WEBVTT - Ben Vereen 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.040 Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:05.200 --> 0:00:06.840 Good People. What's Up? This is Queslo. 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:11.760 In our recent final episode of Team Supreme, I mentioned 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:15.440 that one of my most underrated episodes of QLs was 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:19.480 this particular one right here. It's our conversation with Ben Breen. 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:23.119 We take this less than a year ago, and I 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:25.920 think it's worth pushing into your feed for a Monday. 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:29.720 QLs classic been shared a lot of things. 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:30.920 About his life that really hit. 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:36.120 Hard, in particular that that episode of The Fresh Prince 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:39.360 of bel Air was a lot bigger than just a role. 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:42.840 As you'll hear, Ben and his daughter also talk about 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:47.040 roots and why the role of Chicken George and that 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:50.320 mini series was so significant and truthfully, I've been thinking 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:54.040 about this episode since we taped it back in twenty 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:59.800 twenty four. And let's listen back together, Classic encore this 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:15.080 no bemboe Quest Love Supreme. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:18.560 Welcome to Court Love Supreme, Quest Love your host. We 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:22.360 are here with the fam. Wha, yeah, hello, where are 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:22.840 you right now? 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:23.600 You're in La. 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:25.000 I'm in the Sunny La. 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.720 Yes, yes, your your wall situation is so unique. 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:30.680 Every episode I see in you part of your house 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:32.600 I never knew existed before. 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:33.480 That's hilarious. 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:36.800 Unpaid bills, Yes, sir, it was good to see you. 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:39.320 Everything's well. You know, I complain drinking. 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:41.120 Coffee for QLs, which is a new I vibe, but 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:42.000 I'm super into. 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:44.199 It right exactly new vibes. 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:49.440 I'm drinking applesire lemonade or the opposite. 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:51.960 Of brag is that's that thing? That's good? Did you 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:53.720 drink first in the morning? That's good a mirror. 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:57.640 Exactly exactly, sugar Steve, what's that brother? Good morning everybody? 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.760 How's it going? Very well? Thank you? That's good to hear, 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:03.520 good to hear. What can I say? 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:07.840 Ladies and gentlemen, We you know, we're about checking off 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:12.560 our bucket list, dream interviews and our guest today is 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:17.200 a legend of the big screen, the big stage, and 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.720 of the recording studio, depending on your generation or your taste. 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:24.480 Certain if my mom were here, she'd go nuts over 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:27.639 the fact that, you know, let's start Pippin or Sweet 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:31.760 Charity or hair or all that jazz is with us. 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:36.480 Our guest today is one of the first actors that 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:42.160 my parents approved of me watching. If you're you know, 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:47.000 I've mentioned many times that television really wasn't looked upon 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:51.800 unless it was like Chesame Street or music, but Roots 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:53.440 was required watching. 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:56.399 And I watched all that show even at the age 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:56.760 of five. 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:00.440 So the fact that the character Chicken Joy is here 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:05.240 and in front of me like is mind blowing. Of course, 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:09.360 if you're eighties baby, I'm sure, Layah. Are you an 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:12.080 eighties baby or a nineties baby today? 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:13.760 I'll be eighties. I'll be eighties all right. 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:18.000 Of course remember him in Webster Yeah, even for gen 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:23.400 Z society that lives for memes, of course we know 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:25.400 him as Will's dad or the fresh Prince of Bill. 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:28.760 There we are in the company of greatness right now, 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:33.720 Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Tony Award winning Ben 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:37.880 Veren and also not to mention his daughter at Kabara, 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:40.880 who also helped organize this for us. 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:44.360 Welcome to Quest of Supreme. Hello, how y'all doing? 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.440 Oh? Thank you so to be here waiting for this 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:50.800 quite a long time. So you had my friend and 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:52.960 help me on. 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:57.680 We're gonna have you on right now. Where are you 0:03:57.760 --> 0:03:59.640 talking to us from? What part of the world are 0:03:59.720 --> 0:03:59.920 you in. 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.360 I'm in New York City at the Dance Theater of Halem, 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:06.920 Arthur Mitchell's then Theater of Harlem, and I'm honored to 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:10.120 be I'm working my daughter on her new piece that 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.880 she's doing called The Resurrection of ot Cyrus. It's going 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:17.600 to be at the Met on January seventeenth. I'm directing it. 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:20.719 And so we're in rehearsal right now, and I'm honored 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.279 to be here in Arthur Mitchell's because I remember, I 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:26.440 remember you, Tad. I had a conversation with Glenn Turman, 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:30.040 my good friends, and we went to the High School 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:34.120 of Performing Arts together, and there's one photo that encouraged 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:36.880 me on the wall there and it was Arthur Mitchell. 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:40.200 He was in his beautiful dance post on the wall 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:43.200 and I said wow. And I later became good friends 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:45.720 for them, and now I'm in his studio. So thank 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:46.200 you author. 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:49.440 So you went to school with Glynn Turman at a 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:50.880 performing arts school? 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:52.320 Was performing our school? Yeah? 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:54.880 What time period was this? If you don't mind me. 0:04:54.880 --> 0:05:01.920 Asking nineteen oh four memory. 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:08.560 I'm only asking that because you know, when I was 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:12.000 in first grade in the mid seventies, my parents made 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:15.560 a big deal of you know, you're going to a 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:21.440 new type of school where you're going to do like acting, art, music, dancing, 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.240 like all those things. And I was led to believe 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:29.320 that schools of that caliber were unique to the seventies. 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:31.479 Like I was part of the first generation of performing 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:34.880 art schools. So you're telling me that they were performing art. 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:38.680 Schools before that. It's the fifties. I started in the fifties, 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:42.160 I believe late fifties. I got there in the sixties, 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.559 and I believe it just began to take on form. 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:48.520 It was called the High School for the Performing Arts. 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:52.560 Later it's now called Laguadia. They moved up on Tenth Avenue. 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:55.520 But we were the first there was music and art 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:58.719 and performing arts, and we had a rival, you know, 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:02.279 we said, o't nothing, you got to go to performing arts, 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:02.479 you know. 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:06.960 Yeah, So in the fifties you went to a performing 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:09.720 arts high school in New York that we still know 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:13.440 as the Fame School. Right, You're blowing my mind that 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:19.120 there was even the idea of black and white students 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:22.320 going to school together studying the arts. 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:24.920 So what was that experience like for you? 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:29.080 You understand something, The arts is the one thread that 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:33.240 keeps civilization going. We are all creative aspects of the 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:35.920 creator that created us. So the arts is the one 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:40.000 thing that's going to propel us into whatever experiences we're 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:42.360 going to have in this lifetime. So they can't hold 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:45.239 back the arts. Well, so wonderful about that time, because 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:47.560 you know in the sixties, that's when Neil Martin, Luther 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:50.839 King and it's from Malcolm X. That's streets, you know, 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.240 the hippies and the whole movement. So that was all 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:57.360 happening then. So performing arts I got lucky because they 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:01.159 needed boys for the dance apartment. Now Glenn Book's coming 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.640 up from acting. I knew nothing about the arts. I'm 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.120 from the church. I sang with Sensational Twilights of Brooklyn. 