineties and I don't know when
Speaker 2: the end of your bracket is as far as the
Speaker 2: choreography world is concerned because I know it had to
Speaker 2: have been toxic as hell.
Speaker 4: That casting couch is real as real then as it
Speaker 4: is today. And I don't think me too really has
Speaker 4: kind of slowed much.
Speaker 3: Of a not in a music business, no, not at all.
Speaker 4: And you remember, I got it from the dance side,
Speaker 4: from the radio side, from the TV side, like it's
Speaker 4: you know, and I've never had to sleep my way
Speaker 4: to the top, like you got to work for backflips.
Speaker 4: I wasn't, you know what I mean, Like I can't.
Speaker 4: You got to pay for that, like you need me
Speaker 4: more than I need you. But I have been propositioned
Speaker 4: where it's like, well, you know, you won't even have
Speaker 4: to audition, you just, you know, get on your knees
Speaker 4: over here and suck me off over here. You should
Speaker 4: let me take you out over here, and that kind
Speaker 4: of a thing, Like it's some real stuff and you
Speaker 4: have to kind of really know who you are. I
Speaker 4: probably have more fear of my mother or the fear
Speaker 4: of disappointing my mother, than I did worrying about a job,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. And it's not about being
Speaker 4: arrogant or confident. You also have to know what your
Speaker 4: worth is or that all right, well this ain't meant
Speaker 4: for me. It's not I think for me. Coming into
Speaker 4: the business, I had so much fear about the stories
Speaker 4: and the drugs. But one of my first gigs is
Speaker 4: doing like the Lou Rolls telethon, and we're hanging out
Speaker 4: and I don't want to snitch on that had that
Speaker 4: huge telethon. I was dancing on. Some of that I
Speaker 4: was dancing for, like I think Big Daddy Kane or
Speaker 4: kom O d I think I was dancing for or something.
Speaker 4: And then like all these artists and stuff are backstage,
Speaker 4: whether it's Sha Ka Khan and this person that person,
Speaker 4: and you start like want to hang out with the
Speaker 4: dances and then you're get into somebody's limo and next
Speaker 4: thing you know, you see them doing cocaine. Like these
Speaker 4: are my first and I'm like, this is really real.
Speaker 4: This is the stuff that you read about like oh snap,
Speaker 4: so and so, oh snap, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: But you kind of have to be like, Okay, let
Speaker 4: me keep it together, blah blah blah. But you are.
Speaker 4: You're hit up by the casting couch and these scoundrels
Speaker 4: who are just like I think it's okay to proposition
Speaker 4: you and that you're not going to say anything, or
Speaker 4: that you want the job really bad. And I'm not
Speaker 4: that she wanted a job really that bad because I
Speaker 4: believed in my gift. And I think if I had
Speaker 4: not had my gymnastic background and had so much success
Speaker 4: in that, or had you know the wisdom of the
Speaker 4: women that nurtured me growing up, that I could have
Speaker 4: been somebody else who would have been thirsty for a job.
Speaker 4: I think the adverse reaction now is that those same
Speaker 4: guys who didn't get any asked for me, even though
Speaker 4: they know the body of work that I have, their
Speaker 4: ego is so damaged that they won't hire me to
Speaker 4: this day. I mean, so that's their version of blacklisting
Speaker 4: me or being mad that I didn't give them any
Speaker 4: ass kind of thing.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, I was going to ask, where's the repercussion
Speaker 2: of saying no and standing up for yourself, Like, is
Speaker 2: it this particular artist will blackball you, or even worse,
Speaker 2: this particular CEO of a label will blackball you? Or
Speaker 2: video director?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was never blatant, I believe, though there may
Speaker 4: be a couple of times where I didn't get the
Speaker 4: return phone call, or I didn't get the meeting, or
Speaker 4: somebody else got hired because of me, but it was
Speaker 4: never to my face, well you didn't give me this,
Speaker 4: or because it was never that. And they may still
Speaker 4: speak to me or say hi, just on whether it's
Speaker 4: installsed or to show me that they're an executor at
Speaker 4: a label or whatever now, or they'll even take a meeting,
Speaker 4: but they won't hire me. They want me to see
Speaker 4: their corner window office or whatever and be like, yeah,
Speaker 4: so what can I do for you? Or you know,
Speaker 4: they expect you to be in their face now and
Speaker 4: that your mind has changed because you've blown up and
Speaker 4: I'm ready to break you off, and like, no, kid,
Speaker 4: that's not it.
Speaker 6: But curious though less because even after the casting counts,
Speaker 6: like after you have the job and you've earned the job,
Speaker 6: we know that like that doesn't stop then. So I'm
Speaker 6: just curious for you, like what was your a lot
Speaker 6: of defense and at what point did for lack of
Speaker 6: a better term, niggas get the point and stop asking,
Speaker 6: because I know after for a while it was just like, oh,
Speaker 6: I can let me try every trying who's that?
Speaker 3: Oh I ain't hit it yet. Maybe you could make
Speaker 3: when did it go? Okay? You know what I know,
Speaker 3: Les and she ain't the one.
Speaker 4: Well, I think being allowed to ask New Yorker and
Speaker 4: just be like, hit the fuck out of here, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying?
Speaker 6: Like that, that's you.
Speaker 4: Know, you very upfront and very I'm a very loud,
Speaker 4: very upfront, cursed out two point two seconds, like for real.
Speaker 4: I think being a muscular chick and being very physical
Speaker 4: is kind of intimidating too. You know, I've never had
Speaker 4: anybody grab me. And I feel sorry for all the
Speaker 4: women who were backed into a corner like that, but
Speaker 4: I've never been backed into a corner like that. Or
Speaker 4: I think I kind of just look like I'm ready
Speaker 4: to knuckle up, so I don't you know, but there
Speaker 4: are you know, those repercussions. But for me, it's like,
Speaker 4: there's nothing attractive about being one of ten other women
Speaker 4: who have slept with the same dude in the room.
