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Speaker 1: Muhammad Ali. The name still carries a rare magic. It

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Speaker 1: calls upon his spirit, which was unyielding. But that magic

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Speaker 1: we think of now wasn't always the same back then,

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Speaker 1: as filmmaker Jeffrey Kusama Hinte puts it.

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Speaker 2: You know, in the late sixties he was vilified. I mean,

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Speaker 2: Ali was just considered a pariah even into the seventies

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Speaker 2: until after the fight. So afterwards, remember in this great

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Speaker 2: beloved figure, which he was, But he wasn't before that.

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Speaker 2: But this was part of the process of making that happen.

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Speaker 1: There has never been anyone like him. There will never

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Speaker 1: be another like him. He was an all American original.

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Speaker 1: He was the best of us. Even at his worst,

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Speaker 1: he still told the truth of America. His racism was

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Speaker 1: America's racism, and his victories became the people's victories. Muhammad

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Speaker 1: Ali was and will always be the people's cham.

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Speaker 3: I think it was Bob Dylan who said that, you know,

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Speaker 3: Ali was the great personality of the twentieth century.

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Speaker 1: One can track the progress of America by following the

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Speaker 1: life of Muhammad Ali.

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Speaker 3: You see this young black kid discovering his identity, discovering

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Speaker 3: black pride in the middle of the civil rights movement.

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Speaker 3: Then you see the civil rights movement ending and fighting

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Speaker 3: Fraser and Ali losing, but discovering that Americans kind of

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Speaker 3: loved him even more when he lost. Suddenly you see

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Speaker 3: kind of an embrace that wouldn't have been possible during

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Speaker 3: the radical rebellious phase of the sixties.

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Speaker 1: And then when Ali rises to fight again to reclaim

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Speaker 1: his title and he faces Foreman in that hot, inhumid

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Speaker 1: stadium in Zayere, this is the moment when what we

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Speaker 1: think of as the sixties come to a thundering, triumphant close.

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Speaker 1: It was as if all the fights and all the

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Speaker 1: battles and all the cultural energy of the sixties it

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Speaker 1: all ends. When George Foreman falls and Muhammad Ali raises

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Speaker 1: his gloved fists in defiant victory. It's this peak moment,

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Speaker 1: and it's the end of an era. As a boxer

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Speaker 1: and as a man, Ali had come so far, endured

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Speaker 1: so much. His struggle for a better world came at

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Speaker 1: a steep price, but his sacrifices earned him the respect

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Speaker 1: of people around the globe. In nineteen sixty four, he

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Speaker 1: was Cash's clay, young punk kid, the Louisville lip, that

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Speaker 1: brash and arrogant fighter who wanted the whole world to

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Speaker 1: know he was too pretty not to be the champ.

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Speaker 1: As his biographer Jonathan I describes Ali.

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Speaker 3: In the sixties, he was this loud mouth braggart. You know,

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Speaker 3: Black people worn supposed to talk to white authority that way.

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Speaker 1: But you better believe Ali didn't care. He forced the

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Speaker 1: culture of the United States to change to progress, just

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Speaker 1: the same as how he grew and changed as a man.

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Speaker 1: By nineteen seventy four, the people's champ reclaims his throne,

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Speaker 1: and once again Ali has shook up the world.

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Speaker 3: And he's now a hero in a way that like

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Speaker 3: nobody imagined possible when he was so unpopular in the sixties.

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Speaker 3: And I think that when you get into the seventies

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Speaker 3: and we're into this age of the celebrity and pop

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Speaker 3: culture is exploding and athletes are becoming millionaires and commercial prospects,

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Speaker 3: you know, it's becoming more of a business. Ali is

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Speaker 3: still refreshing because he's real. It's just no bullshit about

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Speaker 3: the guy.

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Speaker 1: When Ali reclaims his stolen title, he also rights the

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Speaker 1: wrongs done to him, and in his victory over the

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Speaker 1: powers that be, the people rejoice for Ali.

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Speaker 2: Getting the press on his side, getting the crowd on

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Speaker 2: his side, all this energy like Ali Bombay, and he

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Speaker 2: has God on his side and he can't lose. And

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Speaker 2: Mu's electrifying. And when you look at the whole footage,

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Speaker 2: like you feel him becoming animated with that thought that

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Speaker 2: the passions of these people are working through him.

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Speaker 1: By the time Ali lifts the Olympic torch in Atlanta

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Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety six to help light the Eternal Flame

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Speaker 1: and mark the opening of the Games, the former Olympic

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Speaker 1: champs hands now visibly shake from Parkinson's. His famous verbosity

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Speaker 1: is now reduced to a hushed whisper, a great man

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Speaker 1: humbled by time. Fred Wesley remembers this day, well.

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Speaker 4: When I saw him light that torch for the Olympics,

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Speaker 4: it really brought tears in my eyes, for real. It

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Speaker 4: was an exciting moment for the world to see.

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Speaker 3: You know, when as he becomes older and sicker and

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Speaker 3: more vulnerable, you know, we embrace him in a whole

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Speaker 3: new way. We forget how radical he was.

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Speaker 1: Muhammad Alie has become a heroic figure who exists on

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Speaker 1: a singular level. He's the rare person who, like Willie

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Speaker 1: Nelson and Dolly Parton, Aretha Franklin, and Snoop Dogg. Is

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Speaker 1: an icon who is beloved by everyone.

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Speaker 3: And we embrace him as almost like an all American hero.

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Speaker 3: And maybe that's not fair because we you should remember

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Speaker 3: him for how dangerous he was, not a safe, you know, comfy, huggable,

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Speaker 3: squeezable Ali. But that's just that tells you something about

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Speaker 3: the country and how it's changed that we want to

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Speaker 3: find this safe and comfortable way to love Ali.

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Speaker 1: In the end, Like Martin Luther King Junior Muhammad, Ali

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Speaker 1: also dreamed of a better world, and Ali believed America

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Speaker 1: could attain it. Well, let me correct that Ali believed

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Speaker 1: that the American people could attain it. Ali trusted in

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Speaker 1: the hearts of the people to one day overcome their

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Speaker 1: fears and prejudice. The thing is, no man, no woman,

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Speaker 1: no person is perfect. We are each an imperfect collection

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Speaker 1: of human tendencies. Yet in the examples of MLK and Ali,

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Speaker 1: we easily see how love outlasts hate, how a man's

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Speaker 1: violence may achieve small goals in the short term, but

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Speaker 1: a person's legacy of love is what truly lasts.

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Speaker 2: We went out for the Academy awards, and they would

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Speaker 2: put us up at the Beverly Hills Hotel and Muhammad

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Speaker 2: Ali had a cottage and he was there and an

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Speaker 2: amazing presence, and he was already he was sick.

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Speaker 5: Man.

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Speaker 2: It was said that, you know, he didn't speak, but

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Speaker 2: he did speak, actually, but he had to speak like

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Speaker 2: in a whisper. And you know, I think he really

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Speaker 2: had this tremendous appreciation that the film could portray him

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Speaker 2: in that way, you know, because again, so many audiences

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Speaker 2: afterwards see them as this beautiful, popular person, but he

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Speaker 2: lived a life where he wasn't that person, where he

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Speaker 2: was marginalized and vilified, and you know, had to overcome

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Speaker 2: tremendous adversity. So I think that being able to see

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Speaker 2: himself in this great light and then knowing that other

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Speaker 2: people were seeing him like that as well, was very gratifying.

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Speaker 1: Mohammad Ali finally got to see himself the way the

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Speaker 1: people saw him.

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Speaker 2: You're rooting for him, not just in that sports way,

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Speaker 2: but almost like in this this sort of mystical quality,

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Speaker 2: like he's the best of us, and he must prevail,

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Speaker 2: you know, if we were to survive.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Rumble, The story of Ali Foreman and the

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Speaker 1: soul music of nineteen seventy four. I'm your host zarn Burnett,

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Speaker 1: the third from My Heart podcast and School of Humans.

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Speaker 6: This is rumble.

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Speaker 1: Martin Luther King Junior, who's quoted and beloved now, is

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Speaker 1: not the same radical, anti war, anti capitalist firebrand that

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Speaker 1: he was at the end of his life. Instead, his

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Speaker 1: legacy has been codified, essentialized, reduced down to a few

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Speaker 1: well worn sound bites. The complicated life of his mind,

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Speaker 1: the intense fire of his soul has been excised, just

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Speaker 1: like a butterfly in a museum collection. Mlk's legacy is

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Speaker 1: now pinned to a board, a lifeless husk, a colorful

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Speaker 1: shell that hints at the vibrancy that once existed. This

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Speaker 1: same thing has happened to Muhammad Ali, the man who

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Speaker 1: floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee, is

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Speaker 1: largely reduced to sound bites, motivational means, and poster quotes.

