Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Good People. What's Up? This is Queslo.
Speaker 1: In our recent final episode of Team Supreme, I mentioned
Speaker 1: that one of my most underrated episodes of QLs was
Speaker 1: this particular one right here. It's our conversation with Ben Breen.
Speaker 1: We take this less than a year ago, and I
Speaker 1: think it's worth pushing into your feed for a Monday.
Speaker 1: QLs classic been shared a lot of things.
Speaker 2: About his life that really hit.
Speaker 1: Hard, in particular that that episode of The Fresh Prince
Speaker 1: of bel Air was a lot bigger than just a role.
Speaker 1: As you'll hear, Ben and his daughter also talk about
Speaker 1: roots and why the role of Chicken George and that
Speaker 1: mini series was so significant and truthfully, I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about this episode since we taped it back in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. And let's listen back together, Classic encore this
Speaker 1: no bemboe Quest Love Supreme. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Court Love Supreme, Quest Love your host. We
Speaker 1: are here with the fam. Wha, yeah, hello, where are
Speaker 1: you right now?
Speaker 2: You're in La.
Speaker 3: I'm in the Sunny La.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, your your wall situation is so unique.
Speaker 1: Every episode I see in you part of your house
Speaker 1: I never knew existed before.
Speaker 3: That's hilarious.
Speaker 2: Unpaid bills, Yes, sir, it was good to see you.
Speaker 2: Everything's well. You know, I complain drinking.
Speaker 1: Coffee for QLs, which is a new I vibe, but
Speaker 1: I'm super into.
Speaker 2: It right exactly new vibes.
Speaker 1: I'm drinking applesire lemonade or the opposite.
Speaker 3: Of brag is that's that thing? That's good? Did you
Speaker 3: drink first in the morning? That's good a mirror.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly, sugar Steve, what's that brother? Good morning everybody?
Speaker 2: How's it going? Very well? Thank you? That's good to hear,
Speaker 2: good to hear. What can I say?
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, We you know, we're about checking off
Speaker 1: our bucket list, dream interviews and our guest today is
Speaker 1: a legend of the big screen, the big stage, and
Speaker 1: of the recording studio, depending on your generation or your taste.
Speaker 1: Certain if my mom were here, she'd go nuts over
Speaker 1: the fact that, you know, let's start Pippin or Sweet
Speaker 1: Charity or hair or all that jazz is with us.
Speaker 1: Our guest today is one of the first actors that
Speaker 1: my parents approved of me watching. If you're you know,
Speaker 1: I've mentioned many times that television really wasn't looked upon
Speaker 1: unless it was like Chesame Street or music, but Roots
Speaker 1: was required watching.
Speaker 2: And I watched all that show even at the age
Speaker 2: of five.
Speaker 1: So the fact that the character Chicken Joy is here
Speaker 1: and in front of me like is mind blowing. Of course,
Speaker 1: if you're eighties baby, I'm sure, Layah. Are you an
Speaker 1: eighties baby or a nineties baby today?
Speaker 3: I'll be eighties. I'll be eighties all right.
Speaker 1: Of course remember him in Webster Yeah, even for gen
Speaker 1: Z society that lives for memes, of course we know
Speaker 1: him as Will's dad or the fresh Prince of Bill.
Speaker 1: There we are in the company of greatness right now,
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Tony Award winning Ben
Speaker 1: Veren and also not to mention his daughter at Kabara,
Speaker 1: who also helped organize this for us.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Quest of Supreme. Hello, how y'all doing?
Speaker 4: Oh? Thank you so to be here waiting for this
Speaker 4: quite a long time. So you had my friend and
Speaker 4: help me on.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have you on right now. Where are you
Speaker 1: talking to us from? What part of the world are
Speaker 1: you in.
Speaker 4: I'm in New York City at the Dance Theater of Halem,
Speaker 4: Arthur Mitchell's then Theater of Harlem, and I'm honored to
Speaker 4: be I'm working my daughter on her new piece that
Speaker 4: she's doing called The Resurrection of ot Cyrus. It's going
Speaker 4: to be at the Met on January seventeenth. I'm directing it.
Speaker 4: And so we're in rehearsal right now, and I'm honored
Speaker 4: to be here in Arthur Mitchell's because I remember, I
Speaker 4: remember you, Tad. I had a conversation with Glenn Turman,
Speaker 4: my good friends, and we went to the High School
Speaker 4: of Performing Arts together, and there's one photo that encouraged
Speaker 4: me on the wall there and it was Arthur Mitchell.