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:11.280 You know, Brooklyn was my home. And when I went 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:13.200 to the High School of Performing Arts, it was a 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:18.520 whole new world. Man. The arts became a new word 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:21.720 in my vocabulary. I saw a dancing sort of first 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:24.600 time I saw a serious musician sort of person. I 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:28.400 saw serious actors. You talk about Beneth Carroll, you know, yes, 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:32.200 Beeth Carroll was there. It was integrated, as we call 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:33.200 in those days. 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:38.520 So there was a lot of stigma on me as 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:44.240 an elementary school student concerning the arts it was already like, oh, 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:46.480 you're one of those weirdo kids at least, like, you know, 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:50.520 coming to my neighborhood to go to a performing arts 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:54.240 school automatically made me kind of like a social outcast. 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:57.200 Now here's the thing. Music was always my thing. 0:07:58.040 --> 0:07:59.880 But for the first year and a half of me 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:03.280 going to that school, the school was like, before you 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:06.160 get on that drum set, you got to coordinate your rhythm. 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:09.040 And so they brought a pair of tat dance shs 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:12.440 and they're like, you're going to have to learn how 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:15.680 to dance first before we let you on that drum set. 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:19.400 Of course, be in the seventies, what the seventies were, 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:20.560 there was a. 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:24.200 Lot of sigma says you dance, You're dancing was the 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:29.400 idea of dance expression a stigma for you in the fifties, 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:32.360 as it was for me in the seventies. 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:38.840 The sixties, sixties. Okay, okay, I'm proud of I'm if 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.080 people ask me old that, I said, you remember Moses. 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:46.400 But here's the thing about I also went through that 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:49.120 stigma because I ran with gangs. You know, I ran 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:51.839 with the Crossair Lords and you know, the bishops and 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:55.079 the Chaplains and all those guys in Brooklyn. So there 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:57.960 I was going all of a sudden. I remember my 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:01.400 mother getting a list of was required for me to 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:03.840 go into the dance department. I knew nothing about the 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:07.120 drama department. I probably would have h the acting apartment. 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:09.240 I probably would have loved to have tried out for that. 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:11.400 But the wonderful thing I had a guy named David 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:14.880 Wood to talk about the importance of telling his story 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:19.959 through dancing through movement. But the point is that in 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:24.199 my neighborhood, if I came home, now, I gotta get 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:27.800 a dance bag, I gotta get tights, I gotta get 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:28.480 a dance spell. 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:30.280 ID to wear jumpsuit? 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:34.560 Yeah, ballet slippers? Yeah, you kidding me. I was walking 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:37.640 about Brogans and you know Garretson. I was, you know, 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.760 a tough kid, and I gotta wear ballet slippers. I 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:43.960 wouldn't tell anybody where I was going up for school, 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:47.440 And so they said, man, wasn't that bad. Man wasn't 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:49.959 a bag man and nothing? It is my school stuff. 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:54.960 Let's see, no, not run. Yeah, it was tough. There 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:57.760 was something which you came across that bridge and you 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:01.960 got in that dance studio, a whole new world opened up. Magic. 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:03.600 It's beautiful? 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:05.920 Was it cathartic for you? 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:12.679 That relationship with the neighborhood is so fascinating because we 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:15.000 were talking before you got on, of course, the kind 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.480 of beautiful. There's a lot of alignment between some quest 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:20.600 Love Supreme guests and yourself. We talked about Glenn Turman, 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:23.600 but when you told that story about being the ballet 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:25.800 Slippers and being in the neighborhood, it made me think 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:28.720 about Prodigy in that way. In the picture of him, 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:31.480 who you know is little Albert. I'm sorry, I know 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:34.240 his rap name is is Prodigy, but you knew him 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:35.520 as little Albert at Kabar. 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:37.320 What was the dance studio. 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:41.240 Bernie Johnson, who is a very famous dance. 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:43.640 Yeah, I imagine he had the same issues as a 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:46.360 little boy coming up with being in a dance school 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:48.600 that his grandmother had built. So I was just wondering 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:50.640 if you guys, if you remember that as he was 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:53.560 a little boy, and that that common thread with you 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:54.240 guys in that way. 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:54.960 That's interesting. 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:59.959 Yeah, we you know what we were together. The world 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:03.040 didn't matter. It's about us and doing what we did. 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:07.120 We had fun we loved to dance. We love, you know, 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:11.200 the expression of telling our story through dance. And I'd 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:13.520 go into a studio and just make a record player 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:17.040 and just for hours, just dance. You know, do all 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:20.240 sorts of makeup stories, make up stories for myself through dance. 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:22.320 Did you look at someone on TV? Was there a 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:25.200 dancer like that you used to watch that you admired. 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:27.520 I'm curious who you look to in that way? 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:29.679 Well, there wasn't many dancers to look to it, and 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:33.360 I didn't. I wasn't into the concert world, into going 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:36.479 to see Bartha Graham or going to see George Valant. 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:38.520 Matter of fact, when I came to the studio to 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:43.000 the school that day, and I'll never forget this, I ok, 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:44.520 I wore you know, if they say not to make 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:47.640 up a dance, said real dance to Quincy Jones' Killer Joe. 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:52.280 I woke here the muter shorts, us kids, sneakers, a 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:55.880 T shirt, my father's skinny brim hat. I'm sitting outside 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:58.280 waiting to go on and watching all these other kids 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:03.120 dancing the balance sheet. She's to Chopain and you know, 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:05.800 all these deep cats about wow, And I got to 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:08.440 my dance there was white people sitting at the table. 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:10.400 I know where they were, So I got up and 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:15.319 did my little cool d the d I thought I 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:18.920 was pretty cool. I sat down and the cityusing story. 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.320 There was a lady named doctor Rachel Yoker, and she 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:25.319 came over me. She said, did you how did you do? 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:27.920 She said you liked the school? I said yes, I 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:32.120 She said it is I. I said yes. I said 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:35.120 you mean all right? I said yes I. She says, 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:38.800 what's your name? Was said? Vision said what I said, Benjamin? 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:41.800 She said you mean ben Juman. I said, yeah, Benjamin. 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:45.200 What's wrong with you? She said, well, do you like 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:48.600 the school? Yes? I right? She said okay, and then 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:51.000 she said, you know these people at the table? I said, no, 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:54.000 this white people? To me said you don't know George 0:12:54.040 --> 0:13:00.840 Balance she no, Martha Graham, no, Toerne Robbins. No. Why. 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:08.920 I had no idea of these people who had would 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:14.080 carved the importance of dance into our culture. I later 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:19.360 found out about Catherine Dunham, later found out about Juth Jamison. 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:24.080 Jameson, Yeah, oh man. 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:27.360 And to be able to say that and have the 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:30.920 experience of meeting them and walking the same path with 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:33.360 them and having them call me friend. 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:38.520 Because you know, you dip your hand or your tail 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:41.920 into so many creative waters. Normally I asked what was 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:44.480 your first musical memory? But I would like to know 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:47.760 from you, what's the first thing that you created? What 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:53.840 was your first moment that you realize I'm a creative 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:55.719 I know that you were born in North Carolina. I 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:58.800 don't know when you moved to Brooklyn, But at what 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:01.080 point do you realize that your artistic Like, what was 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:03.439 your first creative project in life? 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:07.120 I wasn't born in North Carolina. My my biological mother 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:13.240 was Launburg, North Carolina. I was born in Florida, Dade County, Florida. 