Speaker 4: Like that's not cute. I don't ever want to be
Speaker 4: that chick. No matter how fine you are, what team
Speaker 4: you played for, whatever the case is, there's nothing sexy
Speaker 4: about being one of twenty that y'all can all. You know,
Speaker 4: he can be like this, this, this, this, that and
Speaker 4: the other. And I've never fucked anybody who had control
Speaker 4: over my money. You're not going to dictate to me
Speaker 4: fact whether I have how much I make or you
Speaker 4: get to fuck ten people and I can only fuck
Speaker 4: with you. And the minute you see me with somebody else,
Speaker 4: then you fire me and I lose the job and
Speaker 4: all that other stuff. So no, we're gonna keep it. Whatever.
Speaker 4: So I've never slept with the artists. Maybe the drummer,
Speaker 4: keyboard player, but.
Speaker 6: It's safe to say that you've never felt powerless in
Speaker 6: this career.
Speaker 4: No, I don't think I've desperate. I've never felt desperate
Speaker 4: enough to feel like I have to do this, that
Speaker 4: and the other for this job.
Speaker 2: No, what was what was the What was the moment
Speaker 2: that led to you sort of ease out of your
Speaker 2: comfort zone and go into being a personality Because I've
Speaker 2: seen you on mini of Red Carpet doing rap City,
Speaker 2: Like was that your first job as a Like how
Speaker 2: did you know that you had a personality? Because it's
Speaker 2: you know, even even for me to ease into this
Speaker 2: zone is a little weird. Like just because I'm a
Speaker 2: public figure doesn't mean that you know, just because you
Speaker 2: could do. That doesn't mean that you can carry a conversation,
Speaker 2: go to be engaging and all that. Something you're really engaging,
Speaker 2: like you are a personality. It's almost like you know
Speaker 2: when I when I saw that you first started like
Speaker 2: doing red carpet stuff and starting with rap City, I
Speaker 2: was like, Oh, she's a natural, Like she is a personality,
Speaker 2: Like where did that come from?
Speaker 4: Wow? Thank you for saying that. Career, It's interesting the
Speaker 4: things that you write in your diary have so much power.
Speaker 4: When I was in high school, I was going to
Speaker 4: study journalism and I took like three journalism classes and
Speaker 4: the last one I took I didn't like. So I
Speaker 4: was like, I'm switching to sports medicine and athletic training
Speaker 4: and all that other stuff. But I still always kept
Speaker 4: a journal. I always still wrote short stories and always
Speaker 4: kind of like been inquisitive by nature. Rahap City is
Speaker 4: a blessing that came after I did not become a flygirl,
Speaker 4: Like that's a whole other was curious.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to ask that's so okay.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, what gigs didn't you get that you wanted?
Speaker 4: Well, being a fly girl was the gig that I
Speaker 4: wanted more than anything. I literally did not get it,
Speaker 4: and it was already like set up. I had the
Speaker 4: best audition. All the local news channels are interviewing me.
Speaker 4: I did all these flips and this, that and the other.
Speaker 4: Everybody knew you.
Speaker 3: It was the New York Fan, the Wayans and Rosie and.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Rosie came over to me side barbers, like, can
Speaker 4: you lose ten pounds? Jen already been on the show,
Speaker 4: And I'm like, but Jen at the time was bigger
Speaker 4: than I was, Like, I was really muscular, but she
Speaker 4: was thicker. And then I found out that, you know,
Speaker 4: by Josie's own words, that she had been approached well
Speaker 4: before the audition by I guess one of the way
Speaker 4: it's called her and said listen, we need you to
Speaker 4: show up, but we want to know if you want
Speaker 4: the gig. So she pretty much already had it and
Speaker 4: just kind of had to look like she had the audition.
Speaker 4: And you know, usually they do what's called typecasting. You
Speaker 4: say you want somebody light skin this, tall, Latino women,
Speaker 4: black women, whatever, very specific. This was an open audition,
Speaker 4: but they already knew who they wanted and what they wanted.
Speaker 4: And Rosie, years later came and apologized for even asking
Speaker 4: me that question and wishing that she had fought for
Speaker 4: me because she knew that I was the baddest thing
Speaker 4: in the room at that time. But rejection is God's protection.
Speaker 4: Right after I'm flicking my wounds and I don't get flygirl,
Speaker 4: I go on Madeline Wood Show video LP and dance
Speaker 4: on the show. I'm talking about all these artists that
Speaker 4: I've worked with, you know, as a dancer, that you
Speaker 4: spend time with on the tour bus and in rehearsals,
Speaker 4: so you know them more than the fans do, sometimes
Speaker 4: even better than the family does. And so they're like,
Speaker 4: you know these people who've been around them even before
Speaker 4: some of them had their deals, And would you like
Speaker 4: to audition for Rahap City? And I auditioned, and the
Speaker 4: producer Keith Patchell and Sanita Brooks and Eric Watson still
Speaker 4: had to fight with me, had to fight for me
Speaker 4: with the producers upstairs because one I didn't look a
Speaker 4: certain way, right, there goes our lovely black one. Black colorism.
Speaker 4: And there wasn't a female voice really in a hip
Speaker 4: hop on that level other than Dee Barnes who came
Speaker 4: before me. So once they were able to give me
Speaker 4: a couple of episodes to prove myself. I got the job,
Speaker 4: but they were gracious enough to let me do the
Speaker 4: show while I was still dancing. I think I was
Speaker 4: on tour with Heavy D and it worked in to
Speaker 4: their benefit because now as we're city to city, I
Speaker 4: could do interviews in city to city and they didn't
Speaker 4: have to pay like any extra for it, so I
Speaker 4: could catch up with common in Chicago and so and
Speaker 4: so and so. And when it became too much, they
Speaker 4: were like, you're gonna have to choose. And by that time,
Speaker 4: you know, I had already done like fifteen years of gymnastics,
Speaker 4: even though I wasn't ready to quit dancing, but I
Speaker 4: had transitioned into choreography. I was still doing more choreography
Speaker 4: and I couldn't tour, so I just kind of was like,
Speaker 4: let me focus on TV altogether, and that's kind of
Speaker 4: how that happened, and then radio was born from that.