Speaker 4: He was in his beautiful dance post on the wall
Speaker 4: and I said wow. And I later became good friends
Speaker 4: for them, and now I'm in his studio. So thank
Speaker 4: you author.
Speaker 1: So you went to school with Glynn Turman at a
Speaker 1: performing arts school?
Speaker 4: Was performing our school? Yeah?
Speaker 2: What time period was this? If you don't mind me.
Speaker 4: Asking nineteen oh four memory.
Speaker 1: I'm only asking that because you know, when I was
Speaker 1: in first grade in the mid seventies, my parents made
Speaker 1: a big deal of you know, you're going to a
Speaker 1: new type of school where you're going to do like acting, art, music, dancing,
Speaker 1: like all those things. And I was led to believe
Speaker 1: that schools of that caliber were unique to the seventies.
Speaker 1: Like I was part of the first generation of performing
Speaker 1: art schools. So you're telling me that they were performing art.
Speaker 4: Schools before that. It's the fifties. I started in the fifties,
Speaker 4: I believe late fifties. I got there in the sixties,
Speaker 4: and I believe it just began to take on form.
Speaker 4: It was called the High School for the Performing Arts.
Speaker 4: Later it's now called Laguadia. They moved up on Tenth Avenue.
Speaker 4: But we were the first there was music and art
Speaker 4: and performing arts, and we had a rival, you know,
Speaker 4: we said, o't nothing, you got to go to performing arts,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So in the fifties you went to a performing
Speaker 1: arts high school in New York that we still know
Speaker 1: as the Fame School. Right, You're blowing my mind that
Speaker 1: there was even the idea of black and white students
Speaker 1: going to school together studying the arts.
Speaker 2: So what was that experience like for you?
Speaker 4: You understand something, The arts is the one thread that
Speaker 4: keeps civilization going. We are all creative aspects of the
Speaker 4: creator that created us. So the arts is the one
Speaker 4: thing that's going to propel us into whatever experiences we're
Speaker 4: going to have in this lifetime. So they can't hold
Speaker 4: back the arts. Well, so wonderful about that time, because
Speaker 4: you know in the sixties, that's when Neil Martin, Luther
Speaker 4: King and it's from Malcolm X. That's streets, you know,
Speaker 4: the hippies and the whole movement. So that was all
Speaker 4: happening then. So performing arts I got lucky because they
Speaker 4: needed boys for the dance apartment. Now Glenn Book's coming
Speaker 4: up from acting. I knew nothing about the arts. I'm
Speaker 4: from the church. I sang with Sensational Twilights of Brooklyn.
Speaker 4: You know, Brooklyn was my home. And when I went
Speaker 4: to the High School of Performing Arts, it was a
Speaker 4: whole new world. Man. The arts became a new word
Speaker 4: in my vocabulary. I saw a dancing sort of first
Speaker 4: time I saw a serious musician sort of person. I
Speaker 4: saw serious actors. You talk about Beneth Carroll, you know, yes,
Speaker 4: Beeth Carroll was there. It was integrated, as we call
Speaker 4: in those days.
Speaker 1: So there was a lot of stigma on me as
Speaker 1: an elementary school student concerning the arts it was already like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're one of those weirdo kids at least, like, you know,
Speaker 1: coming to my neighborhood to go to a performing arts
Speaker 1: school automatically made me kind of like a social outcast.
Speaker 2: Now here's the thing. Music was always my thing.
Speaker 1: But for the first year and a half of me
Speaker 1: going to that school, the school was like, before you
Speaker 1: get on that drum set, you got to coordinate your rhythm.
Speaker 1: And so they brought a pair of tat dance shs
Speaker 1: and they're like, you're going to have to learn how
Speaker 1: to dance first before we let you on that drum set.
Speaker 2: Of course, be in the seventies, what the seventies were,
Speaker 2: there was a.
Speaker 1: Lot of sigma says you dance, You're dancing was the
Speaker 1: idea of dance expression a stigma for you in the fifties,
Speaker 1: as it was for me in the seventies.
Speaker 4: The sixties, sixties. Okay, okay, I'm proud of I'm if
Speaker 4: people ask me old that, I said, you remember Moses.