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Speaker 1: He's been rendered a safe and bloodless symbol of his

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Speaker 1: past self. Societies often choose to remember heroes in ways

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Speaker 1: that say more about the society that it does about

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Speaker 1: the hero. Subsequent generations prefer to feel comfort from the

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Speaker 1: tales of their long gone. Great men and women their

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Speaker 1: heroes of old, rather than the trials that made them

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Speaker 1: heroes in the first place. MLK wasn't just the man

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Speaker 1: who judged others not on the color of their skin,

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Speaker 1: but on the content of their character. He was also

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Speaker 1: the minister who evolved his stance on labor and became

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Speaker 1: a zealous advocate for economic justice. He was not a

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Speaker 1: businessman's life coach. Nor was MLK a cuddly, nonviolent teddy

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Speaker 1: bear who wanted everyone to just get along. MLK, like

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Speaker 1: Muhammad Ali, was a fighter, a human possessed of a

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Speaker 1: fierce morality. There is a tendency for time to sanitize

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Speaker 1: this radicalness, to defang those who fought for change. Time

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Speaker 1: also sands away the hard edges. It loses sight of

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Speaker 1: the obstacles that had to be overcome, and what we

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Speaker 1: are left with is this celebrity version, the Hollywood biopic version,

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Speaker 1: one based on a true story. Yet this sanitization often

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Speaker 1: overlooks the most important aspect of a great person, how

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Speaker 1: they make others feel. A person's true legacy of their

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Speaker 1: greatness isn't the memory of how they shook up the world,

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Speaker 1: but how it felt when they did, how that shaking

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Speaker 1: rippled out, and how it reshaped the world for others.

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Speaker 1: But we also cannot overlook the costs such great men

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Speaker 1: and women must pay to reshape our world. For MLK,

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Speaker 1: the cost was his life. For Muhammad Ali, he paid

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Speaker 1: the cost with his mind, his body, and his soul.

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Speaker 1: As a fight writer deeply familiar with the brutality of

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Speaker 1: the fight game, Mark Kregel remains astounded by the punishment

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Speaker 1: Ali endured in the ring. Kregel considers it the litmus

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Speaker 1: test of a fighter's will and its further evidence of

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Speaker 1: Ali's greatness.

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Speaker 7: Ali is martyred by his own courage, by his own ego.

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Speaker 7: If you look at the body shots that Ali took

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Speaker 7: in round five, the will and the ego that's required

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Speaker 7: to stand through that, not just in Zaire, but countless

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Speaker 7: other times. That wailing away in his body the bill

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Speaker 7: we see him paying later in life, when everyone's cheering

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Speaker 7: and he's shaking lighting the Olympic torch. That's the price.

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Speaker 1: For a sense of the bodily damage. Here's a snippet

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Speaker 1: from my conversation with biographer Jonathan ig Our. Executive producer

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Speaker 1: Gary Stromberg was there too, when he was compiling research

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Speaker 1: for his biography of Ali, Jonathan I tabulated how many

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Speaker 1: times Muhammad Ali was punched over the course of his

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Speaker 1: entire career.

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Speaker 3: Two hundred thousand.

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Speaker 1: What do you make of being punched in the head

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Speaker 1: two hundred thousand times.

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Speaker 3: It's not good. I've been punched in the head three times,

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Speaker 3: and that's not good. Two hundred thousand is really bad,

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Speaker 3: and it's sad. Really, I shouldn't joke about it, because

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Speaker 3: you know, Ali made this choice. It was his career,

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Speaker 3: so what he was good at, and as he got older,

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Speaker 3: he recognized that that was the strategy for winning, was

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Speaker 3: to take a lot of punches. So in the first

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Speaker 3: phase of his career, he's really taking very few punches.

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Speaker 3: But when he comes back after his exile, part of

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Speaker 3: his strategy is to take punches and to let his

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Speaker 3: opponents get tired and to fight back when time is right,

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Speaker 3: and that's when he starts to accumulate this damage, and

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Speaker 3: it absolutely takes a toll. You can see it. Even

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Speaker 3: in the early seventies. His speech is beginning to slow down,

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Speaker 3: his words are beginning to slur, and he's fighting.

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Speaker 5: On and on.

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Speaker 3: Even after he's starting to have trembling in his thumbs

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Speaker 3: and numbness in his feet. You know, the signs are

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Speaker 3: all there that he's taken too many punches and he

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Speaker 3: still fights into the eighties.

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Speaker 8: Jhonathan, how did you arrive at that number?

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Speaker 9: Two hundred thousand?

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Speaker 10: Oh?

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Speaker 3: I worked with CompuBox. They watched every fight and counted

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Speaker 3: every punch. There were only a few fights that we

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Speaker 3: didn't have on film, so we were really able to

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Speaker 3: It's not an estimate, you know, we counted every punch.

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Speaker 1: Two hundred thousand punches. The number boggles the mind. Here's

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Speaker 1: Ali's grandson, Nico Ali Walsh as a young professional boxer.

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Speaker 1: Nico gets it.

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Speaker 8: And not only that, but he's a heavyweight.

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Speaker 10: So if you want to get scientific, these heavyweights punched

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Speaker 10: with the power of like I know a small example

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Speaker 10: frances and Ganu.

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Speaker 8: They measured his punch. He's a heavyweight and he punched at.

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Speaker 10: The power of an automobile crash and I think foreman's

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Speaker 10: up there. So you're getting hit with that power that

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Speaker 10: amount of times. It's not it's not healthy. It's not

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Speaker 10: healthy at all.

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Speaker 1: Nico has followed his grandfather's footsteps, or more accurately, his

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Speaker 1: footwork right into the ring. He's currently a young, up

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Speaker 1: and coming professional fighter and has also faced the highs

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Speaker 1: and the lows of life in professional boxing. He shared

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Speaker 1: with us some of his favorite memories of his grandfather.

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Speaker 10: I lost my first amateur fight and it was down

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Speaker 10: the street from his house. He was supposed to come

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Speaker 10: to the fight, but he ended up getting sick that night,

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Speaker 10: and thank god he didn't come, because I got totally

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Speaker 10: beat up.

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Speaker 8: I just wanted to quit boxing.

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Speaker 10: I've never quit anything in my life, so I wouldn't

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Speaker 10: want to quit on a dream.

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Speaker 8: That would be the worst thing for me to do.

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Speaker 10: We were at one of my brother's high school football games,

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Speaker 10: and because there's always so many people around my grandfather,

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Speaker 10: you know, people love him, we never really got alone time.

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Speaker 10: But this time he got into the car early. He

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Speaker 10: was sitting in the passenger seat and I was sitting

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Speaker 10: in the driver's seat, and we were just chilling in

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Speaker 10: the car, just me and him, and we were of

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Speaker 10: course watching my sparing footage this and that, and I

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Speaker 10: got real scared about like my journey with boxing. I

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Speaker 10: knew the pressure that was going to come, Like everyone

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Speaker 10: wants to knock you out in boxing already but now

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Speaker 10: the fact that you're in Ali, it's like tightened by

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Speaker 10: ten times.

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Speaker 8: So I was scared and I wanted to quit boxing.

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Speaker 10: We would kind of communicate with like hands, so I

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Speaker 10: held his hand and when he squeezed that would mean yes,

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Speaker 10: and then when he didn't squeeze, that would mean no.

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Speaker 8: So I would ask him. I was trying to get

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Speaker 8: him to say, yeah you should maybe you shouldn't do boxing.

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Speaker 10: I was trying to get his blessing so that I

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Speaker 10: could quit and still kind of have my ego intact.

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Speaker 8: Because my grandfather told me to quit.

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Speaker 10: So I was holding his hand and I was like,

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Speaker 10: do you think maybe this isn't for me?

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Speaker 8: Maybe I should stop boxing?

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Speaker 10: And I didn't feel anything, and I was like, squeeze

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Speaker 10: my hand if you think like maybe I should just

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Speaker 10: dull another route.

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Speaker 8: I still didn't feel nothing.

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Speaker 10: I thought maybe he just didn't hear me, So I said,

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Speaker 10: do you think I should stick with it? And he

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Speaker 10: squeezed my hand super super tight, and I was like, damn,

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Speaker 10: like now I have to.

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Speaker 8: I made a promise to myself.

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Speaker 10: Way back then that I wasn't gonna quit, So still

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Speaker 10: to this day, I feel that, and that's why I

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Speaker 10: keep going.