Speaker 5: I think the thing I used to always like about
Speaker 5: you hosting Rap City, I would notice how a lot
Speaker 5: of times guests would change up who they were with
Speaker 5: you in a way that they wouldn't with like D
Speaker 5: or you know, Chris Thomas or whatever. I remember it
Speaker 5: was a Boogie Monster's episode. Oh shit, one of the
Speaker 5: guys he was trying, yo, he was trying so hard
Speaker 5: to kick it to you. I can't remember which one
Speaker 5: it was.
Speaker 2: Yah Yo, man, I'm sorry. We all tried to kick
Speaker 2: it to I mean, but I was so obvious though.
Speaker 2: He was like talking all my do that day. I
Speaker 2: was like that first day of school feeling when you
Speaker 2: standing at the outfit iron my shirt, you know, iron shit.
Speaker 2: I get out there. I was like, yo, we do
Speaker 2: rap City today. Let me use my good shirt.
Speaker 4: The blessing that happened for me with that is that
Speaker 4: a lot of the labels and the artists would request me,
Speaker 4: and I think because they knew of me as a
Speaker 4: dancer or they knew me from a club. They knew
Speaker 4: I had been around and been in the trenches, and
Speaker 4: that they could trust me with their story and that
Speaker 4: I actually knew the story, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: because I was there, I was part of it, so
Speaker 4: it was easy for them to like, come on the
Speaker 4: show and us just have real conversations. And you know,
Speaker 4: if you see my first episode to my like twentieth, yeah,
Speaker 4: I grew a whole lot because I had real you know,
Speaker 4: producers who would teach me how to talk and to
Speaker 4: listen and this and to that and stuff. So it
Speaker 4: made a difference and I felt really comfortable. I think
Speaker 4: when you're a performer, and maybe it's a little different
Speaker 4: for you, quest like there's certain things you're comfortable with
Speaker 4: or not. Like I've always as a gymnast, been comfortable
Speaker 4: on camera and performing and being a show person. And
Speaker 4: I'm always been a talker and I'm always inquisitive, like
Speaker 4: I'm nosy, and I could ask you like eight hundred
Speaker 4: questions and without a cue card, and just because I
Speaker 4: want to hear your story and I have human interests love,
Speaker 4: Like I just really want to know how you got
Speaker 4: from A to Z and I'm curious about it. So
Speaker 4: I think you kind of get that and appreciate telling
Speaker 4: their story in that way.
Speaker 2: You know, There's one question I didn't forget to ask
Speaker 2: you as far as choreography is concerned. How long are
Speaker 2: you allowed to sit with the song and how what's
Speaker 2: what's the creative process for figuring out what the choreography is?
Speaker 2: Because I know you have your own language, So do
Speaker 2: you talk to the artists first and they have complete
Speaker 2: trust with you or is it like, is it a
Speaker 2: collaborative thing where you, you know, you and this artist
Speaker 2: work things out, or is it the director of the
Speaker 2: video that lets you know this, you know, this is
Speaker 2: out of space and we want this sort of thing,
Speaker 2: like what's what's the Can you walk us through what
Speaker 2: the creative process is to map out?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Like real love. Sorry, I was just usually the artist.
Speaker 4: Of the last person you end up having a conversation with, right,
Speaker 4: because you end up talking to the money people first.
Speaker 4: You end up talking to the people who come and
Speaker 4: approach you with the concept about this is what we
Speaker 4: have the budget for, this is what the look is,
Speaker 4: this is what we want to do. You have to
Speaker 4: help us tell this story. Then you kind of figure out, okay,
Speaker 4: what time period is this, what's the look? How many dancers?
Speaker 4: What am I going to do with it? Then you
Speaker 4: listen to actual the music, right, and you have to
Speaker 4: decide whether you're going to do lyrical hip hop meaning
Speaker 4: you know, I see you, you know where you're actually
Speaker 4: the words or you're just doing feeling and emotion and
Speaker 4: everybody's just rooming. And then of course you got to
Speaker 4: find out if your artist can dance or not, and
Speaker 4: that becomes a whole other thing, right because now if
Speaker 4: the artist is ah, who has to let us be?
Speaker 2: Who had to have a good cinematographer to make it
Speaker 2: look like.
Speaker 4: I'll put I'll put them off blast a little bit.
Speaker 4: If you remember the group intro, yes, that is fine.
Speaker 4: I agree, but it was Buddy who's kind of had
Speaker 4: left feet, but he he got on. You just had
Speaker 4: to work with him a little bit more. But but
Speaker 4: you end up telling making your your choreography so that
Speaker 4: everybody can do it, because your job is to make
Speaker 4: everybody look uniform, and if they can't get it, you're
Speaker 4: only as good as your weakest first, which is the
Speaker 4: true And the one person that I will go to
Speaker 4: is the one person who's hat a sink. So that
Speaker 4: means if they can't get it, you have to change
Speaker 4: to choreography so that it works for them, And that's
Speaker 4: really what it is. And working with somebody like Mary,
Speaker 4: Mary will say that she can't dance, but Mary's got
Speaker 4: to move and a bump bop, yeah around the way
Speaker 4: girl language right between that, and then you got in
Speaker 4: your head going your money, I need this, I need
Speaker 4: whatever I need That snexy, that's smooth. I need blah
Speaker 4: blah blah. I need that Harlem, I need that whatever.
Speaker 4: But you already know what that is, so you, you know,
Speaker 4: you combine whatever you see Mary do with the stuff
Speaker 4: that you already know what to do. And then you
Speaker 4: listen to the song and how it knocks and you're
Speaker 4: just like, Okay, what do we dance? We in heels?
Speaker 4: Are we in combat? But what's this?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 4: What are we wearing and we keep it sexy? Or
Speaker 4: are we on baggy? Okay? You know you want it's hard,
Speaker 4: Like I love when girls dance harder than the guys.