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:18.559 You see the arts. It's tricky and it's wonderful. I'm 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:22.600 writing my book now, my memoirs, and I remember playing 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:26.200 in the streets and remember having little dance parties, you know, 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:29.880 you know, after school, we do these little dances. And 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:32.040 as white children, was coming down the street one day 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:34.920 on Fulton Street, and it was right in the fifties, 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:39.360 and they were soliciting for the young boys, young kids 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:42.000 to put into the art school, dance school. Because it's 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:43.640 right around the time when the you know, the civil 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:45.880 rights are starting out, and so they wanted to show 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:48.680 their windows weren't broken. Say, have some a few black 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.160 kids in school. And that's how I got into the 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:54.880 Start Time Dance studio. But I never thought about the 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:57.920 fact that my creative aspect that was just part of me. 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:01.920 There was natural love to sing. I love the dance 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:04.640 at parties. I didn't have a form to it. I 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.040 didn't call a modern dance. I didn't call a ballet. 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:09.720 I didn't call it tap and An interesting thing I 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:12.680 lived right across the street from a shoe shine Parlow 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:16.200 called tip tap and toe. These are brothers who were 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:19.359 in vaudeville. And I wondered why these guys on Sundays 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:21.360 because in those days they had the blue law in 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:25.880 Brooklyn that means bondy liquor. So every Sunday you see 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:29.640 a lion wrapped around the block getting the deacons getting 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:36.200 their shoes shine. Because brothers are being there. You get 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.000 online and standing and get this shoe shine. You know. 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:41.000 So these guys are going to tip tap and toe. 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:44.560 We get the rag snapping. You have jazz music playing 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:47.080 and these brothers sit back there and he'd be singing 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:49.800 then through a you know, a shuffle back, then snap 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:56.280 the rag fat and then they have a hand on 0:15:56.400 --> 0:16:01.680 little Dixie cups a whiskey. So the lives are around 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:03.880 the corner the brothers where they go to church. They 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:05.320 had to have their little shot. 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:09.400 All right, That makes sense because even today, you know, 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:13.160 like you're always seeing these terror cart businesses, these random 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:16.480 terror cart businesses, and you know you'll see them in 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:19.240 a lank city or New York or like any cosmopolitan city. 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:21.920 And I always wonder, for the life of me, how 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:26.240 are these businesses thriving like a woman or anyone reading 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:30.160 your future. I just found out that those are basically 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:34.920 people that have sort of in place owner or renter's law. 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:37.479 In other words, that place used to be a residency, 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:41.320 but then once a business district is established, you're not 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:45.320 supposed to live in a business district. So basically it's 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:48.520 sort of an underhanded way of the city saying you 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:51.160 can still live here, but you have to be a business. 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:57.840 So thus, anytime you see a terror card reading or 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:01.000 let me read your future, it's just a residence. But 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:03.720 they have to have a storefront that's like a business 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:08.280 and a wink. So that now that makes sense. That 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:13.360 shoe shine people really had a side business of moonshine 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.199 speakeasies while you get your shoes shine. 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:18.760 That makes sense, now, that makes total sense. 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:25.080 You know they didn't sell liquor on Sundays Pennsylvania. 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:27.640 So wait, New York was a blue law state as well. 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:31.480 You had a blue law in New York City. 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:32.840 I never knew that. 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.399 But the thing is is that, like I have, my 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.119 toes also dipped in various waters. But like for me, 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:44.679 drumming is always my passion. If you just had one 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:49.280 thing to say, that's what I'm known for for you, 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:53.000 because again you're known for your singing, your acting, everything, 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:56.520 you're direct. What is the one medium in the arts 0:17:56.560 --> 0:18:00.639 that you say is your north star employment preach. 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:08.119 That's you come on now, mayor at this point, that's 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:08.399 you do. 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:11.560 Yeah. 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:13.760 Yeah, But if it's all taken away from me. 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:21.680 Drum set, yeah, yeah, for me, it's leave me my voice. 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:26.840 Let me tell my story, my story through song, through dance, 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:28.919 you know, tell my story. Let me give it to 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:32.400 the young people, let me pass it on. I've lived 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:34.520 such a life then it's nice to be able to 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:36.800 say here it's yours. Now, go. 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:44.480 Take me through your life as a creative. What was 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:47.000 your first step into a profession. 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:51.320 I just graduated from the High School for the Performing Arts. 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:56.080 There's a woman there named Janette Carol and she was 0:18:56.160 --> 0:19:00.320 doing Michelle called The Prodigal Son off Broadway at the 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:02.680 Greenwich News Theater. I'm talking about. You don't bout a 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:06.560 professional show, right. I never knew anything about Broadway or 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:09.480 the theater. I had never been on a Broadway stage 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:13.720 until Bob Fosse. But I go to the show. It 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:16.800 was in a graduate greennich News Theater. It was downstairs, 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:20.200 a little theater, and uh, that was my first production. 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:23.000 And one night I'm coming out of the theater. I 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.080 was in my first Son of been born, and I 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:28.359 was nay getting to the theater. I had to spend 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:31.399 time with my first wife and got back to the 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:35.200 theater and the dance captain had taken my role and 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:38.359 gave it to his love, and I wasn't going to 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:41.000 have that because it was my role. So I went 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.919 on stage anyway. So those stage where I said they 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:46.000 can't do that, I said, no, they can'ts. I went 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:48.480 on stage, guy got dressed, went on stage, and we're 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:52.760 fighting doing the show on stage. I'm he's in my place. 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:55.960 I'm hitting him. He's hitting me this or and people 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:58.480 must say, they're going, wow, this show is so real. 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:02.760 I got I come off stage. I'm angry. I'm leaving 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:05.399 the theater. I'm going to Glenn's house, you know, to 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.399 get myself cooled off. And it's a little guy sitting 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:13.680 outside of the door, and he says, he says, excuse me, Yeah, 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:16.800 what do you want? He says, I'm looking for Benjamin Verena. 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:19.880 I'm bench. What do you want? He said, you look 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:21.800 like you could use the dinner. My name is Langston, 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:23.160 used I wrote this. 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:27.159 Whoa, Well, you can't just you just drop that. 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:34.840 You did that? Yeah, took me to dinner. He said, 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:38.400 you looked like good boy your dinner. So he took 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:40.879 me a little a little Italian joy in the village 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:43.240 and we sat and talked, and he told me about 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:45.200 himself and told me a guy he's written the play 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:48.000 and inviting me up the Harlem for the first time. 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:53.879 So that was my first professional job. Uh, and the 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:57.199 time would buy And the next time I got a 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:00.960 job was uh, you'll read about in the book. He 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:02.959 was on the subway, I jump turned style, I went 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:05.000 to New York City. I was standing on the corner. 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:07.000 I went by my school and I was really depressed. 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:10.080 I went by Performing Arts. I looked at the school 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:12.320 and going, where am I going? What's going to happen? 