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Speaker 1: And that's what having Muhammad Ali as a grandfather can

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Speaker 1: do for you, prepare you for that brutality of life

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Speaker 1: in the Ring. But far more than his violence in

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Speaker 1: the Ring or all the abuse that he could endure,

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Speaker 1: it was his brief moments with people, those fleeting moments

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Speaker 1: outside the ring, those tender little moments with strangers. That's

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Speaker 1: when Ali's soul could shine through, illuminate the moment, and

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Speaker 1: best exemplify his true greatness. It was how Ali made

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Speaker 1: people feel that mattered most of all.

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Speaker 3: I think about all those moments, those magical little moments

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Speaker 3: that you know, people ran into in an airport, and

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Speaker 3: I can't tell you after the book came out how

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Speaker 3: many of them I heard. I could do a whole

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Speaker 3: book of magical moments with Muhammad Ali. Where like a

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Speaker 3: woman told me they were in a diner and then

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Speaker 3: he saw Ali sitting across the way, and her brother

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Speaker 3: had just had like eye surgery and his whole face

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Speaker 3: was patched up, and all these people are coming around

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Speaker 3: to Ali's table and getting autographs, making pictures, and Ali

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Speaker 3: looks up and sees the kid with like his face

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Speaker 3: all bandaged stuff, and gets up and says excuse me,

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Speaker 3: hi minute, and goes and sits with the kid and

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Speaker 3: like talks to him for half an hour. You know

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Speaker 3: those things are really they move me that, like you

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00:17:11,680 --> 00:17:13,600
Speaker 3: can make such a big difference with you know, half

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Speaker 3: an hour of your time. And those are stories that

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Speaker 3: those people are gonna be telling the rest of their lives.

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Speaker 3: It was just another half hour in Ali's life.

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Speaker 1: There were three great Olympic heavyweight champs of the nineteen sixties,

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Speaker 1: Cashus Clay, Joe Frasier and George Foreman. The three fighters

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Speaker 1: each reached the rarefied heights of professional boxing. They all

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Speaker 1: fought each other, They beat each other, and they would

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00:17:46,840 --> 00:17:51,000
Speaker 1: not have been great without each other, and their stories

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Speaker 1: are now inseparable.

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Speaker 11: I think they all were on the journey that was

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Speaker 11: set out for them.

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Speaker 1: As my pops used to tell me.

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Speaker 11: Ali being raised in a segregated city in a successful

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Speaker 11: black family, it's almost a contradiction in terms, You're gonna

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Speaker 11: come out of that with some shit on you to

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Speaker 11: my ideas that don't make sense to anybody else, and then,

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Speaker 11: if you're lucky, you'll live long enough to outgrow them

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Speaker 11: or realize how wrong they were.

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Speaker 5: I think Ali has done that.

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Speaker 1: Then there's smoking Joe Frasier.

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Speaker 11: Jeorde Fraser is a person with north Star that he's

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Speaker 11: locked on and that's what he did. He was a

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Speaker 11: fighter and then he opened the gym he did. He

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Speaker 11: pursued the life that he was on.

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Speaker 1: And lastly there's George the Giant Foreman.

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Speaker 11: George Foreman had the most interesting art because when he

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Speaker 11: got him at seventeen, he was basically a juvenile delinquent

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Speaker 11: and I didn't have any good direction or any training.

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Speaker 11: But he was not a bad guy. He's tough as hell,

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Speaker 11: but he's a good guy. He'll help you, he will

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Speaker 11: not be fucked with. But he's a decent guy and

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Speaker 11: he wants to be better.

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Speaker 1: Yet, George Foreman at first to be the bad man,

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Speaker 1: the villain, the man you love to hate.

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Speaker 11: So when he started fighting the people who he was

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Speaker 11: fighting for, I think they made him a monster. Get

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Speaker 11: some serious betting odds and all that kind of shit

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Speaker 11: and get some action, and he went along with it

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Speaker 11: to the point that it was working and he was

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Speaker 11: making all that money, but he wasn't happy at all.

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Speaker 1: Foreman was not cut out to be the villain, and

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Speaker 1: the result.

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Speaker 5: That he was one of the maddest people in America.

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Speaker 1: That's the man who stepped into the ring in Zaire,

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Speaker 1: But that is not the man who stepped out of

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Speaker 1: that same ring.

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Speaker 5: And then he lost to Ali, and he was like empty.

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Speaker 3: I think that Foreman is still angry about losing and

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Speaker 3: angry about not getting a remat.

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Speaker 1: There is a distinct divergence that occurs as a result

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Speaker 1: of the rumble in the jungle.

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Speaker 3: I think this is true for most of the guys

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Speaker 3: who fought Ali. There's still fierce competitors. You know, to

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00:19:57,720 --> 00:20:00,280
Speaker 3: become a boxer at that level, you have to have

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Speaker 3: the desire to kill, you know, to wounds, to hurt

359
00:20:03,960 --> 00:20:06,600
Speaker 3: your opponent, and then to lose Ali and see him,

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Speaker 3: you know, loved and celebrated as this icon and for

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00:20:09,240 --> 00:20:11,119
Speaker 3: you to be treated as like just another boxer. I

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00:20:11,160 --> 00:20:13,840
Speaker 3: think there's still some antagonism there. I think that this

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Speaker 3: is just me being a pop psychologist.

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Speaker 1: However, with that little caveat aside, Jonathan I concludes that.

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Speaker 3: I think Foreman is still carrying around a lot of

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Speaker 3: anger toward Ali, and that's why he, you know, continues

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Speaker 3: to say that he was drugged, that he didn't lose

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Speaker 3: the fight legitimately.

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Speaker 1: Grasping for straws, Foreman searched for something or someone to

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Speaker 1: blame for his horrendous loss. At first, Foreman preferred to

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Speaker 1: blame his loss on his trainer, Dick Sadler. He often

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Speaker 1: claimed his trainer drugged him. Just before the fight, Foreman

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Speaker 1: said he could taste something metallic and medicinal that was

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Speaker 1: in the water. In his autobiography, Foreman wrote that.

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Speaker 12: What else I ask could account for that medicinal taste

376
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Speaker 12: and my terrible tiredness? What else could account for how sick?

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Speaker 12: And so for a month afterward, and after.

378
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Speaker 1: His humiliating defeat, Foreman turns inward. The loss to Ali

379
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Speaker 1: begins a deep and transformative change in George Foreman.

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Speaker 13: Foreman really was devastated by this loss. I mean, he

381
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Speaker 13: was the big dog, the big lion, the guy who

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Speaker 13: could beat everybody and beat them down.

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Speaker 1: That was his whole identity. But there in the ring

384
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Speaker 1: in Zaire, Foreman lost not only the fight, he lost

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Speaker 1: his sense of self. He walked out of that ring,

386
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Speaker 1: and George Foreman had no idea who he was anymore.

387
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Speaker 12: I believe that the sky had fallen. I wasn't champion anymore.

388
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Speaker 12: I didn't know what I was.

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Speaker 13: Foreman is a guy who didn't have much going for him,

390
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Speaker 13: but he had boxing, and he had his strength, and

391
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Speaker 13: he had his determination, and he is just undone. I

392
00:22:05,400 --> 00:22:09,840
Speaker 13: couldn't believe that this guy could withstand his power. So

393
00:22:09,920 --> 00:22:13,680
Speaker 13: what is his power worth? Not much? What is he worth?

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Speaker 5: Well?

395
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Speaker 13: Not much.

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Speaker 11: That's when he went home and sat down by himself

397
00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:22,280
Speaker 11: and realized that he had become somebody that he did

398
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Speaker 11: not want to be.

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Speaker 1: He shuts himself off to the world of others, and

400
00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:29,960
Speaker 1: it takes him many years to undo the damage he

401
00:22:30,080 --> 00:22:33,919
Speaker 1: does to himself choosing to be the villain. It was

402
00:22:34,320 --> 00:22:37,280
Speaker 1: that lesson he learned from Sonny Liston. To be the

403
00:22:37,320 --> 00:22:40,560
Speaker 1: world champion had to be the bad man, the angriest

404
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Speaker 1: man alive. But in his humiliating loss before all the

405
00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:48,800
Speaker 1: world to see, Foreman learns that was not true.

406
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Speaker 3: That wasn't really his nature. So maybe he was still

407
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Speaker 3: a sort of a young man finding himself at that point.

408
00:22:55,480 --> 00:22:58,400
Speaker 1: With the benefit of time, Foreman is able to discover

409
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Speaker 1: his better self forman.

410
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Speaker 3: Ends up later in life being this wonderful, gregarious, warm

411
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Speaker 3: loving guy. I think he was afraid to show that

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Speaker 3: and felt like he had to be the ogre, He

413
00:23:08,520 --> 00:23:09,480
Speaker 3: had to be the bad guy.

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Speaker 1: It took him a very long time to remake himself.