Speaker 4: I love that athleticism and that's kind of how I
Speaker 4: model my dancing, like you know what I mean. But
Speaker 4: then if I need to take it off and soften
Speaker 4: it up. You expect that of women. So when you
Speaker 4: see the opposite, that's kind of what I think people
Speaker 4: get excited to see. And I think they're dancers straight ahead.
Speaker 4: Or when you saw you know, me and my girls
Speaker 4: when you dance with Keith Sweat, you like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: these girls are getting busy. It's not just the cute
Speaker 4: and this and that, because you're used to seeing that
Speaker 4: all the time.
Speaker 6: That i'll be good video when the girls, when the
Speaker 6: guys do the thing, the girls come aat.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but that's the process and then you kind of
Speaker 4: you gotta you gotta make the artists look good at
Speaker 4: the end of the day. So even if your choreography
Speaker 4: doesn't suit them, your job is to make them look
Speaker 4: like the start that they are are supposed to be,
Speaker 4: and your choreography will have to up from it and
Speaker 4: you just have to change it, or you just have
Speaker 4: to be real creative and find a way to hide
Speaker 4: them for an eight count bring them back and make
Speaker 4: it look like you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: All right? So what is as there been a project
Speaker 2: where it was like not jankie, but very eleventh hour,
Speaker 2: either the manager doesn't like the dancing or something, and
Speaker 2: you got to change and you got like two hours
Speaker 2: left to figure out something real quick?
Speaker 4: Yo?
Speaker 2: Can you throw something together real quick? Like under pressure?
Speaker 2: Have you ever had that situation?
Speaker 4: I'm sure that's happened, where like a prop's not working,
Speaker 4: or like a dancer get sick and can't make the
Speaker 4: show and whatever's made for like six people now has
Speaker 4: to be made for five people because you're supposed to
Speaker 4: catch somebody like you have to do those kind of changes,
Speaker 4: or if a piece of equipment doesn't show up and
Speaker 4: didn't make it, like when you're going from city to
Speaker 4: city on tour and the trampoline doesn't show up and
Speaker 4: there's this whole like you have to make those adjustments
Speaker 4: on the spot. Yes, but that's what answers too, Like
Speaker 4: it's like, fuck it, we're gonna do this by six
Speaker 4: seven eight, and nobody knows who's messed up in the audience.
Speaker 4: Maybe the band members might know, the other dancers might know,
Speaker 4: but we know how to play it off. And that's
Speaker 4: the part you trained for.
Speaker 2: So so you see it when all of us feils,
Speaker 2: just two step.
Speaker 4: So you remember what the koreakey is to get back in. Yep,
Speaker 4: that too.
Speaker 2: Have you ever lost the gig? Have you ever gotten
Speaker 2: fired from the gig?
Speaker 4: Yes? I got fired. Me and Josie got fired. We
Speaker 4: got hired to dance with c C. Peniston and CEC
Speaker 4: was being managed by Her name was Tease. Tease was
Speaker 4: the niece of one of the girls from No the
Speaker 4: aunt of one of the girls from three O W.
Speaker 4: So she was married. Yeah, we heard at CC so
Speaker 4: we were doing a bunch of clubs. We did literally
Speaker 4: I think the first or second night of shows, we
Speaker 4: were doing club hits, like three or four shows a night,
Speaker 4: like you know, she had all the gig clubs poppets,
Speaker 4: so we were doing all the like three am, four
Speaker 4: am whatever, and Tees falters and said, we're not going
Speaker 4: to have your girls back. You outshine the artists, and
Speaker 4: and we literally got fired. I'm like, but that's why
Speaker 4: you hired us because we were good. We're like, yeah,
Speaker 4: but Nosie, Josie and led together.
Speaker 3: That's a lot.
Speaker 6: That's yeah, y'all, y'all superstars, Like thank you. Yeah, I'm curious,
Speaker 6: when was the last time you saw you saw some
Speaker 6: choreography and you were like, now they translated that vision,
Speaker 6: like when was the most recent thing you saw and
Speaker 6: you were like.
Speaker 4: Listen, whenever I watched Missy or whenever I watched Beyonce stuff,
Speaker 4: like I hat is still I think Missy's choreographer and
Speaker 4: I had is one of the few females who was
Speaker 4: in the circle back when I was in the circle,
Speaker 4: like he was battling and all that other stuff, and
Speaker 4: she really switched over to choreography, probably not before any
Speaker 4: of us, probably right after I switched over to television,
Speaker 4: but she's always been in the clubs for her choreography
Speaker 4: and her choice of the dance, singing, the stuff that
Speaker 4: she does between the collaborative work with Missy, it's like Missy,
Speaker 4: I've never danced for Missy. I would come out of
Speaker 4: retirement for Missy. I come out of retirement for her,
Speaker 4: justin Timberlake, I come out of retirement for Beyonce. Of
Speaker 4: course I lace up absolutely, So, Yeah, they impressed me,
Speaker 4: but their whole thing is a visual package that I'm
Speaker 4: just like, from the makeup to the clothing to like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't know how much longer I can. It's hard
Speaker 4: for me to go to a concert and not want
Speaker 4: to like jump on stage. So if I can create
Speaker 4: a project or become a part of an ensemble project
Speaker 4: where I can dance again, I'm all.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that Beyonce thing don't seem too far off though
Speaker 6: that really say that out loud?
Speaker 3: That don't really sound too I.
Speaker 4: Just want to look crazy. I don't want to be
Speaker 4: one hundred and seven dancing behind a bunch of hole.
Speaker 4: If they can't keep back with the girl, then.
Speaker 5: Yeah, how did the We didn't get the full story
Speaker 5: of the Living single how you got in uprated into
Speaker 5: the just into the credits like that was crazy.