Speaker 4: But here's the thing about I also went through that
Speaker 4: stigma because I ran with gangs. You know, I ran
Speaker 4: with the Crossair Lords and you know, the bishops and
Speaker 4: the Chaplains and all those guys in Brooklyn. So there
Speaker 4: I was going all of a sudden. I remember my
Speaker 4: mother getting a list of was required for me to
Speaker 4: go into the dance department. I knew nothing about the
Speaker 4: drama department. I probably would have h the acting apartment.
Speaker 4: I probably would have loved to have tried out for that.
Speaker 4: But the wonderful thing I had a guy named David
Speaker 4: Wood to talk about the importance of telling his story
Speaker 4: through dancing through movement. But the point is that in
Speaker 4: my neighborhood, if I came home, now, I gotta get
Speaker 4: a dance bag, I gotta get tights, I gotta get
Speaker 4: a dance spell.
Speaker 2: ID to wear jumpsuit?
Speaker 4: Yeah, ballet slippers? Yeah, you kidding me. I was walking
Speaker 4: about Brogans and you know Garretson. I was, you know,
Speaker 4: a tough kid, and I gotta wear ballet slippers. I
Speaker 4: wouldn't tell anybody where I was going up for school,
Speaker 4: And so they said, man, wasn't that bad. Man wasn't
Speaker 4: a bag man and nothing? It is my school stuff.
Speaker 4: Let's see, no, not run. Yeah, it was tough. There
Speaker 4: was something which you came across that bridge and you
Speaker 4: got in that dance studio, a whole new world opened up. Magic.
Speaker 4: It's beautiful?
Speaker 2: Was it cathartic for you?
Speaker 5: That relationship with the neighborhood is so fascinating because we
Speaker 5: were talking before you got on, of course, the kind
Speaker 5: of beautiful. There's a lot of alignment between some quest
Speaker 5: Love Supreme guests and yourself. We talked about Glenn Turman,
Speaker 5: but when you told that story about being the ballet
Speaker 5: Slippers and being in the neighborhood, it made me think
Speaker 5: about Prodigy in that way. In the picture of him,
Speaker 5: who you know is little Albert. I'm sorry, I know
Speaker 5: his rap name is is Prodigy, but you knew him
Speaker 5: as little Albert at Kabar.
Speaker 3: What was the dance studio.
Speaker 6: Bernie Johnson, who is a very famous dance.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I imagine he had the same issues as a
Speaker 5: little boy coming up with being in a dance school
Speaker 5: that his grandmother had built. So I was just wondering
Speaker 5: if you guys, if you remember that as he was
Speaker 5: a little boy, and that that common thread with you
Speaker 5: guys in that way.
Speaker 3: That's interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we you know what we were together. The world
Speaker 4: didn't matter. It's about us and doing what we did.
Speaker 4: We had fun we loved to dance. We love, you know,
Speaker 4: the expression of telling our story through dance. And I'd
Speaker 4: go into a studio and just make a record player
Speaker 4: and just for hours, just dance. You know, do all
Speaker 4: sorts of makeup stories, make up stories for myself through dance.
Speaker 5: Did you look at someone on TV? Was there a
Speaker 5: dancer like that you used to watch that you admired.
Speaker 5: I'm curious who you look to in that way?
Speaker 4: Well, there wasn't many dancers to look to it, and
Speaker 4: I didn't. I wasn't into the concert world, into going
Speaker 4: to see Bartha Graham or going to see George Valant.
Speaker 4: Matter of fact, when I came to the studio to
Speaker 4: the school that day, and I'll never forget this, I ok,
Speaker 4: I wore you know, if they say not to make
Speaker 4: up a dance, said real dance to Quincy Jones' Killer Joe.
Speaker 4: I woke here the muter shorts, us kids, sneakers, a
Speaker 4: T shirt, my father's skinny brim hat. I'm sitting outside
Speaker 4: waiting to go on and watching all these other kids
Speaker 4: dancing the balance sheet. She's to Chopain and you know,
Speaker 4: all these deep cats about wow, And I got to
Speaker 4: my dance there was white people sitting at the table.
Speaker 4: I know where they were, So I got up and
Speaker 4: did my little cool d the d I thought I
Speaker 4: was pretty cool. I sat down and the cityusing story.
Speaker 4: There was a lady named doctor Rachel Yoker, and she
Speaker 4: came over me. She said, did you how did you do?