415
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Speaker 13: It was very difficult for him. I mean, he doesn't

416
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Speaker 13: fight a serious opponent for sixteen months. He has that

417
00:23:21,800 --> 00:23:25,560
Speaker 13: crazy thing in Toronto where he fights five heavyweights. He

418
00:23:25,640 --> 00:23:29,800
Speaker 13: goes on this path to prove that he was strong.

419
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Speaker 13: He's holding up the cow in the picture in one

420
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Speaker 13: of the major magazines. He's just attempting to regain his identity.

421
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Speaker 13: And then there's a whole thing discovering that is the

422
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:44,399
Speaker 13: man he assumed was his father is not his father,

423
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Speaker 13: but is the father of his brothers and sisters.

424
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Speaker 1: His great fear when he was a kid back when

425
00:23:49,480 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 1: his siblings teased him that he wasn't their brother. It

426
00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:53,840
Speaker 1: turned out to be true.

427
00:23:54,520 --> 00:23:57,600
Speaker 13: And they had always run him down and made it

428
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Speaker 13: seem like he wasn't part of the family and legit,

429
00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:03,960
Speaker 13: and it turns out there was something to that. All

430
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:05,520
Speaker 13: of this is in the mix.

431
00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:08,840
Speaker 1: In the years following his loss to ali in Zayir,

432
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:13,080
Speaker 1: George Foreman is a broken man, a man who must

433
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Speaker 1: remake himself, and that process begins after yet another humiliating

434
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Speaker 1: loss in.

435
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Speaker 13: The ring Foreman goes into the dressing room and has

436
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 13: this major born again experience, which I take seriously. I mean,

437
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:31,440
Speaker 13: he believed he was going to die unless he gave

438
00:24:31,600 --> 00:24:37,960
Speaker 13: his allegiance to Jesus. He believed that love was the answer,

439
00:24:38,680 --> 00:24:42,360
Speaker 13: that he loved everybody, and he's naked and running around

440
00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:46,600
Speaker 13: the dressing room telling everybody he loves them. I mean,

441
00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:50,160
Speaker 13: you know, the boxing folks are looking at him like, oh,

442
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:53,000
Speaker 13: George has lost it, and a lot of people continue

443
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:57,320
Speaker 13: to think that. But that changed his direction in boxing

444
00:24:57,440 --> 00:24:58,320
Speaker 13: and in life.

445
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:01,679
Speaker 8: With boxing, people get close to a higher power.

446
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:05,359
Speaker 10: And I think George Foreman literally said that he was

447
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:07,760
Speaker 10: like Ali beat the devil out of me.

448
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:12,560
Speaker 1: Being a boxer not a biographer, Nico Ali Walsh has

449
00:25:12,560 --> 00:25:16,080
Speaker 1: a more intimate understanding of what Foreman faced inside that

450
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:20,000
Speaker 1: ring and later outside the ring in his quiet moments

451
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:20,680
Speaker 1: of reflection.

452
00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:23,120
Speaker 8: People die in boxing every single year.

453
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:26,359
Speaker 10: It's a serious thing, and especially as a heavyweight, you

454
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 10: know it's tough. When you get that close to what

455
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:32,639
Speaker 10: feels like death, you're going to get drawn to a

456
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 10: higher power.

457
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:34,800
Speaker 1: And that's what George Foreman did.

458
00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:39,360
Speaker 13: He quit fighting, became a preacher for ten years. He

459
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:43,040
Speaker 13: is a street preacher in Houston. He establishes his own

460
00:25:43,119 --> 00:25:44,200
Speaker 13: independent church.

461
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:47,760
Speaker 11: As he was doing that, he was actually counseling himself.

462
00:25:47,920 --> 00:25:49,960
Speaker 11: When he was talking to the congregation, he was talking

463
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:50,600
Speaker 11: to himself.

464
00:25:50,960 --> 00:25:54,760
Speaker 13: This takes up a huge portion of his autobiography and

465
00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:58,160
Speaker 13: related success books and so on. You know, there's several

466
00:25:58,160 --> 00:25:59,560
Speaker 13: books that he publishes.

467
00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:03,320
Speaker 1: With each book and sermon that George Foreman gave to

468
00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:06,639
Speaker 1: his flock, he healed his own heart. He was also

469
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 1: helping other young men and boys find a better path.

470
00:26:10,160 --> 00:26:13,000
Speaker 13: He has a youth group, Youth a Jim, that he

471
00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:18,479
Speaker 13: creates to help poor black folks, especially black boys, you know,

472
00:26:18,600 --> 00:26:21,760
Speaker 13: make something of themselves, like the Job Corps, but in

473
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 13: a non political way.

474
00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 11: But the trouble was the turns was making no money.

475
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:28,560
Speaker 11: Only place he can make money was fighting. So he said, okay,

476
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:29,400
Speaker 11: I'll just go and fight.

477
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:32,359
Speaker 13: So he goes back to boxing. But he's been transformed,

478
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:36,600
Speaker 13: you might say, by the love of Jesus, and Jesus has.

479
00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:41,600
Speaker 1: Love and so at the age of thirty eight, George

480
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:45,119
Speaker 1: Foreman launches one of the most improbable second acts in

481
00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:49,280
Speaker 1: American history. He returns to the boxing ring. He returns

482
00:26:49,359 --> 00:26:51,160
Speaker 1: to the professional fight game.

483
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:53,840
Speaker 5: And then he realized he could still be knock very

484
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:54,320
Speaker 5: about it out.

485
00:26:54,600 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 13: He comes back in eighty seven, and he's older now

486
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:01,439
Speaker 13: to wins. Some he lose, but he starts out like

487
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:04,760
Speaker 13: close to three hundred pounds. He gets himself in I

488
00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:09,040
Speaker 13: wouldn't say fighting shape, but in better shape. And you know,

489
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 13: he makes fun of himself.

490
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 1: Things had changed for George Foreman, and immediately people can see.

491
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:19,760
Speaker 13: That he's a different person. He doesn't treat everyone with disdain.

492
00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:25,439
Speaker 13: He treats them as legitimate human beings. He sees the

493
00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:28,480
Speaker 13: humor in life. He makes fun of himself. He never

494
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 13: made fun of himself before. George was a serious guy,

495
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 13: and this appeals to all sorts of folks.

496
00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:39,800
Speaker 1: As far as his boxing skills go, Foreman can still

497
00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:43,120
Speaker 1: throw those hands. He can still hurt a man anytime

498
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:47,199
Speaker 1: his fists connected with flesh or bone. But as my

499
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:48,440
Speaker 1: pop notes.

500
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:50,439
Speaker 11: He wasn't trying to hurt nobody, because you know, he

501
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 11: wasn't scowling. He was coming in, taking care of business

502
00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:56,399
Speaker 11: and going back home. And he was friendly at the

503
00:27:56,440 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 11: pre fight stuff. You know, he wasn't approachable in a

504
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 11: way that they had never seen it. He said, okay,

505
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:03,400
Speaker 11: good now, this big motherfucker is all right.

506
00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:07,399
Speaker 1: Foreman wins the heavyweight Championship of the World for the

507
00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 1: second time at age forty two.

508
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:13,199
Speaker 13: He's the oldest man at that point to win the

509
00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:14,040
Speaker 13: heavyweight title.

510
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:18,119
Speaker 1: George Foreman is all smiles when he's named the champion.

511
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 11: Of the world and then his kids. Everybody just flocked him.

512
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:22,640
Speaker 11: They found out he was with a nice guy.

513
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:28,160
Speaker 1: Suddenly, unlike before, now everyone loves George Foreman the same

514
00:28:28,200 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 1: way that they loved Ali. The gruff, no words, no nonsense,

515
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 1: tough guy act is officially over. This is around the

516
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 1: same time that marketers realize George Foreman can make one

517
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 1: hell of a spokesperson. And that's when he starts selling

518
00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:45,800
Speaker 1: his famous fat reducing grill.

519
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 13: He didn't really want to endorse it, but his wife said, no, no,

520
00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 13: this is good, this is useful, etcetera. So he lends

521
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 13: his name to it and he makes a huge fortion

522
00:28:57,160 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 13: and then the company sells out and he gets more money.

523
00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 11: But that was the result of his change. If he

524
00:29:03,040 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 11: had made that change, not that stuff would have happened.

525
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 11: And he made the change that was him.

526
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:12,520
Speaker 14: Oh.

527
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:16,480
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy four, the rumble in the jungle garnered

528
00:29:16,560 --> 00:29:20,120
Speaker 1: headlines around the world, and it is still to this

529
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:23,840
Speaker 1: day well remembered, considered the stuff of legend in the

530
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:27,720
Speaker 1: fighting world. The music festival, on the other hand, that

531
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:30,240
Speaker 1: was at risk of getting lost in the history books

532
00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 1: thanks to foreman's eye injury. When Zaire seventy four concluded

533
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 1: and the stage fell silent, the crowd went home, the

534
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:40,720
Speaker 1: roadies packed up the gear, and the bands flew back

535
00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:43,440
Speaker 1: to the US. It did not get the attention that

536
00:29:43,520 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 1: the festival organizers like Hugh Masekeela, Stuart Levin and Gary

537
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: Stromberg had hoped.