Speaker 4: Well, when Otis Sale called me to he's like, let's
Speaker 4: I got this vision. I don't have the job. I
Speaker 4: just have an idea, so we're gonna shoot it. I
Speaker 4: just need you to say yes and be on board
Speaker 4: with it and then we'll figure it out if they
Speaker 4: take it. So Otis was like I met him down
Speaker 4: in Brooklyn underneath the Brooklyn Bridge Bridge, spent all day
Speaker 4: doing backflips on cobblestone everything whatever he shot. And literally
Speaker 4: that last movie you see where I'm going like this
Speaker 4: and I fell back. I was when I saw like
Speaker 4: one of his edits. I think he only kept like
Speaker 4: a front flip maybe and it may not even be
Speaker 4: in the full version of the TV show. But he
Speaker 4: called me one day he said, oh my god, they
Speaker 4: took it.
Speaker 3: They took it.
Speaker 4: We're gonna be And we didn't think it was gonna
Speaker 4: be as big as it was. We didn't think. We
Speaker 4: didn't think past the first airing, we didn't think past
Speaker 4: multiple seasons, we didn't think. I didn't think any of
Speaker 4: that stuff. And sure enough, to this day, that's probably
Speaker 4: one of the things I'm most recognized for, which is
Speaker 4: just crazy, even from like the new generation.
Speaker 3: Not to be in your pockets.
Speaker 6: But does a gig like that, So I'm trying to
Speaker 6: say it, you don't have to give me a number
Speaker 6: because it's eleven single is still playing on TV one
Speaker 6: as we speak in other places? Does that continue to
Speaker 6: pay for groceries every week? Does that continue to pay
Speaker 6: for your.
Speaker 3: Hair done twice a month?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 3: Where does what? Does it? Out of work?
Speaker 2: Wait? Would you even gets for?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Would you get.
Speaker 4: Asked a million dollar question?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: What happened with this deal is I did what I
Speaker 4: never thought I would do, which is a buyout, right oh,
Speaker 4: which is a one time fast and that's it. But
Speaker 4: even if I were getting residuals right now, I get
Speaker 4: residuals from a lot of stuff, and they're like the
Speaker 4: paper costs more than what the checks are.
Speaker 2: You get seventeen cents.
Speaker 4: You know, this show is almost twenty years old, so
Speaker 4: I wouldn't be making any any real money off bit anyway.
Speaker 4: But it served as purpose then at the time, and
Speaker 4: still yeah, so it does. I think the legacy of
Speaker 4: it all and me working with otis is a price
Speaker 4: you can't put anything on the fact that Os called me.
Speaker 4: There's no price for that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you said, Lindy Hop is your favorite dance style.
Speaker 5: How did you get into that?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm not all the way into it. But when
Speaker 4: you see the athleticism of women in dresses, swinging, flipping
Speaker 4: like it's me all day. Every nuance of that dance,
Speaker 4: from the back flips to the front flips, to the
Speaker 4: energy because it goes eighty miles a minute, speaks to
Speaker 4: my personality, like if I had to describe me in
Speaker 4: a dance, that's who I am is Lindy Up.
Speaker 6: It's crazy that our grandmothers were like that was their
Speaker 6: everyday dance. Every grandmothers knew how to do.
Speaker 4: That right of all sizes, whenever on the ground, no
Speaker 4: knee pads, yes, back flips, whatever. We don't care, not
Speaker 4: trying to be cute. We don't care what I and
Speaker 4: they still look cute, Like we don't care about what
Speaker 4: our hair and or whatever, but they still look cute
Speaker 4: before and after the whole like a press out press
Speaker 4: not press out.
Speaker 2: You all know what the press out is, right, Stephen, No,
Speaker 2: I mean it's it's a hair What you need Steve
Speaker 2: it's what Steve looks like right now.
Speaker 7: He needs is the Is the Lindy Hop related to
Speaker 7: the Lindy Yeah, the same thing.
Speaker 5: Yes, is Lindy Lindy jitle Bug.
Speaker 4: Swing in the same family. But Lindy Hop is like
Speaker 4: something you would see literally at the Cotton Club and all.
Speaker 2: These just you know, what was the woman that Brady
Speaker 2: Bunch did the Charleston? Was that a dance? Hilarious?
Speaker 4: Steve?
Speaker 2: Why do I only know that reference? Remember that episode?
Speaker 4: Put the hands on the knees crossing over right in
Speaker 4: the back at the back of front Carls.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, wow, before she go, can you tell us
Speaker 6: about your dance documentary? Because I used to want to
Speaker 6: be a dancer, but then I grew the breast, so
Speaker 6: I am so into it.
Speaker 3: And did you ever get your Debbie Allen moment?
Speaker 4: I'm trump stalking de Wie Allen now to try and
Speaker 4: get these interviews. This damn COVID has been a pain
Speaker 4: in the ass. Man. He's a cock blocker. It's a production.
Speaker 6: I don't know about being a cock blocker. You had
Speaker 6: to have that pre COVID so you can lock that up.
Speaker 4: But it's about uh, trust me, you know, I had
Speaker 4: the clean house before then, unfortunately, and that's all I'm
Speaker 4: open to talk about that too.
Speaker 5: Uh yeah, you had the clean house like you got
Speaker 5: rid all.
Speaker 4: Like seventeen years and we broke up before the pandemic
Speaker 4: and stuff like, oh, col you're fifteen. I found out
Speaker 4: he had been having an affair with one of Usher's
Speaker 4: dances for two years. We're trying to work stuff out.
Speaker 4: I found out there was another chick who had been
Speaker 4: around for eight years, and so in order for not
Speaker 4: to get my remy ma on or end up in
Speaker 4: an orange jumpsuit, I had to put them motherfucker out.
Speaker 5: So, oh, he was living y'all were living together at
Speaker 5: the time.
Speaker 4: Day one. People always like, how do you not know?
Speaker 4: I mean, granted, I'm a chick on tour and I've
Speaker 4: seen multiple affairs and stuff happen, right, but this is
Speaker 4: somebody who really, other than being on tour, never went out.