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:15.479 And I walked down to the news stand and I 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:18.679 opened up a newspaper. Backstage in his audition for that 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:21.760 day for a show called Sweet Charity going to a 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:25.520 place called Las Vegas, starring Woman and Juliet Prowse, directed 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:28.399 by Bob Fosse. And that was the first time I 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:32.000 was scept on Broadway Sturge at the Palace Theater. I 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:34.000 went to the audition. It was like the opening of 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:37.040 all that jazz. Yes, and I went that was one 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:39.920 of those kids on the stage standing there Washington. Cool 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:43.480 guy walked down the middle of the aisle smoking a cigarette. 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:46.240 He gets up on stage. He does the demonstration for 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:50.320 us to do, and the ashes never fall. I said, 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:52.000 this guy. 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:53.879 He just smoked to the end and the ashes just 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:54.880 grew and grew. 0:21:56.000 --> 0:22:00.000 Hung there, but he did the combination turns and boom, 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:04.920 steps to step boom, and they stopped. Okay, do the steps. 0:22:05.119 --> 0:22:07.359 We couldn't do the steps because you're too busy watching 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:09.120 the ashes see if they're in Fall. 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:15.960 Okay, So my mother is, you know, probably the show's 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:20.200 biggest fan, and. 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:19.760 She will scream on me. 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:23.720 You drop so many names that she'll scream on me 0:22:23.880 --> 0:22:26.080 if I don't go in the further detail. And my 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:29.200 mom's from Pittsburgh. Okay, I'm gonna ask about Bob Fosse. 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:33.600 But you mentioned the legendary Martha Graham. You studying under it? 0:22:34.160 --> 0:22:37.919 What was what was it like studying under Martha Graham? 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:40.879 Well, I didn't actually have a class about the Graham. 0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:44.600 I studied with one of her dancers named David Woods. Okay, 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:48.359 it's one of the teachers there. It was amazing, you 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:52.360 know for me getting into the middle. The first day 0:22:52.400 --> 0:22:56.199 of school, they have you line up and then they 0:22:56.240 --> 0:22:59.199 have you change and you get dressed for your class. 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:02.600 You go to your glasses and my first day in school, 0:23:02.640 --> 0:23:05.600 I wore my suit that I wore with the Sensational 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:08.679 Trials to Brooklyn. My mother bought me in the tashed sharecase. 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:11.800 I still like my tash shad case. And then they 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:14.280 said go get dressed. All the guys went and put 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:16.560 on their dance clothes. I put on my dance clothes, 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:19.320 put my suit back on. That's what it was raised, 0:23:19.920 --> 0:23:23.720 you know, don't just walk around your underwear. So I 0:23:23.800 --> 0:23:25.760 get back out there in my suit on. She said, 0:23:25.760 --> 0:23:27.920 excuse me, doctor was saying, you're taking class of that. 0:23:28.400 --> 0:23:30.840 I said yes. He said, well, where's your dance clothes? 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:36.680 I said, my suit You can't dance that way. Get 0:23:36.680 --> 0:23:38.960 in there, put on your dance clothes. And that was 0:23:39.000 --> 0:23:44.159 the beginning of wonderment. Yeah. But David Woods, who was 0:23:44.280 --> 0:23:47.840 really the foundation of my actings as well, because he 0:23:47.880 --> 0:23:50.840 would tell us, he say, you can't just dance. It's 0:23:50.880 --> 0:23:54.280 got to tell a story. So find the story that 0:23:54.359 --> 0:23:57.200 you want to tell through your movement. And that's why 0:23:57.280 --> 0:24:01.119 dance is so personal to me. You know, in modern dance, 0:24:01.359 --> 0:24:04.240 you must tell a story. It isn't about just steps. 0:24:04.760 --> 0:24:08.960 It's about emotion. It's about the story that you're telling. 0:24:09.240 --> 0:24:13.439 Although it may not be the choreographer may not is 0:24:13.480 --> 0:24:15.679 telling you his story. But you got to find your 0:24:15.760 --> 0:24:19.800 story within the movement. What makes you move this way, 0:24:20.440 --> 0:24:23.000 what makes you sing this way? What makes you tell 0:24:23.080 --> 0:24:26.359 your story through drama, through the word this way? You 0:24:26.400 --> 0:24:28.520 have to create it, at least for me. You have 0:24:28.560 --> 0:24:31.879 to relate to something within you that connects to that 0:24:32.520 --> 0:24:36.800 emotion and that's how we dance be That's how I danced. 0:24:37.280 --> 0:24:39.320 For a lot of us, at least for my generation. 0:24:40.000 --> 0:24:43.320 This conversation is really transformational as far as like my 0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:46.360 mind state, because I think every person thinks that their 0:24:46.480 --> 0:24:50.439 era in the world is the kind of you know, 0:24:50.520 --> 0:24:53.080 black and white, the color Wizard of Oz thing, like 0:24:53.160 --> 0:24:55.560 everyone thinks like, oh, when I was born, then suddenly 0:24:55.600 --> 0:25:00.480 modern times began. But you know, I would zoom that 0:25:00.680 --> 0:25:05.840 until Roots came along, that a lot of African Americans 0:25:05.960 --> 0:25:09.720 weren't even thinking in terms of their history going back 0:25:09.760 --> 0:25:13.200 to Africa, unless you know, they were of the generation 0:25:13.240 --> 0:25:16.920 that watched Tarzan as a kid in the fifties and sixties. 0:25:16.640 --> 0:25:19.080 The Marcus Garvey movement, and he was down with. 0:25:19.080 --> 0:25:20.560 That, right. 0:25:20.840 --> 0:25:23.760 So what I'm asking you is when you're told to 0:25:23.840 --> 0:25:29.280 tell your story and the vocabulary of our African history 0:25:29.440 --> 0:25:34.360 really wasn't super enforced unless you were part of specialized movements. 0:25:34.920 --> 0:25:39.439 In your mind, when you are expressing yourself and reaching 0:25:39.480 --> 0:25:43.240 inside for your emotions and through dance, what is it 0:25:43.280 --> 0:25:45.919 that drove you creatively? Like what are you thinking of 0:25:46.040 --> 0:25:49.080 when they're telling you tell your story? 0:25:50.400 --> 0:25:54.879 Well, I'm thinking of my emotional feelings and what I 0:25:55.000 --> 0:25:59.560 feel in that moment of death. Story makes sense, all 0:25:59.640 --> 0:26:01.920 right if I have safe For example, if I tell 0:26:01.920 --> 0:26:06.000 a story of my listen, keep him we going to 0:26:06.160 --> 0:26:08.920 performing us? What did that make you feel? Like? How 0:26:08.920 --> 0:26:11.400 did you feel the first day you stepped on that stage, 0:26:11.760 --> 0:26:14.240 when you stepped into that studio? What was it feeling 0:26:14.280 --> 0:26:16.480 to you and feeling? What's that story that you want 0:26:16.480 --> 0:26:19.680 to tell right there? And then that creates a whole movement, 0:26:20.280 --> 0:26:23.080 yes for us coming up. And I was as far 0:26:23.080 --> 0:26:25.760 as we're talking about ancestry now, when we talked about 0:26:25.800 --> 0:26:30.000 black history in my school coming up in my era, 0:26:30.480 --> 0:26:34.919 it was one paragraph your slave and Lincoln freed you, 0:26:34.920 --> 0:26:37.880 you know, and we know that's not true. And long 0:26:38.000 --> 0:26:41.120 comes a wonderful man named Alex Haley who says, I'm 0:26:41.119 --> 0:26:43.879 going to devouch that because it's not true. And he 0:26:43.920 --> 0:26:47.320 goes back to Gambia and he finds his roots, and 0:26:47.359 --> 0:26:50.560 he writes a wonderful book called Roots. And we all 0:26:50.640 --> 0:26:54.280 now say, and now the world is going whoa wait 0:26:54.280 --> 0:26:56.880 a minute, waking up. There was more to it than 0:26:56.880 --> 0:26:59.920 this what's in our history books. There's more to my story, 0:27:00.240 --> 0:27:03.359 you see. It's so interesting. When Roots came out, it 0:27:03.440 --> 0:27:05.920 was just the book, and I had heard about it, 0:27:06.440 --> 0:27:08.760 and like a lot of us did, and I just 0:27:08.840 --> 0:27:11.639 knew I wanted to be a part of that movie, 0:27:12.280 --> 0:27:14.720 that TV series that was And I went to my 0:27:14.840 --> 0:27:19.359 agent and I said to him, listen, there's this book. 0:27:19.440 --> 0:27:21.399 I think ABC is gonna make a movie out of 0:27:21.400 --> 0:27:24.720 it called Roots. Cinda, I really i'd like to be 0:27:24.920 --> 0:27:27.800 to try out. What he says to me, Ben, you're 0:27:27.800 --> 0:27:31.840 a song and dance man. They're looking for actors, he said, 0:27:31.880 --> 0:27:35.520 So listen, there's a there's this group that starting out. 0:27:35.720 --> 0:27:39.560 You got a big hit called your Family's Sister Sledge. 0:27:39.920 --> 0:27:41.960 He says, they're going to open for you in Chicago, 0:27:42.320 --> 0:27:44.399 So why don't you go do that? And you have 0:27:44.440 --> 0:27:46.960 another to get for you guys down in Savannah. So 0:27:47.000 --> 0:27:50.160 I said yeah, But Kenny said, Ben, they're looking for actors. 0:27:50.560 --> 0:27:52.119 So I get on I get on the plane. I 0:27:52.200 --> 0:27:54.280 go to Chicago. This it's a Sledge. They opened to 0:27:54.320 --> 0:27:56.960 be a wonderful these little girls, the little Girls, and 0:27:57.040 --> 0:27:59.080 we get to Sabana, Georgia. He used to do a 0:27:59.160 --> 0:28:04.800 character called Burt Williams about my ancestry, about the performer. 0:28:05.240 --> 0:28:08.480 There was a time in American history where black people 0:28:08.640 --> 0:28:11.520 in the theater were not allowed on stage unless we 0:28:11.560 --> 0:28:14.159 wore a black face. And he went through that. So 0:28:14.240 --> 0:28:17.560 I told that story and coming at the show that 0:28:17.600 --> 0:28:21.800 afternoon in Savannah, Georgia, there was a guy came backstage 0:28:21.840 --> 0:28:25.000 and they would staying Margolis and he said, I want 0:28:25.040 --> 0:28:28.880 you to read my Chicken George And I said, I said, said, 0:28:28.920 --> 0:28:30.919 what's the chicken George? He said, We'll shoe me down 0:28:30.920 --> 0:28:34.719 here shooting a show called Roots. He said, Michael, And 0:28:34.760 --> 0:28:37.880 I said, I don't care, man, if Chicken George's guy 0:28:37.920 --> 0:28:40.040 in the boat going, let me out of here. Let 0:28:40.040 --> 0:28:43.360 me out of here, please please, I'll be there. And 0:28:43.400 --> 0:28:45.880 that's how I got the bar. I had no idea 0:28:46.080 --> 0:28:49.120 how deep it was going to go and what I mean. 0:28:49.480 --> 0:28:52.880 It opened up a whole avenue for me and for 0:28:52.960 --> 0:28:56.960 all of us to look back and honor our ancestry, 0:28:57.120 --> 0:29:00.760 which we must continue to do. This stay four because 0:29:00.800 --> 0:29:04.800 our ancestry of the reason why we're here today, their struggle, 0:29:05.280 --> 0:29:12.360 their fight, their determination to go through slavery. Imagine coming 0:29:12.400 --> 0:29:17.840 across the water, having being stolen from your family, you're 0:29:17.840 --> 0:29:21.960 on and you're put on chains. Change what was a chain, 0:29:22.560 --> 0:29:24.960 and you're being put on a boat on and you 0:29:25.000 --> 0:29:27.520 put to an island, and you're gone away with a 0:29:27.520 --> 0:29:30.440 bunch of people you've never seen. The white and you 0:29:30.520 --> 0:29:33.880 see a bunch of other people your color were not 0:29:34.000 --> 0:29:38.080 the same languages, and we're all chained inside this boat 0:29:38.480 --> 0:29:41.680 and someone jumping off the side. They refuse to go 0:29:41.800 --> 0:29:44.080 to they're gonna know what's gonna happen. They don't want 0:29:44.080 --> 0:29:46.560 to be a part of it. But the bravery of 0:29:46.640 --> 0:29:50.520 those people went through that passage and stood on that 0:29:50.920 --> 0:29:55.240 on that slave block and watch their families being torn apart, 0:29:55.560 --> 0:29:59.680 which which I think in my mind, destroyed our culture together. 0:29:59.800 --> 0:30:07.360 The that strength and to tell their stories to be forgotten. No, no, 0:30:07.400 --> 0:30:08.160 not on my watch. 0:30:09.080 --> 0:30:12.680 How long did they give you to prepare that role? 0:30:13.400 --> 0:30:18.000 Take us through the process of preparing, executing, and then 0:30:18.120 --> 0:30:19.080 leaving that character. 0:30:19.680 --> 0:30:20.960 I never looked their character. 