538
00:29:49,760 --> 00:29:52,400
Speaker 9: It seemed to me like this was only an event

539
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:55,160
Speaker 9: that occurred there in Africa and that was the end

540
00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 9: of it.

541
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 1: And even though there had been the film Cruise documenting

542
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 1: the momentous three cultural event, there were.

543
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:05,640
Speaker 9: Still issues about whether the festival was ever gonna see

544
00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 9: the light or day.

545
00:30:06,760 --> 00:30:09,480
Speaker 1: For one, the planned documentary, there.

546
00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:12,239
Speaker 9: Was no release, there was no film deal, and it

547
00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 9: wasn't broadcast live. So it just seemed that that was it.

548
00:30:16,480 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 9: There was nothing left, and that was sad. I was

549
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:20,880
Speaker 9: really sad about that, because I really felt that this

550
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:22,560
Speaker 9: was something very special.

551
00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:28,400
Speaker 1: No fanfare, no media attention, just memories of an unforgettable experience.

552
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 1: The dancer for James Brown, low the Love, remembers the

553
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:37,240
Speaker 1: specialness of her time spent in Zaire. It was made

554
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 1: self evident to her when she returned home to the

555
00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:41,320
Speaker 1: United States.

556
00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:44,680
Speaker 15: It was a huge culture shock after being loved and

557
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:48,640
Speaker 15: treated with such respect and admiration, and then coming back

558
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:51,160
Speaker 15: to the States, it was a big shock.

559
00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:54,760
Speaker 1: The proof for her came from a negative comparison.

560
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 15: Once I had been to Africa and got that amazing treatment,

561
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:02,440
Speaker 15: and then when we started going overseas and gotten really

562
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:06,560
Speaker 15: good treatment. When I finished, I said, mister Brown, anytime

563
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:09,720
Speaker 15: you go overseas, I'll go. But I'm done with the States.

564
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:13,360
Speaker 15: And so he would call me when he went overseas,

565
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 15: and I didn't work the States anymore because it was

566
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 15: really rough.

567
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 10: It was rough.

568
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:20,479
Speaker 15: You paid to be on the road. That's what we

569
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 15: were doing. Most musicians in the States pay to be

570
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 15: on the road.

571
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:27,760
Speaker 1: The culture shock wasn't as bad for James Brown. Band

572
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 1: leader Fred Wesley, but he was also a bit more seasoned. Still,

573
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:35,479
Speaker 1: he knew that the experience in Zaire was rare and

574
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:39,840
Speaker 1: life changing. Fred remembers talking with the percussionist Big Black

575
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 1: about his choice to not go back home to the

576
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 1: US and instead to stay in Zaire and study the

577
00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:47,320
Speaker 1: drums of Africa.

578
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:51,200
Speaker 4: When he played those drums, the people reacted to that

579
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 4: just like he was one of their brothers, you know,

580
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 4: because we were all brothers at that time. You know,

581
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:02,040
Speaker 4: we were all learning from each other, and we were

582
00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:05,560
Speaker 4: all learning how to teach from the same point that

583
00:32:05,600 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 4: we were learning from.

584
00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 5: You know.

585
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 1: That was the lesson. Fred Wesley took home from his

586
00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:15,480
Speaker 1: time in Zaire a deep sense of connection, and it

587
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:17,479
Speaker 1: continued to inform his playing.

588
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:19,560
Speaker 5: It could still play the trump.

589
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 4: I don't play it like I used to, but I

590
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 4: could still play, and I still can write music. And

591
00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 4: so I'm gonna do that as long as as long

592
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:33,440
Speaker 4: as life lasts, you know, I'm gonna do that, and

593
00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:37,080
Speaker 4: I'll always be amazed that when I die, I would

594
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:37,960
Speaker 4: leave something here.

595
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:44,360
Speaker 1: Hearing of this spirit of the times in seventy four,

596
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:48,240
Speaker 1: you may be wondering what happened to the momentum after

597
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 1: all this, Where did all the radical, life changing community

598
00:32:52,560 --> 00:32:56,920
Speaker 1: focused energy go? Why did it essentially wither on the vine?

599
00:32:56,960 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 1: And Die used to tell me it was due to

600
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:04,960
Speaker 1: a few factors. For one, there's the nature of fame.

601
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 1: There's a great danger for a person when they become

602
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 1: a symbol. The danger is sly consider the case of

603
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:15,560
Speaker 1: folks like Muhammad Ali and Angela Davis. People like to

604
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:19,320
Speaker 1: use them as symbols as a way to signal their support,

605
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:22,960
Speaker 1: to send a message across the culture. They preferred to

606
00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:26,520
Speaker 1: cheer them on from the safety of the sidelines. Ali

607
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:31,320
Speaker 1: and Angela Davis wanted allies, but they were overloaded with fans.

608
00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:37,320
Speaker 11: America is such a big country that individuals can imagine

609
00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:41,280
Speaker 11: making making a difference. You know that that person sitting

610
00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:44,200
Speaker 11: by and says, say, there's nothing I can do. But

611
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:47,680
Speaker 11: at this one moment, a bunch of us felt like

612
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:51,760
Speaker 11: there was something we could do, and we were actually

613
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:55,520
Speaker 11: acting on it, and that was fun and very gratifying.

614
00:33:56,200 --> 00:33:57,280
Speaker 5: I was sorry to see it.

615
00:33:57,240 --> 00:34:00,600
Speaker 1: In Based on what he'd told me before, I ask

616
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:04,760
Speaker 1: my pops again why that moment of resistance ended so

617
00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 1: abruptly after nineteen seventy four, And why was Ali's heroic

618
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 1: victory and Zaiir like this high water mark in the

619
00:34:13,120 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: culture after which the tide recedes. What was the big change?

620
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:21,759
Speaker 1: His answer comes quickly to mind. He's thought about this,

621
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 1: He says, it comes down.

622
00:34:23,719 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 11: To the Vietnam War. When the Vietnam War ended, that

623
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 11: kind of ended those movements.

624
00:34:28,800 --> 00:34:31,680
Speaker 1: In May of nineteen seventy five, tanks from the North

625
00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 1: Vietnamese Army seized the capital of South Vietnam, effectively winning

626
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:41,000
Speaker 1: the war, which thereby ends the resistance movement against the war.

627
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:45,560
Speaker 1: The decade long era of protests and radicals and revolutionaries

628
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:47,480
Speaker 1: begins to fade away.

629
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:50,919
Speaker 5: Its history has a way of moving on, and that's

630
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:51,520
Speaker 5: what happened.

631
00:34:51,960 --> 00:34:54,759
Speaker 11: But for a brief, shining moment, we really felt like

632
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:55,720
Speaker 11: we were doing something.

633
00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:57,640
Speaker 5: I feel like we were making a difference.

634
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:01,000
Speaker 1: And that's why, looking back, it's to my pop that

635
00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:04,240
Speaker 1: when Ali and Foreman met in that ring in Zaire

636
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:07,960
Speaker 1: to decide a new world champion for all those folks

637
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:10,920
Speaker 1: like my pops, folks who've been fighting for so long,

638
00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:14,240
Speaker 1: and for the culture leaders like Angela Davis, Miriam mckeeba

639
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:18,279
Speaker 1: and Hugh Masekela, the ones still standing in seventy four,

640
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:22,399
Speaker 1: the moment in Zaire felt like it was their victory too,

641
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:25,680
Speaker 1: like it was this final triumphant battle in a very

642
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:32,640
Speaker 1: very long fought culture war. Hugh Masekela had long dreamed

643
00:35:32,680 --> 00:35:35,799
Speaker 1: of bringing attention to the nations of Africa, to their

644
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 1: arts and music, to their musicians and performers, to earn

645
00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 1: the respect they so rightly deserved, And in that sense,

646
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:47,600
Speaker 1: Zaire seventy four is a landmark success. It launches a

647
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 1: conversation in music and in culture that's still going on today,

648
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:55,920
Speaker 1: and much of the credit belongs to Hugh Masekela.