Speaker 4: We had a studio in the back or whatever. But
Speaker 4: the whole all the relationships were the chicky met in
Speaker 4: Australia like this on zoom or FaceTime or whatever and
Speaker 4: masturbation sessions. And you say not physical on time, Well no,
Speaker 4: they were physical because us was dancing. Only lived a
Speaker 4: couple of blocks away, and so whenever I had to
Speaker 4: go out of town or whatever, they would hook up. Well,
Speaker 4: the whole time that they were on the road and
Speaker 4: I couldn't get out to the cities, you know, they
Speaker 4: were hooking up. So and when you with somebody who
Speaker 4: you can call at four o'clock in Morocco and be
Speaker 4: on the phone or facetiming and see everybody in the room,
Speaker 4: you don't realize the other chick might be on the
Speaker 4: other side of the computer or he'll be like, go
Speaker 4: to your room. I'll call you and right person saying
Speaker 4: I love you. You mean my world to me. We're
Speaker 4: trying to have a family, all these things in your
Speaker 4: face and then doing all this other stuff over here.
Speaker 3: So girl, why would you still doing why are you.
Speaker 8: All this?
Speaker 2: Wait?
Speaker 6: Seriously, though, less I wonder it's about me and my
Speaker 6: great my my music industry, cistern. Why do we dip
Speaker 6: and dive in our in our ponds, Like why don't
Speaker 6: you're Yes, you.
Speaker 3: You're just children.
Speaker 6: You're just children at the very at the very least
Speaker 6: on a good day, your children.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: Okay, So, and I'm curious for a grown as woman
Speaker 6: like Les. I'm like, so it's time to get a
Speaker 6: contractor accountant. Uh I mind you, I said to all.
Speaker 6: I'm in the social services myself.
Speaker 4: Oh see, I've dated all kinds of guys. It doesn't
Speaker 4: matter man's going she if he wants to cheat, right,
Speaker 4: They have that fear of missing out. And it doesn't
Speaker 4: matter whether you're a rock star and tour and everything's
Speaker 4: easy for you, or if you go into an office
Speaker 4: and the chick who sits in a cubicle next to
Speaker 4: you is throw a pussy at you. It doesn't matter
Speaker 4: if that. You know, John Sally said to me, the
Speaker 4: best pussy is new pussy. And that's why men cheat.
Speaker 4: And men get curious or the minute that you know
Speaker 4: they feel like you're not giving them the attention, or
Speaker 4: they get more attention over there, or they're having a
Speaker 4: mid life crisis, or their ego needs to be fed
Speaker 4: or whatever is. You know, they're gonna my men.
Speaker 5: And I'm not saying, I'm just I'm listening to y'all talk.
Speaker 3: But not to stay that.
Speaker 4: Women don't cheat either. I have some girls who are
Speaker 4: cheatings too, who are married and cheating on their husbands
Speaker 4: and whatever that is. And I'm just like, why when
Speaker 4: you can have a conversation and you don't have to
Speaker 4: be married, you don't have to be in a relationship.
Speaker 4: You can decide to be single for the rest of
Speaker 4: your life and have as many women as you want,
Speaker 4: and even choose the one you want to have a
Speaker 4: kid with. You can choose the one you want to
Speaker 4: stay over four days a week. Like, you can have
Speaker 4: those conversations and live the life you want. You don't
Speaker 4: have to be like this is us, this is me.
Speaker 4: Like year three, we had done our life insurance policy,
Speaker 4: our living trust, we had on our wheels, our health
Speaker 4: prop all this stuff except for being officially married. We
Speaker 4: were trying to have a family together. Why are you
Speaker 4: still trying to have a family with me if you're unhappy?
Speaker 4: And then I find out about the affair and you're
Speaker 4: begging not to end it, So obviously you're not that unhappy.
Speaker 4: You just wanted a little taste. He had a little taste,
Speaker 4: So we don't need to be.
Speaker 5: Together, and you just found out at the end, like
Speaker 5: this is recent, like before came the end.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it became the end year like I said, And
Speaker 4: I'm not one who's very forgiving. I'm usually very light up.
Speaker 4: And so when I found out you were a year
Speaker 4: fifteen and a half together, and literally I'm not a snooper,
Speaker 4: none of that. He says something that made me just
Speaker 4: be like, wait what. And I looked at one thing
Speaker 4: and then everything unround. God puts everything in your face.
Speaker 4: And I had named addresses, emails, text messages, receipts, all
Speaker 4: of that stuff. So I talked to like twelve different people,
Speaker 4: couples who were married. Eleven of the twelve were like,
Speaker 4: go to therapy, try and find forgive this. See what
Speaker 4: that looks like for you. Give it another shot. Four
Speaker 4: months in I find out about the chick who've been
Speaker 4: around for eight years in Australia. We're not talking one
Speaker 4: night's stance. We're talking relationships. We're talking emotional connections. We're
Speaker 4: talking emails, we're talking gifts. We're talking you're putting money,
Speaker 4: taking money out of our household into their household. We're
Speaker 4: talking you have an unprotected sex and now you're putting
Speaker 4: my health at risk. And if I had made a
Speaker 4: phone call or if I was that chick on an
Speaker 4: episode of Snaps.
Speaker 3: I was about we're talking where your girls at.
Speaker 4: It got to a point where once I put him
Speaker 4: out and California does not have uh oh my god,
Speaker 4: what do you call it?
Speaker 5: Property?
Speaker 3: Not that common law?
Speaker 4: Common law doesn't exist, hasn't existed since like the I
Speaker 4: knew that, and all the properties were mine, and so
Speaker 4: I realized I did have a case. You can't just
Speaker 4: treat somebody like that, put their health at risk, make
Speaker 4: promises to the so that now I'm pulling myself out
Speaker 4: for you and instead of I could have had a
Speaker 4: whole family with somebody else.
Speaker 6: So they don't know about our time. They don't know
Speaker 6: how precious our time is. I don't know why these.