0:30:21.040 --> 0:30:25.880 Boy all right, chicken joys. 0:30:27.640 --> 0:30:33.360 Well, for me, it was all because understand, my family 0:30:33.600 --> 0:30:37.200 we never sat around and talked about then, because we 0:30:37.200 --> 0:30:41.760 were surviving in the now. My family was the educators 0:30:41.880 --> 0:30:45.440 or the the you know, they were not of that elk, 0:30:45.760 --> 0:30:49.640 you know, if they were field workers, you know, survivors, 0:30:50.040 --> 0:30:53.760 and so We never sat around and talked about education, 0:30:54.360 --> 0:30:59.360 about government, about what's going on day to day survival. 0:30:59.640 --> 0:31:02.400 So I got this. I knew there was a deeper story. 0:31:02.880 --> 0:31:05.720 When I got the opportunity to tell my story, it 0:31:05.760 --> 0:31:08.160 was like, how do I find my research? So I 0:31:08.240 --> 0:31:11.480 called my elders. You know, can you tell me about 0:31:11.680 --> 0:31:14.560 what it was like during this time that time? And 0:31:14.680 --> 0:31:17.920 you know, and a lot of it came from imagination 0:31:18.080 --> 0:31:21.920 once again, what it must have felt like. And Chicken 0:31:22.000 --> 0:31:24.600 George was so he's so beautiful. You know, the one 0:31:24.640 --> 0:31:26.959 thing I do is that when I get to a character, 0:31:27.200 --> 0:31:30.760 especially someone like Chicken George, I asked permission to enter 0:31:30.840 --> 0:31:35.200 into that realm of consciousness and what's been like for you? 0:31:36.280 --> 0:31:39.920 Educate me, teach me. And he took me on his journey. 0:31:40.640 --> 0:31:44.720 And I tell you the respect and the admiration that 0:31:44.800 --> 0:31:48.040 the cast and the crew had doing that, it was amazing. 0:31:48.720 --> 0:31:49.560 It was amazing. 0:31:50.000 --> 0:31:50.920 Did it feel safe? 0:31:51.520 --> 0:31:53.400 Did they provide like a cause you know in twenty 0:31:53.520 --> 0:31:55.760 twenty if you guys made this in twenty twenty four 0:31:55.840 --> 0:31:57.720 or twenty five, there would be all kind. 0:31:57.560 --> 0:31:59.040 Of counseling on set. 0:31:59.520 --> 0:32:01.360 And you know, when you when you broke out a 0:32:01.440 --> 0:32:03.760 character there'd be somebody to make sure are you okay? 0:32:04.360 --> 0:32:05.680 Like, how did y'all handle that? 0:32:06.080 --> 0:32:06.120 No? 0:32:07.360 --> 0:32:09.480 Not in twenty twenty four, sorry to jump in now, 0:32:10.120 --> 0:32:10.640 please go. 0:32:10.800 --> 0:32:14.040 Please cabar that will come later. Oh not in twenty 0:32:14.080 --> 0:32:15.800 twenty four, My bad. Okay, yeah. 0:32:16.680 --> 0:32:20.200 Four. During that time, it was self nurturing. And that's 0:32:20.200 --> 0:32:22.520 why I say the cat the crew, even the crew 0:32:23.120 --> 0:32:26.200 was aware that we were touching upon something that was 0:32:27.160 --> 0:32:31.080 in other words, I hate to use this word but taboo. 0:32:32.080 --> 0:32:36.920 But the respect and reverence that the crew had and 0:32:36.960 --> 0:32:39.280 would like to see that one scene I never forget 0:32:39.360 --> 0:32:43.240 the scene where Richard Rowntree was dating my mother time 0:32:43.600 --> 0:32:46.520 Leslie other one was playing kissing and there's a scene 0:32:46.560 --> 0:32:50.000 where she had talked him into taking her to find 0:32:50.080 --> 0:32:53.520 her father and they go back and they're late coming 0:32:53.560 --> 0:32:59.000 back to the plantation and his masa at the time 0:32:59.800 --> 0:33:04.240 were supposed to chastise him and Richard round. She was 0:33:04.280 --> 0:33:07.720 supposed to beg for him, not to beat him. And 0:33:07.720 --> 0:33:11.400 I'll never get this. Richard said, you want me to 0:33:11.400 --> 0:33:14.440 grobble to a white man? Do you know why? I 0:33:14.480 --> 0:33:19.200 am mm hmmm. I don't groobble for no white man. 0:33:19.880 --> 0:33:23.200 And the director said said Richard, we need this just 0:33:23.240 --> 0:33:25.760 for the next scene. He said, nord to he said, 0:33:26.040 --> 0:33:28.440 he said, you can do this. He says, I ain't 0:33:28.480 --> 0:33:33.560 grabbling and no white man, it's like that. And he said, well, 0:33:33.680 --> 0:33:38.760 he said, just one time, he said. He looked around, 0:33:38.800 --> 0:33:41.720 He looked at at Kissey and my mother Leslie, looked 0:33:41.760 --> 0:33:44.520 at the castle and the crew. You went, you got 0:33:44.560 --> 0:33:48.120 one shot. And he gets down. He does that scene 0:33:48.160 --> 0:33:50.360 where he says, please bost some morsel, don't beat me, 0:33:50.760 --> 0:33:53.200 and we just finished. The director said, goud, okay, that 0:33:53.280 --> 0:33:58.440 was a good friend. Anybody go home sake, Okay, thank you, 0:33:58.520 --> 0:34:01.240 thank you very much. Because it was like, I mean, 0:34:01.320 --> 0:34:03.440 all of a sudden, we had to reflect on the 0:34:03.480 --> 0:34:07.640 fact that what it must have been like to have 0:34:07.880 --> 0:34:13.719 the wobble to white people for our survival. That the 0:34:13.840 --> 0:34:18.799 big you know, I think about my oof, don't get 0:34:18.840 --> 0:34:29.279 me started. I think about what people went through as slaves, kings, inventors, doctors, 0:34:30.320 --> 0:34:37.759 leaders being stripped. We built empires and civilizations and now 0:34:37.800 --> 0:34:41.080 we are at the bottom of the chain. They gave 0:34:41.200 --> 0:34:45.080 us slop and we made it a cuisine. We made 0:34:45.120 --> 0:34:45.800 it a cuisine. 0:34:46.040 --> 0:34:48.440 I can't even get to that extent of thought it 0:34:48.480 --> 0:34:51.040 makes me think of also the artists who have had 0:34:51.040 --> 0:34:53.879 to play these roles. And it's funny because as you said, 0:34:53.920 --> 0:34:55.960 as you said, this was a taboo thing and now 0:34:56.000 --> 0:34:58.760 it's not. Now we've had several movies that have followed, 0:34:58.760 --> 0:35:01.240 and it makes me think about all the black actors 0:35:01.239 --> 0:35:04.520 who have had to tackle these rolls, like from Chiwaitali, 0:35:04.640 --> 0:35:08.640 Joe for to Jamie Fox, to Lapita and Jongo. And 0:35:08.680 --> 0:35:11.279 I'm curious if anybody ever reached back to you and went, 0:35:11.600 --> 0:35:12.919 how did you do this? 0:35:13.600 --> 0:35:16.000 How did you do this thing? 0:35:16.080 --> 0:35:20.640 Because we who were there at the first beginning a 0:35:20.800 --> 0:35:24.439 waiting to say this is how we did it? Because 0:35:24.600 --> 0:35:29.000 what annoysment? I loved my brother LaVar Burdon loved him, 0:35:29.800 --> 0:35:32.040 yet he felt that maybe I let me take it 0:35:32.080 --> 0:35:34.640 this way, but he never allowed us to talk to 0:35:34.840 --> 0:35:38.879 the cast, They say, what did you go through? How 0:35:38.880 --> 0:35:40.759 did you get there this point? Oh? 0:35:40.800 --> 0:35:42.720 With the newer roots? Are you talking about the new roots? 0:35:43.080 --> 0:35:44.000 The newer roots? 0:35:44.760 --> 0:35:48.279 I said, Okay, they did a good job, but as 0:35:48.280 --> 0:35:50.520 far as they could do. But we could have given 0:35:50.560 --> 0:35:54.280 them another layer that's much deeper, because we were there. 0:35:54.800 --> 0:35:56.920 We were I was curious about thank you for answering 0:35:56.920 --> 0:35:57.440 that question. 0:35:58.400 --> 0:36:02.800 We cried and wept and what to do, but we 0:36:02.880 --> 0:36:04.799 knew we had to do it for the art and 0:36:04.880 --> 0:36:09.120 to tell the truth story as far as Hollywood would 0:36:09.160 --> 0:36:12.200 allow us to tell the truth stories. You understand, Ruth 0:36:12.360 --> 0:36:16.960 just scrounged upon the surface really went down, But what 0:36:17.160 --> 0:36:19.920 really went down you can do those wounds, you go deeper. 0:36:20.760 --> 0:36:24.720 They were knights. I come home and my wife Nancy, 0:36:25.560 --> 0:36:28.239 she go you okay, I say yeah, And nights I 0:36:28.320 --> 0:36:32.040 was just being tears, like okay, okay, and let me 0:36:32.080 --> 0:36:35.360 get myself ready, Okay, let's go do the scene. And 0:36:35.400 --> 0:36:37.920 although I was friend chicken George, who was like a dandy, 0:36:38.160 --> 0:36:40.040 but there was that moment when he finds out his 0:36:40.080 --> 0:36:44.120 father is white. It's what he's gone through. And watching 0:36:44.680 --> 0:36:50.239 your fellow neighbor, brothers, sister, they whipped because they didn't 0:36:50.280 --> 0:36:52.480 want to pick up something they didn't want to do, 0:36:52.560 --> 0:36:54.960 so they said the same wrong thing because they were 0:36:55.080 --> 0:36:58.040 field niggas, then the house niggas. Because it's to you 0:36:58.040 --> 0:37:03.839 a little better with the field telling those stories. And 0:37:03.880 --> 0:37:07.839 I think those stories have not been told enough. As 0:37:07.840 --> 0:37:10.680 long as my Jewish brothers and sisters can tell us 0:37:10.719 --> 0:37:15.359 about the Holocaust. We must talk about our Holocaust. Excuse me. 0:37:15.760 --> 0:37:16.240 I agreed. 0:37:16.520 --> 0:37:21.080 Let's read so we know where we are going, otherwise 0:37:21.120 --> 0:37:22.600 they will do it to us again. 0:37:28.160 --> 0:37:30.480 Did this journey at all make you want to go 0:37:30.560 --> 0:37:33.799 back to your own roots and find out about who 0:37:33.920 --> 0:37:36.439 you are? And can you talk about that a little bit? 0:37:37.800 --> 0:37:42.040 When I was with Sammy Davis Junior, I got I 0:37:42.080 --> 0:37:45.719 was finishing a movie called Sweet Charity with Shortian McClair, Yep, 0:37:46.480 --> 0:37:50.120 Davis Junior and Sammy and I was, I was, I 0:37:50.200 --> 0:37:55.280 was feeling pissed to Sammy. Why well, sam went on 0:37:55.280 --> 0:37:58.320 on TV television, those dames. He had three channels. The 0:37:58.400 --> 0:38:01.520 fourth channel came out and he said, well, you know, 0:38:01.600 --> 0:38:04.120 I know how how hard it is for us in 0:38:04.200 --> 0:38:07.960 this business. So there's any young black entertainer out there? 0:38:07.960 --> 0:38:13.960 I think no? In those days were negroes in colored right. 0:38:14.800 --> 0:38:17.640 I want to talk to me. I'm open to talking 0:38:17.719 --> 0:38:20.120 to him. I mean, you know how much courage it 0:38:20.160 --> 0:38:22.120 took me to get up the skids from Brooklyn and 0:38:22.160 --> 0:38:26.520 we opened Caesar's Palace. I'm there Caesar's Palace and I'm 0:38:26.560 --> 0:38:30.880 going into Casino, which I'm hearing stories. Lean on hornhurlbelly 0:38:31.080 --> 0:38:33.279 had to be in trailers outside and walk through the 0:38:33.280 --> 0:38:35.680 slop before they got on stage. Now I'm staying in 0:38:35.760 --> 0:38:38.600 a hole in an apartment right across the street from 0:38:38.760 --> 0:38:41.680 from the Caesar's Palace, and I'm coming in there and 0:38:41.719 --> 0:38:44.680 I'm standing there. I see Joe esuis walking down and 0:38:44.760 --> 0:38:47.759 how Tomorrow giv him money. And I'm sending wipe that 0:38:47.880 --> 0:38:50.799 still gave me money to gamble, And I mean, I'm like, wow, 0:38:50.920 --> 0:38:53.600 I'm skips from Brooklyn look at me. And then Sammy 0:38:53.600 --> 0:38:57.640 says he'll talk to me. Yes. So I'm waiting one 0:38:57.719 --> 0:38:59.960 day for sam to come to me Rose Nook, which 0:39:00.120 --> 0:39:02.640 the lounge the head there with people like Jack Machel 0:39:02.760 --> 0:39:05.880 hangout and the platters and and so he was coming 0:39:05.920 --> 0:39:08.560 and walking with fifty of his closest friends. So I 0:39:08.600 --> 0:39:13.320 walk over and I go, miss mister Davis, I heard 0:39:13.400 --> 0:39:16.920 that he said, talk to my secretary. I went, what 0:39:18.120 --> 0:39:23.080 mm hmm, really okay. So then I get to show 0:39:23.080 --> 0:39:27.319 Sweet Charity. I'm on tour with with Cheter rivera end 0:39:27.400 --> 0:39:30.360 up in catalog. I get a telegram we want it. 0:39:30.480 --> 0:39:33.360 I'm doing Daddy Blue Bank a role in the show. 0:39:33.560 --> 0:39:35.440 You know, I got to sing my own solo I 0:39:35.520 --> 0:39:39.239 was excited all let Bob Fosk and trusted business role. 0:39:39.600 --> 0:39:41.799 Now I get this telegram we want you to come 0:39:41.840 --> 0:39:46.520 to Hollywood to star in the movie Sweet Charity, and 0:39:46.520 --> 0:39:49.200 I went, wow, I'm gonna do doing the role. Oh 0:39:49.280 --> 0:39:51.480 Daddy brew Bank. Then I get to the movie and 0:39:51.520 --> 0:39:53.879 they said, no, Sammy Davis is gonna do this role. 0:39:54.360 --> 0:39:59.319 Saturday attitude. Chake my role too, man, I have done 0:39:59.800 --> 0:40:03.080 do with you. He walks in and say says, Samy's 0:40:03.120 --> 0:40:05.239 too sick to do the row. I went, whoa, I'm 0:40:05.280 --> 0:40:08.279 gonna put apart. Yeah, so I'm standing on line and 0:40:08.320 --> 0:40:10.840 who should walk through the door in the wheelchair? Sammy 0:40:10.960 --> 0:40:15.080 David Juni and everybody goes, oh, sam oh Sam, I say, 0:40:15.160 --> 0:40:20.200 I do I sit back? So saf notices I have 0:40:20.280 --> 0:40:24.160 this attitude man. He goes, yeah, don't come on the 0:40:24.160 --> 0:40:27.279 stories say fight everybody, fight everybody over. We're gonna have 0:40:27.320 --> 0:40:31.319 this much with everybody. Everybody goes, I stand outside. So 0:40:31.360 --> 0:40:34.359 Sammy sends over on his henchmen. He says, uh, mister 0:40:34.480 --> 0:40:37.000 Davis likes to have dinner with you in Little Santa Monica. 0:40:37.880 --> 0:40:42.160 I said, yeah, right, cool. I got so excited, I'm 0:40:42.200 --> 0:40:47.239 gonna put brand New Soon I got the little got 0:40:47.239 --> 0:40:49.319 to the hotel like an hour before. Right, I went 0:40:49.800 --> 0:40:52.720 in the restaurant. I said, mister, my name is benjam Veren, 0:40:53.120 --> 0:40:55.520 and miss Davids Many said, wait who wo wo wo 0:40:55.600 --> 0:40:58.719 wo wo. Well not here, you know, let's see if 0:40:58.719 --> 0:41:03.080 you're in the list. Listen Benjamin, Yeah, okay, come in. 0:41:03.160 --> 0:41:05.280 So I go to this long table and I'm sitting 0:41:05.320 --> 0:41:08.240 his long table. As I got there, like at six thirty. 