649
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:59,800
Speaker 14: He achieved his dream bringing full circle to what I

650
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:02,360
Speaker 14: think I think we're talking about, you know, in what

651
00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:05,480
Speaker 14: my father represented and what Ali represented. At the end

652
00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:07,080
Speaker 14: of the day, like it comes back down to the

653
00:36:07,160 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 14: arts and artists being able to like who's going to

654
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:14,359
Speaker 14: have the stones to like to tell the stories and

655
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:17,160
Speaker 14: to make the music and to write the things people

656
00:36:17,280 --> 00:36:20,240
Speaker 14: that give people no choice but to feel and actually

657
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:23,360
Speaker 14: tell the actual record of what is happening.

658
00:36:23,800 --> 00:36:26,920
Speaker 1: For his son's Selemma, his father Hugh was and will

659
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:30,880
Speaker 1: always be his greatest hero, and they bear a striking

660
00:36:30,920 --> 00:36:32,160
Speaker 1: resemblance of spirit.

661
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:34,919
Speaker 14: I never would do my impression of him in front

662
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:38,680
Speaker 14: of him, but I did it one day, not even thinking,

663
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:41,719
Speaker 14: in front of my sister, and my sister's eyes got

664
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:45,000
Speaker 14: wide and she was like, this is witchcraft.

665
00:36:45,080 --> 00:36:45,600
Speaker 6: She's like, you.

666
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:48,959
Speaker 14: Don't understand you transform, you transform. And so my dad

667
00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:53,759
Speaker 14: comes in one day and we were all hanging out. Said, hey, man,

668
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:58,279
Speaker 14: I hear you do me. He said, I hear you

669
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:02,040
Speaker 14: do me, and go ahead, go ahead fucking do me then,

670
00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:03,640
Speaker 14: and I was like, well, I just can't. He's like,

671
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:05,880
Speaker 14: I don't want to hear your bullshit, man, And so

672
00:37:06,239 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 14: I literally like I channeled him in front of him,

673
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:13,520
Speaker 14: and his face just went numb and he started laughing.

674
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:16,000
Speaker 14: He said, that's fucking crazy.

675
00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:19,640
Speaker 6: Man. I can't believe you. I can't fucking believe you.

676
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:22,440
Speaker 6: But it's beautiful, man. Do it around me all the time.

677
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:25,680
Speaker 1: That's crazy is ultimately meant as a compliment.

678
00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:29,200
Speaker 14: I think it's just from studying him so much as

679
00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:31,960
Speaker 14: a kid, you know. I that was the gift of

680
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:34,319
Speaker 14: being able to go to all those shows, you know.

681
00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 14: I know every single inflection in which shoulder dips when

682
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 14: when on a song. And I just I was my

683
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:47,799
Speaker 14: father's biggest fan, not because he was famous. I didn't

684
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:50,960
Speaker 14: even really know he was famous until maybe fifth grade,

685
00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:53,759
Speaker 14: when like a teacher suddenly freaked out when they heard

686
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:54,200
Speaker 14: my name.

687
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:57,640
Speaker 6: But I just was like, how could this be my dad?

688
00:37:57,719 --> 00:38:01,480
Speaker 6: Like this, dude is the coolest suit for human ever.

689
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:05,280
Speaker 1: And just like with Muhammad Ali and later with George

690
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:09,960
Speaker 1: Foreman after his personal transformation, Hugh Massechela loved to do

691
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:12,680
Speaker 1: what he did best for the benefit of the people.

692
00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 1: Yet Selma remembers how there was this untouchable and persistent

693
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:20,280
Speaker 1: ache that lived inside his father.

694
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:24,400
Speaker 14: But I believe Hoy that his heart and his spirit

695
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:29,640
Speaker 14: was deeply unfulfilled because he could not go home. And

696
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:32,640
Speaker 14: the older I got, the more I learned what that meant.

697
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:35,759
Speaker 14: And I think when it really became crystalline to me

698
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:39,719
Speaker 14: was during the Graceland tour. My dad took me out

699
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:42,839
Speaker 14: of school, convinced my mother somehow that it would be

700
00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:46,960
Speaker 14: a positive life experience for me to go on the

701
00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:48,840
Speaker 14: road as a roadie at fifteen.

702
00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:53,400
Speaker 1: That's the Graceland tour, as in Paul Simon's global tour

703
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:57,560
Speaker 1: for his Smashit album Graceland featuring the South African band

704
00:38:57,719 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 1: Lady Smith, Black Mambazo Drew Were was also notable as

705
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:04,879
Speaker 1: it introduced to many outside of the former apartheid nation

706
00:39:05,280 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 1: the sounds of South African musicians. Hugh Masekela joined Paul

707
00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:13,560
Speaker 1: Simon's Graceland tour to promote the music of his homeland,

708
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 1: but also to give some cover for Paul Simon, who

709
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:19,320
Speaker 1: was catching some hell of his own for his choice

710
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:22,960
Speaker 1: to visit South Africa. You see, artists around the world

711
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:27,319
Speaker 1: had been boycotting South Africa in protest of apartheid. Hugh

712
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 1: Masekela said what Paul Simon did was different than playing

713
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:33,920
Speaker 1: a show in South Africa. He was bringing the music

714
00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:37,840
Speaker 1: of South Africa out of exile under apartheid. If anything,

715
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:42,240
Speaker 1: he was freeing the musicians. It was a contentious position

716
00:39:42,320 --> 00:39:42,719
Speaker 1: to take.

717
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:46,440
Speaker 14: Those were the days where if you turned on CNN

718
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 14: or any nightly news, one of the lead stories was

719
00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:53,040
Speaker 14: the violence that was taking place in South Africa, the

720
00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:59,239
Speaker 14: stakes of what apartheid was becoming. Basically like someone just

721
00:39:59,239 --> 00:40:01,000
Speaker 14: throw a match on that gas and this whole shit

722
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:04,680
Speaker 14: is going to burn down. And so it made this

723
00:40:04,680 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 14: this concert, like all the press conferences would be essentially

724
00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:11,439
Speaker 14: about the apartheid referendums. And who do you think, Paul,

725
00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:13,880
Speaker 14: you are in the midst of what's going on in

726
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:16,120
Speaker 14: South Africa to be and my dad would be the

727
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 14: ones to be like, you need to shut the fuck up.

728
00:40:19,160 --> 00:40:22,600
Speaker 14: Here's what y'all are missing the magic that's taking place

729
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 14: over the four hours of this show, in the music

730
00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:27,760
Speaker 14: and the sound and the field that you've never heard before.

731
00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:32,760
Speaker 14: This is a sample, a small, small, thin slice sample

732
00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:36,920
Speaker 14: of what you're being deprived of by this aparthepe thing.

733
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:39,759
Speaker 1: The Graceland Tour was also a chance to tell the

734
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:41,360
Speaker 1: full truth of apartheid.

735
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:45,720
Speaker 14: Everyone forgets that up until that point, the US government

736
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:50,040
Speaker 14: was quite complicit in its depth of righteous support for

737
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:53,080
Speaker 14: apartheid and for the South African government, and how it

738
00:40:53,120 --> 00:40:55,880
Speaker 14: couldn't possibly be what we think it is, which you know,

739
00:40:56,000 --> 00:40:59,560
Speaker 14: fast forward to the day, very familiar type tactics.

740
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:03,319
Speaker 1: A few years later came the full and complete end

741
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 1: to the system of apartheid and the election of Nelson

742
00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:09,280
Speaker 1: Mandela as the President of South Africa.

743
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:13,719
Speaker 14: They reached out to a lot of the exiles and said, hey,

744
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:16,359
Speaker 14: you can come home. You're not going to go to jail,

745
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:18,719
Speaker 14: you're not going to get killed. And my dad, like

746
00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 14: in nineteen ninety, I remember when he called me and

747
00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:24,719
Speaker 14: he said they told me I can come home, So

748
00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:27,480
Speaker 14: I'm going home, and he sold everything.

749
00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 1: It didn't take Sealemma long to join his father in

750
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:34,719
Speaker 1: South Africa so he could experience it for himself.

751
00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:38,120
Speaker 14: I went for the first time in nineteen ninety one

752
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 14: to help road manage his homecoming tour, his first tour

753
00:41:43,239 --> 00:41:47,120
Speaker 14: in South Africa, a tour called Secunjado with two other

754
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:51,080
Speaker 14: South African bands, a band called Sankomolten another one called Bayete.

755
00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:52,759
Speaker 14: And that was the first time for me to go

756
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:56,719
Speaker 14: home and meet my grandfather. My name is Seleema. I'm

757
00:41:56,760 --> 00:41:59,879
Speaker 14: named after my grandfather, meet my sister for the first

758
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:02,479
Speaker 14: meet my whole family for the first time, and.

759
00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:03,960
Speaker 6: See my father at home.

760
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 14: But also like it's ninety one, a part that is

761
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:13,759
Speaker 14: like ending, but it ain't over, and it was I

762
00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:16,200
Speaker 14: feel like that's when I got uploaded into like the

763
00:42:16,360 --> 00:42:17,000
Speaker 14: entirety of me.