Speaker 3: Motherfuckers keep playing with our time. Life is not even
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: But to empower women have options. And before I recognizing
Speaker 4: that that you can't do that to other people. So
Speaker 4: him putting my risk and you know, thank god I
Speaker 4: didn't catch anything, because you're really talking to me in
Speaker 4: orange jumpsuit. But that happened, or the fact that you
Speaker 4: know you wasted my time or made promises, it came
Speaker 4: with a price, and there's not any amount of money
Speaker 4: that's going to get my time back, from my fertility back,
Speaker 4: None of that but I guarantee you every time that ship,
Speaker 4: that check shows up, it shows how expensive that extracurricular
Speaker 4: pussy was for him.
Speaker 5: So y'all him, he has to pay you.
Speaker 4: I can only say the word settlement, but absent fucking
Speaker 4: movement on my tears. I had to remind you I was.
Speaker 4: I have to remind myself that my cake was in
Speaker 4: the back, like I'm a New York too. Wait a minute,
Speaker 4: what just happened?
Speaker 2: Haig? Enough?
Speaker 3: My time is money. My time is money.
Speaker 4: So to all you out there, you better teach your
Speaker 4: daughters they don't have to stand for no bullshit. Teach
Speaker 4: your sons that they don't have to be in a
Speaker 4: relationship that doesn't have an explanation of terms about what
Speaker 4: it is you want. Because people, you don't have to
Speaker 4: be married. We don't have to live together. I can agree,
Speaker 4: or you can be with somebody else, And all you
Speaker 4: have to do is say three words, I'm not happy,
Speaker 4: this ain't working. I want out right. Not all these
Speaker 4: years of all this extra curricular stuff. That was devastating,
Speaker 4: absolutely devastating to me. I've never been so broken in
Speaker 4: my life. You know, to the point where you have
Speaker 4: to like go to therapy to talk to someone because
Speaker 4: you're tired of talking to your friends and every time
Speaker 4: you come around and you're like, oh, here you come again.
Speaker 4: At all that thoughts that you don't even recognize who
Speaker 4: you are because this person that you trust, right, if
Speaker 4: it's somebody you don't know, you're not that devastated by
Speaker 4: the disappointment or the broken It's the people that are
Speaker 4: closest to you, that you trust with your life, that
Speaker 4: devastate you and betray you.
Speaker 3: And that's a long time.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I would have given this to the kidney, and
Speaker 4: I think and our families were so close to the
Speaker 4: point where my mom would fly to Texas and stay
Speaker 4: with his mom or he, you know, say fly to
Speaker 4: New York or whatever. So you're breaking up families. I
Speaker 4: was the sisters, the godmother of his niece. You know,
Speaker 4: I can't talk to them anymore of the you know,
Speaker 4: all this stuff. My mother is his sister's son, all
Speaker 4: of that. So because you wanted some extra pussy.
Speaker 5: When you talk about the settlement, I know you can't
Speaker 5: say we talk about the settlement, what was it on
Speaker 5: the grounds of the.
Speaker 4: Grounds of the fact that he put my health at risk.
Speaker 4: I'm speaking out of not legal terms, but there's the term,
Speaker 4: but putting my health at risk for making promises for
Speaker 4: uh he met, I was able to prove that he
Speaker 4: had promised to take care of me. We're in this relationship,
Speaker 4: blah blah blah, financial contributions and all that other stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 4: there were a lot of grounds that he had to
Speaker 4: be held accountable for. That is, I couldn't mention the affairs.
Speaker 4: So it wasn't even about the affairs. It was about
Speaker 4: the only thing in which the affair maybe played a
Speaker 4: part in was because my health was a thing that
Speaker 4: he had intentional intention to harm. I think it's what
Speaker 4: it's called or something like that. But the affairs had
Speaker 4: no play in it. And it had to be that
Speaker 4: because we were living as husband and wife for seventeen years,
Speaker 4: that there's a price on it.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: Had we been married in California for like ten years
Speaker 4: and he automatically would have had to pay five years.
Speaker 4: If we were married, say nine years and eleven months,
Speaker 4: then the price is negotiable. I fall under even with
Speaker 4: the promises that I was able to prove, you know,
Speaker 4: him taking care of me and the life that we're
Speaker 4: going to lead and that we were starting to have
Speaker 4: a family and doing all this other stuff, I fall
Speaker 4: under the negotiation whatever, and so he opted for mediation,
Speaker 4: and that's what happened. But there's a lawyer.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a class.
Speaker 3: At the least it's it's a class. I'm there.
Speaker 4: I literally started to google stuff, and I knew because
Speaker 4: like I've always done my paperwork, my mother always said,
Speaker 4: if you have kids, or if you own property, make
Speaker 4: sure your trust and your will are done so that
Speaker 4: you never have to deal with it again. Even when
Speaker 4: I bought my first property in nineteen ninety one or
Speaker 4: whatever it was, I made sure that it was taken
Speaker 4: care of in a trust. So then I bought a house.
Speaker 4: He moved into both properties with me. I was smart enough,
Speaker 4: even though I included him as beneficiary on certain things,
Speaker 4: to sign something that said, even with the equity, that
Speaker 4: he couldn't gain anything because he tried to come after
Speaker 4: my property. But being a smart street, smart look smart chick,
Speaker 4: he couldn't kid so. But yeah, I literally just was
Speaker 4: googling some stuff. And then when I realized that there
Speaker 4: was no common law in California, but I actually had
Speaker 4: other rights, and that there's something that's called the Marvin
Speaker 4: claim or a case that was called Marvin versus Marvin.
Speaker 4: Where you live with someone now they have like cohabitation laws,
Speaker 4: but where you live with someone under the guise of
Speaker 4: being a family and being supported in that way. And
Speaker 4: you can prove it whether I didn't have to quit
Speaker 4: a job just to say I'm helping him with his business,
Speaker 4: but clearly I did along the way. There's a price
Speaker 4: that needs to be paid for that. So women have rights.
Speaker 4: And I'll just say this to you guys again, Like
Speaker 4: I said, you don't have to enter the women out
Speaker 4: there who are cheating. You can have a relationship where
Speaker 4: you can have twenty partners and nobody has to get
Speaker 4: hurt and everybody's agreeable. You know, you want to be
Speaker 4: married and she and just be like, I'm not happy,
Speaker 4: that's what it is, and get out. But you don't
Speaker 4: have to cause all that damage and all that wreckage
Speaker 4: and all that be trust or put somebody's health at risk.