0:41:08.600 --> 0:41:10.640 We want to be there at seven seven things dinner. 0:41:11.280 --> 0:41:14.640 And I'm looking around the room. There's Joey Bishop, There's 0:41:14.880 --> 0:41:19.239 you know, Dean Martin, there's Lucio Ball, all these celebrities 0:41:19.239 --> 0:41:22.520 sitting around, and I'm sitting this long table smoking, waiting 0:41:22.560 --> 0:41:27.839 for Sammy. Nine thirty. No, Sammy, I'm sitting there at nine. 0:41:28.920 --> 0:41:31.320 I said, okay, say you guys, you're not coming. So 0:41:31.480 --> 0:41:33.560 I got up. I started to leave. Who walks in 0:41:33.640 --> 0:41:36.920 Sammy with the same fifty closest friends, He says, So 0:41:37.080 --> 0:41:41.000 sit down, sit sener. He says, you know, I did 0:41:41.000 --> 0:41:44.520 a show called Golden Boys some years ago on Broadway 0:41:44.600 --> 0:41:46.760 and think about doing it again taking it to London. 0:41:47.400 --> 0:41:49.200 So well, now it's a different time because we have 0:41:49.280 --> 0:41:52.080 the black panthers. There's a black movement going on, and 0:41:53.160 --> 0:41:58.600 we need somebody who's angry, who's the fire And his 0:41:58.760 --> 0:42:02.520 agent says, nudget, we go asking for the role, and 0:42:02.640 --> 0:42:05.880 what is asking for the role? I said, missus David, 0:42:05.960 --> 0:42:08.239 we got the role. So he hires me to do 0:42:08.280 --> 0:42:11.799 poll the Boy. Right. So we says, now we're going 0:42:11.840 --> 0:42:15.200 to do the show, uh in Chicago. Then we're going 0:42:15.239 --> 0:42:18.319 to London, and he says, we have a passport. I said, no, 0:42:18.400 --> 0:42:22.640 I don't I have a passport. He said oh. He said, okay, 0:42:23.960 --> 0:42:26.359 just right down to where you were you were born 0:42:26.400 --> 0:42:28.239 and you'll send you your birth certification. We got the 0:42:28.280 --> 0:42:31.759 crassport and you're gone. I said, okay, so right down 0:42:31.840 --> 0:42:35.520 to Florida. Mimi flund I get this letter back saying 0:42:35.800 --> 0:42:38.960 we do not have a Benjamin Augustus Verene born to 0:42:39.000 --> 0:42:42.840 an SSI Varene. However we do have are born to 0:42:42.840 --> 0:42:46.759 a Pauline Verene. However, we do have a Benjamin Augustus 0:42:46.960 --> 0:42:51.920 Middleton born to an SSI middle East Middleton on that date. 0:42:54.360 --> 0:42:58.160 What wait, that's how you found your roots? 0:42:58.960 --> 0:43:03.879 So I called my mother. I said, Mom, you got 0:43:03.920 --> 0:43:05.759 to call these people. I'm saying any days, you don't 0:43:05.760 --> 0:43:08.520 take him to London. And I ain't need my passport, 0:43:08.680 --> 0:43:11.759 I need you. And they say, said I read a 0:43:11.840 --> 0:43:17.000 letter and she went it was quiet. I said, mom, 0:43:17.800 --> 0:43:21.200 whoa and she said, I was hoping you'd never know. 0:43:25.040 --> 0:43:25.160 Hm. 0:43:26.560 --> 0:43:29.720 And that's how I had my journey, then my my daughter. 0:43:29.840 --> 0:43:32.800 When I had my daughters, you know, they came to me. 0:43:33.400 --> 0:43:36.120 Babies came to me and said, Dad, all we have 0:43:36.360 --> 0:43:40.520 is mom, and but we don't have any We're gonna 0:43:40.520 --> 0:43:43.239 have children one day, and we didn't know who's in 0:43:43.320 --> 0:43:47.839 our So I said, okay, So I started searching. I 0:43:47.920 --> 0:43:51.400 was down in Mexico and ran to a friend named 0:43:51.480 --> 0:43:54.600 uh La Fever Rocks and the Fever and this lady 0:43:54.640 --> 0:43:56.120 and I got to talk and went to Mexico to 0:43:56.120 --> 0:44:00.400 get vitamin drip because in those days invited the States been. 0:44:01.880 --> 0:44:04.560 So I go down to meet her and we go 0:44:04.640 --> 0:44:07.200 to dinner, and I stought. She starts telling me she's 0:44:07.200 --> 0:44:10.120 a genealogist. So I said, oh yeah, I said, well, 0:44:10.320 --> 0:44:13.120 and I saw telling my story. She said, well, why 0:44:13.160 --> 0:44:16.280 don't we go searching? So I go to an office 0:44:16.320 --> 0:44:18.879 in Washington and see she worked for the Pearson And 0:44:18.920 --> 0:44:21.840 that's when the journey began and I found my family 0:44:21.840 --> 0:44:24.399 about what is it Toborrow sixteen years ago? 0:44:24.680 --> 0:44:26.759 Yeah, fifteen years ago around. 0:44:27.200 --> 0:44:30.040 My family And here's the ironic thing, he said, We 0:44:30.120 --> 0:44:32.279 all read this in the book. The book is much 0:44:32.320 --> 0:44:33.760 better than this interview. 0:44:33.800 --> 0:44:37.759 This interview is much better than your career retrospective. Like 0:44:38.480 --> 0:44:41.000 this might be my favorite episode of the Quest of Supreme. 0:44:41.920 --> 0:44:43.120 I did not know this was coming. 0:44:43.840 --> 0:44:46.760 So we start searching, and here we is a wonderful story. 0:44:47.760 --> 0:44:52.239 When I got married at a very young age, it 0:44:52.320 --> 0:44:56.480 was to the bishop's daughter of the Holiness Church. When 0:44:56.520 --> 0:44:59.839 I find my family, come to find out my grandfather 0:45:00.480 --> 0:45:03.600 was the originator of the Holiness churches in the South 0:45:04.440 --> 0:45:10.839 pier Since, now here's the thing. My first father in law, 0:45:11.239 --> 0:45:15.120 we go to a place in Connecticut. We haveing Connecticut. 0:45:15.360 --> 0:45:18.279 We had a thing called Complication. That's where you know, 0:45:18.280 --> 0:45:20.600 all the black churches get together and we celebrate the other. 0:45:21.840 --> 0:45:25.440 And so when I found my family, I called my 0:45:25.520 --> 0:45:28.759 sister Gloria, and it was so weird. You know how 0:45:28.800 --> 0:45:33.200 it is you find you just like it was what 0:45:33.360 --> 0:45:38.840 a conversation. I said, hello, she said hi, I said Gloria. 0:45:39.160 --> 0:45:43.239 She said yeah, I said, my name is Benjamin, I'm 0:45:43.280 --> 0:45:46.360 your brother. She said, yeah, they're telling me. You told 0:45:46.360 --> 0:45:48.960 me that. So how she found out? She said that 0:45:49.120 --> 0:45:52.560 someone called and said you better sit down. He said, 0:45:52.800 --> 0:45:55.480 well she got another brother. Said I don't know, I 0:45:55.480 --> 0:45:59.200 got a brother. Said no, you better sit down. Yeah. 0:45:59.239 --> 0:46:00.959 I said, it's your oldest sister. 0:46:01.080 --> 0:46:08.360 Huh, oldest sister. You have a Yeah, his name is Benjamin, 0:46:09.160 --> 0:46:13.960 said Benjamin. She said yeah, She said, I got my Eugene. 0:46:14.040 --> 0:46:17.160 I got She said, no, you have another brother. His 0:46:17.320 --> 0:46:21.440 name is ben Vereen. You better sit down. So I 0:46:21.640 --> 0:46:25.000 call her and I say who I am, introduced myself 0:46:25.360 --> 0:46:29.560 and they said that year they were having the my family. 0:46:29.600 --> 0:46:33.520 Part of the family was about the Pearsons, and so 0:46:33.760 --> 0:46:37.759 in Connecticut. Now I lived an hour away from my 0:46:37.920 --> 0:46:44.680 mother my entire life and never never. And here's the thing. 0:46:44.719 --> 0:46:48.640 We're sitting at the table at the reunion and my 0:46:48.760 --> 0:46:53.440 wife there, my children, my grandchildren, and we're sitting there celebrating. 0:46:53.719 --> 0:46:55.760 There was only supposed to be fifty p or sixty 0:46:55.760 --> 0:46:58.319 people showing up. It was one hundred or two hundred 0:46:58.320 --> 0:46:59.799 people showed up. When they found out I was part 0:46:59.800 --> 0:47:02.920 of the family, they all come to Connecticut. Who was 0:47:02.960 --> 0:47:05.760 sitting at the table and in walks my first wife's 0:47:05.800 --> 0:47:09.720 aunt and she looks at me. She said, you're Essie's son. 0:47:10.320 --> 0:47:14.880 Oh god, yes, she said, ESSI was my best friend. 0:47:16.480 --> 0:47:20.520 I could have been in church with my first family 0:47:21.239 --> 0:47:24.680 sitting next to my mother and never knew it. 0:47:25.440 --> 0:47:30.800 And it's heartbreaking because she also really admired him an artist, 0:47:30.920 --> 0:47:33.400 and she was a fan of his, and she would 0:47:33.719 --> 0:47:36.880 when he was on television, she would shut off. She 0:47:36.880 --> 0:47:39.520 would tell everybody to be quiet because she had to 0:47:39.560 --> 0:47:44.120 have full attention on my father's performances. But she didn't 0:47:44.120 --> 0:47:44.959 know that was her son. 0:47:45.040 --> 0:47:49.600 It's so heartbreaking, he said, did not didn't know, And I. 0:47:53.400 --> 0:47:55.719 No, I'm messed up. 0:47:56.320 --> 0:47:58.600 She was gone when I found she got to stand something. 0:47:58.760 --> 0:48:01.640 In the black Communitian those days, they do things like that. 0:48:01.800 --> 0:48:04.479 Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like you just send somebody off 0:48:04.600 --> 0:48:05.879 or you you know. 0:48:05.880 --> 0:48:09.000 You just like you know me. Look, the woman lived 0:48:09.080 --> 0:48:12.000 upstairs with us on Herkim the street. She had fourteen 0:48:12.080 --> 0:48:15.120 kids because the government said you don't have to work, 0:48:15.200 --> 0:48:19.040 just have babies, so she'd have babies, you know. And 0:48:19.200 --> 0:48:20.840 there was a lot of that going on in what 0:48:20.880 --> 0:48:23.920 they called the ghetto. Yeah, and so my mother is 0:48:24.239 --> 0:48:26.960 my mother. The story I got was, my mother just 0:48:27.000 --> 0:48:29.840 came from New Orleans where she got into an altercation 0:48:29.920 --> 0:48:33.719 and beautiful and she's working as an orderly at the 0:48:33.719 --> 0:48:36.400 hospital in Miami. She was coming home one night. She 0:48:36.440 --> 0:48:39.279 told me it was raining and she was standing in 0:48:39.360 --> 0:48:41.759 the hall in the storeway, and there was this woman 0:48:41.880 --> 0:48:44.680 standing beside us, pregnant, and they got a conversation. Name 0:48:44.760 --> 0:48:47.400 was Essay. They had a conversation going on, and she 0:48:47.640 --> 0:48:50.560 invited a woman home to her home, and she said 0:48:50.560 --> 0:48:58.200 a few days later she had practice. I can't and 0:48:58.320 --> 0:49:00.600 she said, she went to work, came home and there 0:49:00.680 --> 0:49:04.040 was a nope beside me, saying I don't want to 0:49:04.080 --> 0:49:08.840 take it. And she said, okay, no man, let's go 0:49:08.840 --> 0:49:12.720 to New York City. And it's an interesting thing about 0:49:12.719 --> 0:49:17.879 that scenario because I told my sister, I said, I'm 0:49:17.960 --> 0:49:23.120 sorry I wasn't here for you as a brother. She 0:49:23.160 --> 0:49:26.359 looked at me, she said, don't be sorry, she said, 0:49:26.360 --> 0:49:33.960 and you came with us, you probably wouldn't. Benbury, I was. 0:49:33.920 --> 0:49:39.239 Going to ask you, how conflicted do you feel because 0:49:39.680 --> 0:49:44.239 you had to go through your life in order to 0:49:44.320 --> 0:49:49.239 get to this very place right now. But I know 0:49:49.320 --> 0:49:52.120 there has to be a part of you that wonders 0:49:52.760 --> 0:49:58.320 in an alternate reality where you're with your actual family, 0:49:59.520 --> 0:50:06.440 that somehow you might serendipitously wind up in the same position, Like, 0:50:06.560 --> 0:50:08.359 how did that make it? How long did it take 0:50:08.400 --> 0:50:11.239 you to process? And really did it make you feel 0:50:11.239 --> 0:50:14.520 complete as a human? Did it leave you more conflicted 0:50:14.560 --> 0:50:16.400 about your history? 0:50:17.080 --> 0:50:22.200 Was still a question because my father I have yet 0:50:22.280 --> 0:50:27.680 to find that family, the Middletons. All I know is 0:50:27.719 --> 0:50:32.920 he died in Philadelphia, and so we don't know. 0:50:33.360 --> 0:50:35.560 We don't know if that's truly the father to that. 0:50:35.920 --> 0:50:38.800 We're still trying to figure out the identity of the father, 0:50:39.040 --> 0:50:40.399 the true How. 0:50:40.280 --> 0:50:42.359 Would you do that, Kamar? How do y'all even get. 0:50:42.280 --> 0:50:43.800 To Skip Gates? 0:50:44.080 --> 0:50:47.319 Well, we've been in touch with Skip Gates. Hopefully we're 0:50:47.360 --> 0:50:51.839 going to be on next season, and but we've been 0:50:51.880 --> 0:50:54.960 in that process for a while. But we'd love now. 0:50:55.360 --> 0:50:57.040 I would have assumed he would have been on Find 0:50:57.080 --> 0:50:58.680 My Roots, because it's. 0:51:01.080 --> 0:51:03.560 Well, not many people were privy to the story, And 0:51:03.840 --> 0:51:07.440 you're right even right now, I mean, I'm not spoiler 0:51:07.440 --> 0:51:09.920 a learning because he wrote about in this book Maurice 0:51:09.920 --> 0:51:13.720 White of earthvend Fire, same thing he was five years old, 0:51:14.160 --> 0:51:18.040 his mom gave him to the next door neighbor, and 0:51:18.400 --> 0:51:23.160 she went off to Chicago, had a fit, you know, 0:51:23.440 --> 0:51:28.360 got lucky, married a doctor, had seven children. Maurice joins 0:51:28.400 --> 0:51:32.799 her at eighteen. But there's something inherently broken inside of 0:51:32.800 --> 0:51:36.719 maurice white soul that, yes, he was given away, that 0:51:36.960 --> 0:51:41.799 even though he miraculously kind of wound up in a 0:51:41.880 --> 0:51:46.319 metaphysical self love space at least musically and creatively to 0:51:46.400 --> 0:51:50.200 teach us to love ourselves, you know, afrocentricity and all that. 0:51:50.160 --> 0:51:51.480 Stuff, But. 0:51:53.320 --> 0:51:58.799 That I believe the emotional blockage that Maurice had with 0:51:59.040 --> 0:52:04.839 really not coming to grips with I was so unlovable, 0:52:04.920 --> 0:52:10.680 no one wanted me. I felt personally led to his 0:52:10.840 --> 0:52:12.239 Parkinson's disease. 