764
00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:18,000
Speaker 6: I got there.

765
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:21,560
Speaker 14: The ancestors said, okay, it's time. Let's give you like

766
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:24,960
Speaker 14: You're gonna be embodied in what your entire being is

767
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:27,160
Speaker 14: now and now you get to look from this day forward,

768
00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:27,879
Speaker 14: this is who you are.

769
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 1: Once he grounds himself in that sense of who he was,

770
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:37,359
Speaker 1: who he is and who he could be, Selema Masekela

771
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:40,160
Speaker 1: is now ready to make music with his father.

772
00:42:40,719 --> 00:42:44,040
Speaker 14: I was making my first record with Sonny Levine. Ironically

773
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:47,719
Speaker 14: Stuart Levine's son. We were roommates together in La for

774
00:42:47,760 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 14: five years, in the footsteps of our fathers, and he

775
00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:53,840
Speaker 14: convinced me. One day Sunny was like, yeah, man, like

776
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:56,640
Speaker 14: when are you gonna make your record? And then finally

777
00:42:57,040 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 14: twenty twelve, I made my first record. It was called

778
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:02,439
Speaker 14: The Sound of All because funny story, I didn't tell

779
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:04,120
Speaker 14: my father that I was making the record, and I

780
00:43:04,160 --> 00:43:06,360
Speaker 14: explicitly told everyone that he was not allowed to know.

781
00:43:08,040 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 1: But then his dad's old partner, Stuart Levine, caught wind

782
00:43:11,239 --> 00:43:12,840
Speaker 1: of the album.

783
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:15,279
Speaker 14: And Stuart came down to our studio. He said he

784
00:43:15,320 --> 00:43:17,440
Speaker 14: wanted to inspect what was going on, and he was

785
00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 14: very surprised at what he heard, to the point that

786
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:22,359
Speaker 14: he said, I got to play on this. So Stu

787
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:25,279
Speaker 14: goes up to the house and gets a clarinet and

788
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:28,480
Speaker 14: gets a couple of saxophones and really helped us, like

789
00:43:29,160 --> 00:43:31,399
Speaker 14: finish off the record beautifully.

790
00:43:31,640 --> 00:43:35,120
Speaker 1: Of course, word soon gets back to his dad, Hugh Masekela.

791
00:43:35,800 --> 00:43:37,520
Speaker 6: So I get a call from my father.

792
00:43:37,560 --> 00:43:41,959
Speaker 14: He's coming to visit from South Africa and he says, hey,

793
00:43:42,120 --> 00:43:47,279
Speaker 14: so I hear you did a thing, And I was like, oh, no, yeah, man,

794
00:43:47,560 --> 00:43:50,400
Speaker 14: I heard you. You did a thing, and I'm coming

795
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:52,600
Speaker 14: and I better hear it when I get there.

796
00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:54,000
Speaker 6: I'm looking forward to it.

797
00:43:54,560 --> 00:43:58,240
Speaker 1: So Lama was understandably nervous to play his first album

798
00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:00,800
Speaker 1: for his very famous physician father.

799
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:03,200
Speaker 6: We go to have dinner. I burn him a CD.

800
00:44:03,360 --> 00:44:05,520
Speaker 14: We go to have dinner at Deeliana and Venice, and

801
00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:07,239
Speaker 14: then we walked out of dinner. We had a great

802
00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:09,919
Speaker 14: time eating together, you know, if you you know Gary,

803
00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:11,520
Speaker 14: eating with my dad was always.

804
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:12,600
Speaker 6: My dad loved.

805
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:15,040
Speaker 14: Food the way he loved music, you know. And so

806
00:44:15,080 --> 00:44:17,359
Speaker 14: we have this great meal and then at the end

807
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:20,640
Speaker 14: we're standing on the street corner and he goes, so

808
00:44:20,719 --> 00:44:24,200
Speaker 14: did you bring the thing? And I'm like, yeah, I'll

809
00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:27,200
Speaker 14: reach it into my pocket and I pull out the CD.

810
00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:30,760
Speaker 14: I hand it to him. He'says, okay, man, I'm gonna

811
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:33,400
Speaker 14: go with it and sit with it. I'll see Lena.

812
00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:35,640
Speaker 14: And he turns around and just walks off down the street.

813
00:44:36,160 --> 00:44:39,359
Speaker 1: And so Celema watches his father go as he can

814
00:44:39,440 --> 00:44:43,800
Speaker 1: feel this electric tangle of nerves creeping up his spine.

815
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:47,920
Speaker 14: And I'm just standing there being like, well, there goes everything,

816
00:44:48,200 --> 00:44:50,600
Speaker 14: you know, because the one thing that was about my

817
00:44:50,680 --> 00:44:56,080
Speaker 14: father is an inability to lie to you at tall

818
00:44:56,280 --> 00:45:00,000
Speaker 14: at tall, So I'm you know, if he didn't like it,

819
00:45:00,200 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 14: he's gonna tell me and also be like, don't put

820
00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:05,279
Speaker 14: this out and fuck up our name man.

821
00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 1: Talk about Nightmare Fuel, especially because it's Selemma's first album.

822
00:45:10,840 --> 00:45:13,000
Speaker 14: So I don't hear anything from him for two days,

823
00:45:13,800 --> 00:45:16,840
Speaker 14: and now I'm really starting to stress. And then I

824
00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:19,520
Speaker 14: see that I missed a voicemail from him. I'd listened

825
00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:24,520
Speaker 14: to the voicemail and he says, Man, it's me. I

826
00:45:24,680 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 14: just wanted you to know that link. I've been sitting

827
00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:31,759
Speaker 14: with this record for two days. Man, I just don't

828
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:32,319
Speaker 14: even know.

829
00:45:32,239 --> 00:45:36,440
Speaker 6: What to say. It's just he said, it's so beautiful, man.

830
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:40,359
Speaker 1: But not only that, his father confesses to his son.

831
00:45:40,920 --> 00:45:44,399
Speaker 14: He says, you know, if I could sing like you,

832
00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:47,600
Speaker 14: I don't even think I would play my own. And

833
00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:50,680
Speaker 14: my only complaint is that I'm not fucking on it.

834
00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:53,640
Speaker 14: So promise me, if you do this again, you better

835
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:55,560
Speaker 14: make sure that I'm on this fucking record.

836
00:45:55,640 --> 00:45:55,920
Speaker 5: Man.

837
00:45:56,080 --> 00:45:56,560
Speaker 6: I love you.

838
00:45:57,120 --> 00:45:59,959
Speaker 1: Selemma was no longer doing an impression of his father.

839
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:03,880
Speaker 1: He took what he'd learned and he'd made something wholly

840
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 1: new something that made his father proud bright.

841
00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:09,760
Speaker 14: I just sat there in my car and I wept,

842
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:13,600
Speaker 14: And that gave me the license to like no longer

843
00:46:13,680 --> 00:46:17,160
Speaker 14: be like afraid of this thing that I've been, you

844
00:46:17,200 --> 00:46:18,800
Speaker 14: know that I got from him?

845
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:23,319
Speaker 1: That changes everything for Selema. Soon enough, he starts to

846
00:46:23,320 --> 00:46:25,000
Speaker 1: work on another album.

847
00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:27,600
Speaker 14: Twenty seventeen, I'm making another record.

848
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:31,359
Speaker 6: I call him. I said, hey, were you serious about

849
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:31,799
Speaker 6: what you said?

850
00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:34,520
Speaker 14: Because we're doing another album? He said, when do you

851
00:46:34,560 --> 00:46:37,000
Speaker 14: want me to be there? And we told him when

852
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:38,480
Speaker 14: to be here. He got on a plane from South

853
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:39,480
Speaker 14: Africa and he flew here.

854
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:42,560
Speaker 1: Once he had his dad in the studio, Selemma decides

855
00:46:42,600 --> 00:46:45,160
Speaker 1: to have some fun, you know, new generation and.

856
00:46:45,120 --> 00:46:47,560
Speaker 14: All Sonny and I were like, yo, let's write him

857
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:51,000
Speaker 14: a rap, like a spoken word like rap. And so

858
00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:53,440
Speaker 14: he wrote him this crazy rap and when he came in.

859
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:54,040
Speaker 6: He's like all right.

860
00:46:54,120 --> 00:46:57,080
Speaker 14: So he came in trying to like be like uptyzing,

861
00:46:57,120 --> 00:46:58,600
Speaker 14: what do you guys want me to do? I'm like,

862
00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 14: well maybe that you could wrap. He's like, fuck your guys,

863
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:05,319
Speaker 14: but he attacked it.