Speaker 4: For all of that and all the women who don't
Speaker 4: know what to do, get yourself a lawyer and do
Speaker 4: what you need to do.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you learned this lesson.
Speaker 5: Before March, I couldn't imagine being quarantine with somebody like that.
Speaker 2: The most pregnancy and the most breakups I've ever seen
Speaker 2: in my Like, yeah, shit, I'm lucky with crazy because
Speaker 2: everyone else is falling. By the ways.
Speaker 4: That the divorce rates have like tripled during this porn
Speaker 4: right because you're either with either you're romanticizing the fact
Speaker 4: that you're in this COVID or you're with somebody that
Speaker 4: you didn't really want to be with anyway. And you
Speaker 4: guys were on the verge and people now are just
Speaker 4: like fuck it, they're filing between the kids and this
Speaker 4: and that or whatever, you know. So I'm like, even
Speaker 4: in my book and all that other stuff I'm working on,
Speaker 4: I'll be very open about the details about how I
Speaker 4: found out what happened. I mean, it's crazy because every
Speaker 4: people who know don't want to say anything, and then
Speaker 4: once they find out that you know, people start talking.
Speaker 4: So even his friends start whatever. But I don't know
Speaker 4: how I became like super sloop and things just start
Speaker 4: falling in your lap or you start paying attention because
Speaker 4: when you're with somebody you trust, you don't feel like
Speaker 4: you have to look at anything else, so you're just
Speaker 4: kind of this business is you. And then when you
Speaker 4: start remembering when such and such happened, or the day
Speaker 4: that he said he was going to the studio, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, why you got on so much cologne? All
Speaker 4: the bottles built?
Speaker 3: Wait but that night.
Speaker 4: But I didn't think twice about you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: So yeah, But the documentary, as you asked me about,
Speaker 4: is about the women of nineties hip hop dancing, because
Speaker 4: we always hear about the rock Steady Crew, Like I
Speaker 4: even had a conversation with rock people Cannon of the
Speaker 4: hip Hop Mujam, and all they always talk about is
Speaker 4: just the guys or the rock Steady Crew, who I
Speaker 4: love crazy legs and was like, those are my guys.
Speaker 4: But I'm like, you're forgetting about the whole Golden era.
Speaker 4: You forget about what these women have contributed to, these
Speaker 4: visuals that are art, like give us our love.
Speaker 3: So I wanted y'all to slow down that Don't Rush video.
Speaker 6: I was like, wait, that's who that's my girlfriend D'Angelo video.
Speaker 4: That's oh oh wait, Yeah, that was a nice place.
Speaker 4: I'm in a place now. I can't talk to John Singleton.
Speaker 4: I can't I talked to Heavy Bee, I can't hook
Speaker 4: to Michael. I can't talk to Whitney. I can't talk
Speaker 4: to Andre herrel to get these stories told. These are
Speaker 4: some of the most iconic pieces of work, you know,
Speaker 4: less to talk about. And Andre and I had literally
Speaker 4: had scheduled, you know, getting on camera and stuff, and
Speaker 4: you know this happened. You know, I just thank god
Speaker 4: interview with Teddy Riley and stuff. I got to get
Speaker 4: my mom on camera, you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 4: these stories have to be told. And I'm sure the
Speaker 4: same for you, Puss, Like all these people you've worked
Speaker 4: for and everyone else you've crosspath with all these people
Speaker 4: and part of your history and your legacy, and you
Speaker 4: want to get the best version of you know, the
Speaker 4: things that you imagine or didn't even imagine for yourself
Speaker 4: as an eight year old kid. And here you are
Speaker 4: at the highest level or at these experiences, whether they
Speaker 4: come back around and not, and you want to be
Speaker 4: able to let hear what these people thought about you,
Speaker 4: or why they hired you, or what it is you
Speaker 4: brought to the table, and you can't and how you
Speaker 4: created damn.
Speaker 5: You.
Speaker 4: I don't think any of us went into it with
Speaker 4: an intention other than to do what we love, you know,
Speaker 4: And I'm glad it's resonated, so.
Speaker 2: Wow wow, Well, thank you for sharing your story with us.
Speaker 5: Les Yeah, thank you for real and thank you you
Speaker 5: were as a latch told about being a latch ski
Speaker 5: kid in New York. I was a latchkey kid in
Speaker 5: North Carolina in Greensboro, and I used to come home
Speaker 5: every day and I would watch Rap City and you
Speaker 5: were my babysitter for like two years. So much love
Speaker 5: and appreciation for all you've done.
Speaker 2: Seriously, we thank you for being our babysitter, big Less. Everybody, hey,
Speaker 2: and thank you.
Speaker 6: For redefining a woman. Thank you for redefining woman image
Speaker 6: of a woman on TV.
Speaker 3: Like that's amazing.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, Like even when they was like that name
Speaker 5: big les I mean because in the South, I'm like,
Speaker 5: she ain't big. I can show you, I can show
Speaker 5: you big. You want to see big, she ain't big.
Speaker 4: But because it went from being like I see people
Speaker 4: who are like you're not that big, Yeah you're not fantastic,
Speaker 4: or people are like she must be a lesbian because
Speaker 4: of Less, I'm like I heard that ship nothing else,
Speaker 4: tim Timothy Dave, David les Leslie. That's it. It's just
Speaker 4: that simple. Otherwise I'd have a book, deal to TV
Speaker 4: show like Ellen, if I please.
Speaker 2: Out there, You'll have it less.
Speaker 3: You are loved, You are loved.
Speaker 5: Just know that you really are real.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen on behalf of Fonzigelow and I'm Pepe
Speaker 2: Bill and Sugar Steve.
Speaker 1: And like ya.
Speaker 2: Thank you lest Love Supreme. We will see you on
Speaker 2: the next go around.
Speaker 4: Love you guys, West.
Speaker 1: Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.