0:52:15.200 --> 0:52:21.120 There, but the scars still I'm dealing with. Accordingly, It's 0:52:21.160 --> 0:52:23.400 take me some very strange prices. You've regotten the book, 0:52:23.920 --> 0:52:25.200 But what. 0:52:25.239 --> 0:52:27.480 Can I ask, did you go through any sort of 0:52:27.600 --> 0:52:32.520 therapeutic process to sort of deal with that feeling, that 0:52:32.560 --> 0:52:34.879 emotion so it doesn't live inside you. 0:52:36.480 --> 0:52:40.720 Well, you know it's going to always live inside of you. 0:52:40.360 --> 0:52:44.759 Says how to process your life through that? I've been 0:52:44.760 --> 0:52:48.400 through many counselors and people like that. And try to 0:52:48.640 --> 0:52:51.080 try to help me. But it really comes down to 0:52:51.400 --> 0:52:55.680 individual choice of what you choose to be today and 0:52:55.719 --> 0:52:59.880 how you live each day in processing your life. Accepting. 0:53:00.800 --> 0:53:08.040 It's a big word, acceptance, And I'm grateful that for 0:53:08.200 --> 0:53:11.359 my journey. Would I have done it differently had I known, 0:53:11.480 --> 0:53:14.759 baby so? But I can't say that because I am 0:53:14.800 --> 0:53:18.480 not the one who's controlling the spiritual aspect of my life. 0:53:19.120 --> 0:53:21.920 I have my human aspect which is going on the 0:53:22.000 --> 0:53:25.160 journey that the spirit wants to experience through me. But 0:53:25.520 --> 0:53:30.000 had I known, I don't know. I can't say I 0:53:30.040 --> 0:53:33.400 know what I know today, And I'm grateful. When the 0:53:33.480 --> 0:53:34.080 Quest Love. 0:53:33.960 --> 0:53:39.040 Show, Okay, I wasn't going to make a big, rough 0:53:39.120 --> 0:53:42.759 high of this only because you have such an expansive 0:53:42.840 --> 0:53:46.760 career and I know where you're going that I didn't 0:53:46.800 --> 0:53:49.160 want to reduce it to this question that I now 0:53:49.239 --> 0:53:50.560 feel like I have to ask you. 0:53:51.280 --> 0:53:55.640 Yes, yo, man, I'm yo. Oh God. You remember the 0:53:55.680 --> 0:54:03.760 Matthew Knowles episode where hang on, oh shit, I'm sorry, 0:54:05.000 --> 0:54:05.640 what's going on? 0:54:07.280 --> 0:54:10.560 Look For the last year and a half, in hearing 0:54:10.600 --> 0:54:16.920 these stories slid Stone, earth Wind and Fire, this this 0:54:17.080 --> 0:54:22.719 really hits me in my heart only because And the 0:54:22.760 --> 0:54:26.040 reason why I keep grappling with emotions is again, as 0:54:26.120 --> 0:54:29.040 human beings were really not you know, we're taught to 0:54:29.080 --> 0:54:32.680 suck it up, you know, man up, and really not 0:54:32.760 --> 0:54:36.279 process our emotions. And I was wondering, like, how have 0:54:36.320 --> 0:54:38.560 we dealt with this for five hundred years? And you 0:54:38.640 --> 0:54:43.640 explained that through dance, through music, through me drumming. Perhaps 0:54:44.000 --> 0:54:46.440 maybe that's how I get my rage out my you 0:54:46.440 --> 0:54:52.359 know that sort of thing. But the reason why your 0:54:52.480 --> 0:54:58.799 episode of The Fresh Prince of bell Air resonates so 0:54:59.160 --> 0:55:04.200 much with my generation and millennials and gen z is 0:55:04.320 --> 0:55:08.359 we all felt Will Smith's pain, and we you know, 0:55:08.480 --> 0:55:09.120 the whole fight. 0:55:09.200 --> 0:55:10.920 And I'm gonna be a man. I'm gonna be all 0:55:11.000 --> 0:55:12.120 right like that whole Martin. 0:55:12.160 --> 0:55:14.240 I'm gonna be all right like we're taught to sucking 0:55:15.120 --> 0:55:18.480 the tears and not show like. I won't let you 0:55:18.520 --> 0:55:21.040 see me sweat or see me cry or any sort 0:55:21.120 --> 0:55:25.120 of as a sign of defeat. Knowing what you knew 0:55:25.160 --> 0:55:29.200 about your own family history, were the creators of The 0:55:29.239 --> 0:55:33.439 Fresh Prince of bel Air or Will Smith himself, were 0:55:33.520 --> 0:55:34.600 any of them aware? 0:55:35.840 --> 0:55:35.880 No? 0:55:37.440 --> 0:55:37.879 Did you? 0:55:37.880 --> 0:55:38.960 You didn't share with them? 0:55:40.920 --> 0:55:43.640 This information hasn't been really shared publicly. 0:55:44.920 --> 0:55:46.879 I'm just I. 0:55:46.880 --> 0:55:51.320 Thank you for sharing that because it's it's it's it's 0:55:51.360 --> 0:55:51.799 touched me. 0:55:52.520 --> 0:55:55.000 They knew nothing about this, hadn't been talking about this, 0:55:55.080 --> 0:55:57.399 has kept it to myself. I'm just beginning to open 0:55:57.480 --> 0:56:02.680 up about this. But they should choose to tell this 0:56:02.920 --> 0:56:07.480 story at the time in my life and here we 0:56:07.560 --> 0:56:10.160 are talking about it. It was a very deep subject 0:56:10.160 --> 0:56:11.000 for all of us. 0:56:11.640 --> 0:56:12.680 How was that to shoot? 0:56:12.840 --> 0:56:13.080 Was that? 0:56:13.200 --> 0:56:16.279 What did it make it in your head? Or were 0:56:16.280 --> 0:56:19.080 you just the constantly professional and just you know. 0:56:19.760 --> 0:56:23.239 Tell that story, find the seed of that story and 0:56:23.360 --> 0:56:26.759 sharing it and being that man who rejected his son 0:56:27.560 --> 0:56:30.880 because of his background, his fear, his pain. You know 0:56:31.000 --> 0:56:34.640 that moment when I'm silent, So I went through so 0:56:34.760 --> 0:56:37.839 much in that silence as not being said when I'm 0:56:37.840 --> 0:56:42.719 walking out the door. Was nobody saw that pain, what 0:56:42.880 --> 0:56:48.040 I went through personally, So I had no words for him, 0:56:48.360 --> 0:56:51.080 and the writers had no idea this was going down. 0:56:51.440 --> 0:56:54.239 Why they were chose to write this particular show for 0:56:54.400 --> 0:56:56.719 me or why will say I want him to do 0:56:56.840 --> 0:57:04.400 this part? Oh pay it? No? But the university and 0:57:04.400 --> 0:57:06.600 it was the beginning of this conversation we're having right then, 0:57:07.719 --> 0:57:08.640 and as a daughter. 0:57:08.760 --> 0:57:11.880 It was a hard thing to watch as well, because 0:57:13.040 --> 0:57:17.240 my father growing up was always on the road, you know, 0:57:17.400 --> 0:57:20.560 and when everyone thinks, you know, when you're this kid 0:57:20.600 --> 0:57:24.560 of a hate to use the word celebrity, you have 0:57:24.680 --> 0:57:29.440 this privileged life and everything's great and you're these fabulous 0:57:29.480 --> 0:57:33.320 parties and your parents are ever present. But no, I 0:57:33.400 --> 0:57:36.280 would tell people, when you see my father on television, 0:57:36.320 --> 0:57:38.680 that's time that he's not with me. He's not with 0:57:38.720 --> 0:57:42.320 my siblings. And especially when we were young, you know, 0:57:42.520 --> 0:57:44.880 the only times you would see him is during breaks 0:57:44.920 --> 0:57:48.360 for school and he was working because those were prime times. 0:57:48.400 --> 0:57:50.880 And you know, people thought it was cool because at 0:57:50.880 --> 0:57:54.080 one point he was hosting all the Disney specials, you know, 0:57:54.120 --> 0:57:57.280 in the holidays, and yeah, great, you get to cut 0:57:57.320 --> 0:58:00.600 the line at Disney. But I still don't have my father. 0:58:01.120 --> 0:58:04.120 You know. My mother was amazing. She did everything that 0:58:04.160 --> 0:58:08.920 she could within herself, but we also had to grapple. 0:58:08.960 --> 0:58:16.600 And watching that episode for me was because, you know it, well, 0:58:17.320 --> 0:58:19.480 it was an interesting time in my life period. But 0:58:19.760 --> 0:58:23.000 I was probably in college around that time, and my 0:58:23.160 --> 0:58:27.000 father and I had gone through a lot, like just emotionally, 0:58:27.040 --> 0:58:30.480 We've always had this like kind of hard relationship because 0:58:31.000 --> 0:58:33.200 even as a little kid, it was this whole thing 0:58:33.240 --> 0:58:35.880 of Dad's coming home. Oh my god, Dad's home. And 0:58:35.880 --> 0:58:38.400 I would kind of stand back because I was resemful 0:58:38.440 --> 0:58:40.960 because I didn't have time with my dad. And then 0:58:41.000 --> 0:58:44.440 it was always the limos here. Okay, the assistants are 0:58:44.440 --> 0:58:47.720 here putting everything in the car, and he's off again, 0:58:47.920 --> 0:58:50.880 you know. And I always was kind of the defiant one. 0:58:50.920 --> 0:58:53.920 I remember this one instance. I don't know if you 0:58:53.960 --> 0:58:54.480 remember this. 0:58:54.560 --> 0:58:54.760 Dad. 0:58:54.800 --> 0:58:57.600 We're living in Saddle River because my parents decided to 0:58:57.640 --> 0:58:59.800 move us out of Hollywood. So it was about eight 0:59:00.120 --> 0:59:03.680 the time, and you know, spoiled had the Apple computer 0:59:03.880 --> 0:59:07.280 and the television in my room and everything like that. 0:59:07.480 --> 0:59:09.920 And I said something to you, Dad, and you were 0:59:09.960 --> 0:59:12.520 getting ready to go somewhere because the limo was outside. 0:59:12.560 --> 0:59:16.360 He was dressed up in his tucks and he said, you. 0:59:16.280 --> 0:59:17.000 Said what to me? 0:59:17.240 --> 0:59:21.080 And I said whatever I said, and he like was 0:59:21.160 --> 0:59:23.800 coming at me, and I was in my nightgown getting 0:59:23.840 --> 0:59:26.000 ready to go to bed. I got up and iran 0:59:26.080 --> 0:59:30.320 across the property. We had huge property, and I remember 0:59:30.400 --> 0:59:33.160 standing in this creek that we had because I knew 0:59:33.200 --> 0:59:36.120 he didn't have time to come into that creek after me, 0:59:36.880 --> 0:59:39.160 and we just looking at each other. 0:59:44.400 --> 0:59:46.480 You better get out of that creek, You better get out, 0:59:46.520 --> 0:59:48.320 You better come here and talk to me. As your 0:59:48.360 --> 0:59:51.040 father said, uh, He's like, I'm taking everything out of 0:59:51.040 --> 0:59:53.120 your room, and I was just like, okay, great, because 0:59:53.120 --> 0:59:54.880 you're not going to be there when I get back, 0:59:55.080 --> 0:59:55.280 you know. 0:59:56.080 --> 0:59:59.480 So that part when I you know, we had this 0:59:59.560 --> 1:00:03.000 release ship for a very long time, and when I 1:00:03.040 --> 1:00:05.800 did see the episode, I felt that pain on the 1:00:05.840 --> 1:00:08.120 other side of it where he felt the pain as 1:00:08.160 --> 1:00:11.480 the adult leaving the child, you know. So it is 1:00:11.640 --> 1:00:13.960 very emotional, I think for all. 1:00:13.840 --> 1:00:14.640 Of the kids. 1:00:14.920 --> 1:00:18.320 So, you know, in tap of that character and the 1:00:18.480 --> 1:00:20.520 character that I have had to be in my life 1:00:21.160 --> 1:00:25.919 and I missed those moments now of being there for them. 1:00:26.400 --> 1:00:30.880 It's an emptiness that I gobbled with every day you 1:00:31.000 --> 1:00:35.000 did what Why wasn't I there? But I was raised 1:00:35.040 --> 1:00:41.200 of a mindset of my mother was about providing, and 1:00:41.440 --> 1:00:45.040 so she would often say to me, you know, we'd 1:00:45.040 --> 1:00:48.760 be sitting around our tenement building and you know, we 1:00:48.880 --> 1:00:51.120 have one of his little pop belly stole and she 1:00:51.320 --> 1:00:54.600 say to me, Bunny because she couldn't pronounce Benjamin, and 1:00:54.680 --> 1:00:57.440 mounderstood this. She couldn't have pronounced Benjamin. I look at 1:00:57.440 --> 1:00:59.880 my father. They always called me Joe or she called 1:00:59.880 --> 1:01:04.440 me bunny. Bunny. If all we have was a donut, 1:01:04.800 --> 1:01:07.400 you need the donut the whole. 1:01:08.920 --> 1:01:09.439 Oh wow. 1:01:10.200 --> 1:01:12.320 So you know that was the way I was raised. 1:01:12.320 --> 1:01:16.880 And so when this opportunity of show business fell upon me, 1:01:18.080 --> 1:01:21.000 all I knew was to do is provide and got 1:01:21.040 --> 1:01:23.479 caught up in the madness. Listen, all you read about 1:01:23.480 --> 1:01:27.440 all this in the book, but it's about that missing 1:01:27.560 --> 1:01:29.880 part which I grobble. 1:01:29.520 --> 1:01:32.120 With as a daughter. I don't want him to feel 1:01:32.120 --> 1:01:35.840 guilty about it because I'm very privileged. You know, I 1:01:35.880 --> 1:01:39.440 don't have college loans. You know that was all paid 1:01:39.480 --> 1:01:39.720 for it. 1:01:39.760 --> 1:01:41.720 I was going to afford the work to the mental 1:01:41.760 --> 1:01:42.840 work in the council end too. 1:01:43.240 --> 1:01:47.960 Yes, yes, and my my father and I have had 1:01:48.000 --> 1:01:51.520 this tremendous journey and it's heavy on my heart that 1:01:51.560 --> 1:01:52.640 he has this guilt. 1:01:53.120 --> 1:01:55.280 But the bar the fact that j'all was sharing this, 1:01:55.400 --> 1:01:56.800 I just got to say it. I know Amre is 1:01:56.840 --> 1:02:00.640 feeling this too, like this is the result of having 1:02:00.720 --> 1:02:04.680 a black boomer daddy, Like this trauma is not You 1:02:04.720 --> 1:02:10.160 are not alone in this thing, understand father's trauma. And 1:02:11.320 --> 1:02:13.400 because the beautiful thing to me as I look at 1:02:13.440 --> 1:02:16.760 you guys and beautiful daughters, where we are now, where 1:02:16.760 --> 1:02:18.760 you are with him, wherever he goes, and how you 1:02:18.800 --> 1:02:19.920 take care of him. 1:02:20.280 --> 1:02:22.760 Is just along with my sister Karan Kan. 1:02:22.760 --> 1:02:23.600 I'm sorry, I guess. 1:02:23.520 --> 1:02:29.120 Yeah, likea she's out there somewhere the way the girls 1:02:29.120 --> 1:02:29.720 take care of you. 1:02:29.880 --> 1:02:31.200 How many children in total? 