864
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:08,600
Speaker 1: Hugh Massa Kelak grabs the mic and it's like he'd

865
00:47:08,680 --> 00:47:10,880
Speaker 1: been in the lab like with a pen and a pad,

866
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:14,680
Speaker 1: just waiting for this moment and what's the result.

867
00:47:14,840 --> 00:47:16,080
Speaker 6: I hadn't put out my album yet.

868
00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:19,680
Speaker 14: He called me and said, hey, man, so I played

869
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:22,799
Speaker 14: that shit we did for Sony and they really loved it,

870
00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:24,960
Speaker 14: like they lost that shit. Man.

871
00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:26,440
Speaker 6: They were like, wow, what is this.

872
00:47:27,080 --> 00:47:29,520
Speaker 14: I was wondering if it would be okay, if maybe

873
00:47:29,560 --> 00:47:31,799
Speaker 14: I put it out on my record, and I was like,

874
00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:35,479
Speaker 14: you're asking me, and you know, it was so cool

875
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:38,120
Speaker 14: about it. He said, yeah, man, I'm asking you. It's

876
00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 14: your fucking shit and my mine, so you know, is

877
00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:44,439
Speaker 14: it cool? I was like, yeah, man, it's cool. Absolutely.

878
00:47:44,600 --> 00:47:47,200
Speaker 14: So he literally put it out on his record first,

879
00:47:47,280 --> 00:47:50,600
Speaker 14: and my album came out like three months later, and

880
00:47:50,640 --> 00:47:52,400
Speaker 14: we made a really beautiful record together.

881
00:47:57,719 --> 00:48:01,120
Speaker 1: Back in nineteen seventy four, great men laid the groundwork

882
00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:05,360
Speaker 1: for lasting legacies, and now fifty years later, from Nico

883
00:48:05,440 --> 00:48:09,839
Speaker 1: Ali Walsh's grandson of Ali, to Selemma massechelas son of Hugh,

884
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:15,080
Speaker 1: we hear how those legacies live on in that timeless way.

885
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:17,840
Speaker 1: This now becomes a story of how we accept the

886
00:48:17,840 --> 00:48:20,839
Speaker 1: world handed to us and what we each do with it.

887
00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:24,840
Speaker 1: We each briefly have our time on stage in the

888
00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:28,360
Speaker 1: ring or on the mic, and then we must hand

889
00:48:28,360 --> 00:48:31,000
Speaker 1: the world over to those who will inherit the future.

890
00:48:31,560 --> 00:48:35,600
Speaker 1: This is a story of the world, its many communities,

891
00:48:35,640 --> 00:48:39,040
Speaker 1: and all the people who shaped this tale, from Drew

892
00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:43,359
Speaker 1: Bundini Brown to Doc Brotus and even Sonny Liston, those

893
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:47,640
Speaker 1: men who helped guide Ali and Foreman, who influenced them

894
00:48:47,800 --> 00:48:50,640
Speaker 1: strengthen them so that they could become what they would

895
00:48:50,640 --> 00:48:53,840
Speaker 1: have never been on their own. This is also a

896
00:48:53,880 --> 00:48:57,320
Speaker 1: story of brothers in arms, such as the strained bonds

897
00:48:57,360 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 1: of James Brown and Bill Withers, or muhammadad and Smokin'

898
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:05,280
Speaker 1: Joe Fraser, that dark bond shared by Foreman and Sonny Liston,

899
00:49:05,680 --> 00:49:09,680
Speaker 1: or the musical fraternity shared by Hugh and Stu and Gary.

900
00:49:10,280 --> 00:49:13,640
Speaker 1: As rivals and peers, they pushed one another to reach

901
00:49:13,719 --> 00:49:17,439
Speaker 1: heights they could have never reached alone. This is also

902
00:49:17,600 --> 00:49:22,680
Speaker 1: the story of soul rebels, iconoclasts, freedom fighters, and true patriots.

903
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:27,600
Speaker 1: A tale of Black power and Pan African diasporas, Brown

904
00:49:27,719 --> 00:49:32,160
Speaker 1: power and Afro Caribbean connections to the Motherland. A story

905
00:49:32,239 --> 00:49:36,080
Speaker 1: of rhythm and soul and of the drum and how

906
00:49:36,200 --> 00:49:40,239
Speaker 1: it called a people home from the Year of Africa

907
00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:43,160
Speaker 1: to the end of apartheid. This is a tale of

908
00:49:43,239 --> 00:49:48,360
Speaker 1: people reclaiming their nations, their cultures, their humanity, whether called

909
00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:53,280
Speaker 1: the Belgian Congo Zaire or the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

910
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:57,640
Speaker 1: From colonial times to modern times, the nation and its

911
00:49:57,680 --> 00:50:02,920
Speaker 1: people continue to suffer fro their vast resources. Mabutu is

912
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:06,440
Speaker 1: now dead and gone, yet the shadow of his corruption

913
00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:09,960
Speaker 1: still darkens the future of his people. But there is

914
00:50:10,080 --> 00:50:14,680
Speaker 1: hope for the dreams of Africa's tomorrows now belong to

915
00:50:14,840 --> 00:50:18,440
Speaker 1: African hearts and minds. If you travel the lands of

916
00:50:18,480 --> 00:50:23,040
Speaker 1: Africa today, you will still see murals of Muhammad Ali

917
00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:27,880
Speaker 1: painted on walls. You will still see his face staring

918
00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:31,239
Speaker 1: back at you from t shirts and from posters. He

919
00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:35,160
Speaker 1: remains a hero to generations who never saw him fight,

920
00:50:35,760 --> 00:50:40,000
Speaker 1: never saw him when he was the champ. Ali boom

921
00:50:40,000 --> 00:50:41,360
Speaker 1: Aye Ali.

922
00:50:41,680 --> 00:50:46,759
Speaker 16: Boom Aye Ali was and is the people's champ, and

923
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:50,600
Speaker 16: the people prayed for his victory because his victories were

924
00:50:50,640 --> 00:50:54,880
Speaker 16: their victories, and he was and remains my hero.

925
00:51:01,560 --> 00:51:04,560
Speaker 17: A reporter claws his way through the crowd and yells

926
00:51:04,600 --> 00:51:07,760
Speaker 17: at me, how did you do it? World Heavyweight Champion?

927
00:51:08,080 --> 00:51:11,600
Speaker 17: What do you think of George now I shake my head.

928
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:14,719
Speaker 17: I want to go to my dressing room. I don't

929
00:51:14,719 --> 00:51:17,840
Speaker 17: want to tell him what George has taught me, that

930
00:51:18,040 --> 00:51:21,759
Speaker 17: too many victories weaken you, that the defeated can rise

931
00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:25,360
Speaker 17: up stronger than the victor. But I take nothing away

932
00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:28,279
Speaker 17: from George. He can still beat any man in the

933
00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:36,800
Speaker 17: world except me. Besides, I already told them, and I

934
00:51:36,840 --> 00:51:37,759
Speaker 17: already told you.

935
00:51:38,640 --> 00:51:43,200
Speaker 5: Didn't you hear me? I said I was the greatest.

936
00:52:00,040 --> 00:52:03,239
Speaker 18: Umble is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.

937
00:52:03,800 --> 00:52:06,479
Speaker 18: Rumble is written and hosted by Zarren Burnett. The third

938
00:52:07,040 --> 00:52:10,840
Speaker 18: produced and directed by Julia Chriscau. Sound design and scoring

939
00:52:10,960 --> 00:52:16,240
Speaker 18: by Jesse Niswanger. Original music composed by Jordan Manley and T. J. Merritt.

940
00:52:16,560 --> 00:52:21,880
Speaker 18: Series concept by Gary Stromberg. Executive producers are Jason English,

941
00:52:22,160 --> 00:52:27,480
Speaker 18: Sean Titone, Gary Stromberg, Virginia Prescott, L. C. Crowley, and

942
00:52:27,560 --> 00:52:31,480
Speaker 18: Brandon barr Our. Senior producer is Amelia Brock, Production manager

943
00:52:31,680 --> 00:52:36,239
Speaker 18: Daisy Church, fact checker Savannah Hugley. Legal services provided by

944
00:52:36,440 --> 00:52:41,480
Speaker 18: Canoel Hanley PC. Additional production by Claire Keating and John Washington.

945
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:47,240
Speaker 18: Casting director Julia Chriscau. Casting support services provided by Breakdown Express.

946
00:52:47,400 --> 00:52:53,200
Speaker 18: Episode thirteen cast Abraham Amka as Muhammad Ali. If you

947
00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:56,719
Speaker 18: like the show, let us know, like subscribe, leave five

948
00:52:56,719 --> 00:53:00,480
Speaker 18: star reviews. It really helps. Also check out our show

949
00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:02,799
Speaker 18: notes for a full list of reference materials.