1:02:31.520 --> 1:02:37.320 I had four five children. I had an Najah whom 1:02:37.360 --> 1:02:43.200 I lost an automobile accident, and my son. Okay, so 1:02:43.320 --> 1:02:46.480 I have I have three daughter, beautiful daughters, and I'm 1:02:46.480 --> 1:02:51.840 so honored and privilege. Honest, I'm blessed. I'm truly blessed. 1:02:52.080 --> 1:02:54.320 Yeah, daughters, take care of you different right. 1:02:55.680 --> 1:02:59.440 Recommend the people who were handling me in my business. 1:03:01.160 --> 1:03:04.720 I mean, I've had some messed up people in my 1:03:04.840 --> 1:03:08.160 life who did not even think about my children. I 1:03:08.440 --> 1:03:14.960 was in rehab in Utah place called Circu and I 1:03:15.000 --> 1:03:17.320 had had my bow. I've had my bous and alcohol 1:03:17.440 --> 1:03:20.600 and drugs and things, and I'd find my last cleanup 1:03:21.320 --> 1:03:25.560 and I'll never forget. Ron and my wife came up 1:03:26.080 --> 1:03:30.960 for counseling and this has never happened, and I never 1:03:31.000 --> 1:03:33.480 forget her sitting there and saying, you do not like 1:03:33.680 --> 1:03:38.840 what it's like being the wife of ben Vereen. And 1:03:39.880 --> 1:03:41.760 she said there were times that I have to go 1:03:41.840 --> 1:03:44.880 through his pockets to find money to pay for my 1:03:45.000 --> 1:03:51.800 baby Steed. I hit the ceiling. I had no idea 1:03:52.800 --> 1:03:57.240 the robbery had been happening to my children. And I 1:03:57.280 --> 1:04:01.280 looked at it. I said, never mind me my babies. 1:04:02.200 --> 1:04:06.160 Why didn't you go up and say where excuse the expression, 1:04:06.320 --> 1:04:10.520 are the effing books? I want to see them books? 1:04:11.720 --> 1:04:13.960 Why are my babies? Why didn't I have the book 1:04:14.000 --> 1:04:17.720 to my husband's pockets to buy money? And I'm busting 1:04:17.800 --> 1:04:22.080 my ass not spending time with my babies. Keep them 1:04:22.440 --> 1:04:26.200 yachts and houses and things like that. That's another part 1:04:26.240 --> 1:04:29.919 of this interview, but one another day. That's the whole book. 1:04:31.200 --> 1:04:33.160 When when is this book coming out? 1:04:33.560 --> 1:04:39.480 Opening next ten months? In the title thank you for 1:04:39.520 --> 1:04:44.840 the Journey, I say that you know. Some people ask 1:04:44.960 --> 1:04:49.720 me you know? You say you know? So we Oh God, 1:04:49.800 --> 1:04:55.160 you're such a legend. I say thank you for receiving both. 1:04:55.200 --> 1:04:58.000 For you, I would not be here. I would not 1:04:58.040 --> 1:05:00.640 have this journey. I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be 1:05:00.640 --> 1:05:03.960 here talking to the old question. Well, mm hmm, you see, 1:05:04.360 --> 1:05:05.840 so thank you for the journey. 1:05:06.880 --> 1:05:11.600 Usually when our listenership comes to this show, it's more 1:05:11.720 --> 1:05:17.960 factual things than like a person's story. I want to 1:05:19.120 --> 1:05:20.600 I want to no no, no, no, no no no no 1:05:20.600 --> 1:05:23.560 no no no no no. I apologize in advance. Look, 1:05:24.440 --> 1:05:28.080 I have a lot of tense, speed and brown shoe questions. 1:05:28.680 --> 1:05:31.600 I wanted to know what it was like winning for 1:05:31.760 --> 1:05:35.000 Pippin or Bob Foster. He was like all these things 1:05:35.000 --> 1:05:38.400 that you've been through. But for me, this is a 1:05:38.640 --> 1:05:43.800 way more important story, the totality of your career achievements. 1:05:43.840 --> 1:05:47.600 And yes, I do implore everyone to get this book. 1:05:48.280 --> 1:05:52.080 Man, I'm just damn yeah. 1:05:52.080 --> 1:05:53.840 I wanted to ask about Al Perryman and Dan You're 1:05:53.880 --> 1:05:55.680 right questions. 1:05:55.920 --> 1:05:56.640 Yeah, we can. 1:05:56.600 --> 1:05:57.480 Still ask them. 1:05:59.080 --> 1:06:00.440 Let's rapid fire, okay. 1:06:00.440 --> 1:06:02.800 So, so, Ben, can you talk about because we talked 1:06:02.800 --> 1:06:05.240 about black dance back in like the sixties and seventies, 1:06:05.240 --> 1:06:07.120 and you talked about how you know, it wasn't a 1:06:07.160 --> 1:06:09.480 thing where you would see us on those stages on TV, 1:06:09.560 --> 1:06:12.400 but there were so My father as well in New 1:06:12.480 --> 1:06:14.280 Yorker of Your Age, and he too is an artist, 1:06:14.440 --> 1:06:16.320 photographer and a drummer, and he took a lot of 1:06:16.320 --> 1:06:19.560 photos of the black dancers of that time, and I 1:06:19.640 --> 1:06:22.160 just wanted you to speak about like he spoke about 1:06:22.160 --> 1:06:25.880 Al Perryman, and he spoke about just this black dance scene. 1:06:25.960 --> 1:06:27.160 And I've seen. 1:06:26.920 --> 1:06:30.080 These beautiful photos of the black dancers going to the 1:06:30.120 --> 1:06:33.680 park where a Mere shot his documentary, And so can 1:06:33.720 --> 1:06:34.040 you just. 1:06:34.000 --> 1:06:36.280 Talk about how and then you kind of see it when. 1:06:36.120 --> 1:06:37.880 You watch the Wiz and you see all this black 1:06:38.000 --> 1:06:39.720 dance at the end, you know, brand new day and 1:06:39.720 --> 1:06:41.280 you see all these dancers of that time. 1:06:41.600 --> 1:06:45.360 Can you just George, come on, George face. We had 1:06:45.400 --> 1:06:46.320 you know, we had them on the show. 1:06:46.440 --> 1:06:46.960 George Face. 1:06:47.160 --> 1:06:49.360 Yes, Michael Peters, come on, let's go. 1:06:50.120 --> 1:06:52.520 We'll talk about Michael Peters. Mike. You know, I see 1:06:52.480 --> 1:06:54.840 he was saying, you know, this year, I was I've 1:06:54.840 --> 1:06:57.360 been watching what they call it, not Instagram, you know, 1:06:57.840 --> 1:07:00.880 young people in general, this stuff you work. But anyway, 1:07:01.880 --> 1:07:05.520 I'm watching all this and then now finally the recognizing 1:07:05.880 --> 1:07:11.320 that Michael Jackson is a product of Michael Peters beat 1:07:11.360 --> 1:07:15.880 it really. I mean, I mean before, I mean he 1:07:16.000 --> 1:07:18.800 was doing all that Motown stuff, but then he met 1:07:18.840 --> 1:07:23.960 Michael Peters and broke out the whole New Moonwalking and 1:07:24.040 --> 1:07:27.000 all these thriller beat it. 1:07:27.960 --> 1:07:30.200 Glass was Lester Wilson also part of that. 1:07:31.320 --> 1:07:36.120 Wilson was the foundation for all of us. At Bernie's 1:07:36.200 --> 1:07:40.840 Johnson's dance studio after school, we would go by Jerry Grimes, 1:07:41.160 --> 1:07:45.800 Mister Emsley, Michael Peters, Lorraine. 1:07:45.400 --> 1:07:48.080 Fields, Oh, Debbie Allen shout around too. 1:07:48.200 --> 1:07:51.160 Yeah, we all go to Bernie's Johnson and there was 1:07:51.280 --> 1:07:55.720 Lester Wilson with Chief Bad Flaying Kunga and we'd be 1:07:55.960 --> 1:08:01.280 dancing and he would he would give us. Oh he 1:08:01.400 --> 1:08:06.600 was such a smooth, beautiful dancer. Bout Fossey loved. That's 1:08:06.640 --> 1:08:09.880 the Wilson. He talked about Lester Wilson, all of his 1:08:10.080 --> 1:08:13.680 moves and how liquid and fluid he was. I looked 1:08:13.720 --> 1:08:18.879 at him, Mi, he was so fluid, so beautiful. Oh, 1:08:19.080 --> 1:08:19.840 I mission mess. 1:08:20.600 --> 1:08:21.240 I was slad. 1:08:21.600 --> 1:08:28.240 We die so angry. It's so foolish. But anyway, yeah, 1:08:28.680 --> 1:08:32.320 Lester Wilson and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm glad he 1:08:32.479 --> 1:08:34.639 had documented all of us. Thank you. 1:08:35.120 --> 1:08:36.960 So you're telling a story about people, and I just 1:08:37.000 --> 1:08:38.519 I don't want them to ever forget the power of 1:08:38.600 --> 1:08:41.439 Judah Jamison. Since we recently lost her. What do you 1:08:41.560 --> 1:08:44.320 what comes to mind when we say Judith jameson. 1:08:45.120 --> 1:08:53.439 Stature of beauty and fluidity. She was the cream oh 1:08:54.280 --> 1:08:58.680 oo talking about cry. She cried for all of us. 1:08:59.360 --> 1:09:04.479 Oh I love Judith. I'm glad she came through my life. 1:09:05.720 --> 1:09:08.799 That's sit in the studio, just watch her. Oof. 1:09:10.840 --> 1:09:13.080 So this journey in your life you are right now 1:09:13.160 --> 1:09:16.160 and working on what is it that you want us 1:09:16.240 --> 1:09:22.679 to know, especially in terms of you being in your 1:09:22.840 --> 1:09:26.840 instructor phase, your your choreography phase, your your your director phase. 1:09:28.360 --> 1:09:28.760 What is it? 1:09:29.160 --> 1:09:33.000 What is it that you want This particular generation, those 1:09:33.120 --> 1:09:37.720 born in the nineties him in the two thousands. 1:09:37.560 --> 1:09:40.760 Attached to the rhetoric that you're human is listening to 1:09:41.520 --> 1:09:46.120 always know there's a power within you, greater than that 1:09:46.320 --> 1:09:50.360 outside of you, and stay in touch with who you've 1:09:50.400 --> 1:09:53.840 come to this planet to be. You'll get all the 1:09:53.960 --> 1:09:59.240 rhetoric from education, edumacation, and you'll get all the rhetoric 1:09:59.320 --> 1:10:02.639 from society what they're going through, but you understand that 1:10:02.840 --> 1:10:07.960 within you it's a core of creation and whatever you 1:10:08.000 --> 1:10:12.280 need to do to stay there, get there, get there 1:10:12.920 --> 1:10:17.280 and breathe that in and breathe that out. For all 1:10:17.320 --> 1:10:22.280 of us. That's what I want you to do. That's 1:10:22.280 --> 1:10:23.000 what I want you to know. 1:10:23.040 --> 1:10:28.280 Where you are, well, I'm good, I have a good day. 1:10:30.280 --> 1:10:32.120 It's such a it's such I just gotta say, it's 1:10:32.120 --> 1:10:34.760 a blessing to be a child of My dad calls 1:10:34.800 --> 1:10:37.080 you guys, the last of the new children, this generation. 1:10:37.320 --> 1:10:41.559 You know, I said to Kabara into Charlie Melvinmore's daughter, 1:10:41.600 --> 1:10:44.160 I was like, you guys are of a generation of 1:10:44.240 --> 1:10:47.720 creation that was just broke all of these barriers for 1:10:47.840 --> 1:10:51.559 people and also New Yorkers, and so the poet just 1:10:51.640 --> 1:10:55.479 the rhythm of when you just talk is like unmatched 1:10:55.479 --> 1:10:56.680 and we can never lose it. 1:10:57.040 --> 1:11:00.160 Just a treasure. I just we honor you. 1:11:00.960 --> 1:11:04.760 This is a great emotional episode of Quest Love Supreme Sorority. 1:11:05.960 --> 1:11:07.000 I thank you. 1:11:06.840 --> 1:11:11.000 Kabar and Ben for really really being open because oftentimes 1:11:11.120 --> 1:11:15.360 artists are taught to not overshare or that stuff. But 1:11:15.520 --> 1:11:19.519 I think now, especially where we are, yes, it's about 1:11:19.640 --> 1:11:22.800 honesty about who we are and what we're going through 1:11:22.840 --> 1:11:25.040 and things aren't perfect. 1:11:25.080 --> 1:11:27.759 And I think you know, I too thought I was alone. 1:11:28.240 --> 1:11:32.280 I am also a son of a traveling musician father 1:11:32.320 --> 1:11:34.400 and mother that had to go through the same thing. 1:11:34.479 --> 1:11:36.880 And you know you often think that you're isolated, but 1:11:36.920 --> 1:11:43.080 I really this is not just lip service. This moment 1:11:43.200 --> 1:11:47.040 right now, me speaking to you like I needed to 1:11:47.080 --> 1:11:49.559 have this conversation and I love you too for it, 1:11:49.600 --> 1:11:50.240 and thank. 1:11:50.000 --> 1:11:54.320 You very much for that. It's an awesome episode, so. 1:11:54.800 --> 1:11:56.639 Net of a kabar in that way, I'm here too, 1:11:56.720 --> 1:12:00.000 because Peers, you're right, you're not alone exactly. 1:12:00.040 --> 1:12:02.439 Yeah, I'm surprised we didn't run into each other up 1:12:02.439 --> 1:12:03.519 on the borsch Felts. 1:12:04.800 --> 1:12:07.880 No, you know what, it's weird. I felt as though 1:12:08.240 --> 1:12:10.639 you and I have crosspaths. I know we had common 1:12:10.960 --> 1:12:13.680 like friends in common and whatnot. Yet this this is 1:12:13.720 --> 1:12:15.880 this is great to meet you this way, and you 1:12:15.920 --> 1:12:19.880 know I appreciate it. On behalf of a on Sugar 1:12:19.920 --> 1:12:24.439 Steve and and Unpaid Bill and Layah Kabara, Ben Veren. 1:12:24.600 --> 1:12:26.720 Thank you very much. This is Quest Love Supreme and 1:12:26.760 --> 1:12:27.680 we will see you on the next go. 1:12:28.320 --> 1:12:33.759 Thank you, hey, Thank y'all for listening to Quest Love Supreme. 1:12:34.520 --> 1:12:37.280 This podcast is hosted by an Afro a mouth, an 1:12:37.280 --> 1:12:39.439 engineer and a man with too many jobs aka a 1:12:39.840 --> 1:12:40.920 mere Quest Love Thompson. 1:12:40.960 --> 1:12:44.839 Why you, Saint Clair Douga, Steve Mandell and unpaid Bill Sherman. 1:12:45.680 --> 1:12:49.000 The executive producers, well get paid the big bucks. 1:12:49.200 --> 1:12:52.680 A mere quest Love Thompson, Sean g and Brian Calhoun 1:12:52.840 --> 1:12:55.880 asked them for money. Produced by the people who do 1:12:55.920 --> 1:12:59.160 all the real work Ritny Benjamin, Jake Payne and. 1:12:59.200 --> 1:13:00.679 Yes, why are You St? Claus? 1:13:01.360 --> 1:13:04.640 Edited by another person who does the real work, Alex Conroy. 1:13:05.000 --> 1:13:07.839 And those who approved the real work. Produced for iHeart 1:13:07.920 --> 1:13:08.840 by Noel Brown. 1:13:11.000 --> 1:13:18.479 What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more 1:13:18.520 --> 1:13:23.040 podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or 1:13:23.040 --> 1:13:25.000 wherever you listen to your favorite shows.