Speaker 4: She said you liked the school? I said yes, I
Speaker 4: She said it is I. I said yes. I said
Speaker 4: you mean all right? I said yes I. She says,
Speaker 4: what's your name? Was said? Vision said what I said, Benjamin?
Speaker 4: She said you mean ben Juman. I said, yeah, Benjamin.
Speaker 4: What's wrong with you? She said, well, do you like
Speaker 4: the school? Yes? I right? She said okay, and then
Speaker 4: she said, you know these people at the table? I said, no,
Speaker 4: this white people? To me said you don't know George
Speaker 4: Balance she no, Martha Graham, no, Toerne Robbins. No. Why.
Speaker 4: I had no idea of these people who had would
Speaker 4: carved the importance of dance into our culture. I later
Speaker 4: found out about Catherine Dunham, later found out about Juth Jamison.
Speaker 2: Jameson, Yeah, oh man.
Speaker 4: And to be able to say that and have the
Speaker 4: experience of meeting them and walking the same path with
Speaker 4: them and having them call me friend.
Speaker 1: Because you know, you dip your hand or your tail
Speaker 1: into so many creative waters. Normally I asked what was
Speaker 1: your first musical memory? But I would like to know
Speaker 1: from you, what's the first thing that you created? What
Speaker 1: was your first moment that you realize I'm a creative
Speaker 1: I know that you were born in North Carolina. I
Speaker 1: don't know when you moved to Brooklyn, But at what
Speaker 1: point do you realize that your artistic Like, what was
Speaker 1: your first creative project in life?
Speaker 4: I wasn't born in North Carolina. My my biological mother
Speaker 4: was Launburg, North Carolina. I was born in Florida, Dade County, Florida.
Speaker 4: You see the arts. It's tricky and it's wonderful. I'm
Speaker 4: writing my book now, my memoirs, and I remember playing
Speaker 4: in the streets and remember having little dance parties, you know,
Speaker 4: you know, after school, we do these little dances. And
Speaker 4: as white children, was coming down the street one day
Speaker 4: on Fulton Street, and it was right in the fifties,
Speaker 4: and they were soliciting for the young boys, young kids
Speaker 4: to put into the art school, dance school. Because it's
Speaker 4: right around the time when the you know, the civil
Speaker 4: rights are starting out, and so they wanted to show
Speaker 4: their windows weren't broken. Say, have some a few black
Speaker 4: kids in school. And that's how I got into the
Speaker 4: Start Time Dance studio. But I never thought about the
Speaker 4: fact that my creative aspect that was just part of me.
Speaker 4: There was natural love to sing. I love the dance
Speaker 4: at parties. I didn't have a form to it. I
Speaker 4: didn't call a modern dance. I didn't call a ballet.
Speaker 4: I didn't call it tap and An interesting thing I
Speaker 4: lived right across the street from a shoe shine Parlow
Speaker 4: called tip tap and toe. These are brothers who were
Speaker 4: in vaudeville. And I wondered why these guys on Sundays
Speaker 4: because in those days they had the blue law in
Speaker 4: Brooklyn that means bondy liquor. So every Sunday you see
Speaker 4: a lion wrapped around the block getting the deacons getting
Speaker 4: their shoes shine. Because brothers are being there. You get
Speaker 4: online and standing and get this shoe shine. You know.
Speaker 4: So these guys are going to tip tap and toe.
Speaker 4: We get the rag snapping. You have jazz music playing
Speaker 4: and these brothers sit back there and he'd be singing
Speaker 4: then through a you know, a shuffle back, then snap
Speaker 4: the rag fat and then they have a hand on
Speaker 4: little Dixie cups a whiskey. So the lives are around
Speaker 4: the corner the brothers where they go to church. They
Speaker 4: had to have their little shot.
Speaker 1: All right, That makes sense because even today, you know,
Speaker 1: like you're always seeing these terror cart businesses, these random
Speaker 1: terror cart businesses, and you know you'll see them in
Speaker 1: a lank city or New York or like any cosmopolitan city.
Speaker 1: And I always wonder, for the life of me, how
Speaker 1: are these businesses thriving like a woman or anyone reading
Speaker 1: your future. I just found out that those are basically
Speaker 1: people that have sort of in place owner or renter's law.
Speaker 1: In other words, that place used to be a residency,
Speaker 1: but then once a business district is established, you're not
Speaker 1: supposed to live in a business district. So basically it's
Speaker 1: sort of an underhanded way of the city saying you
Speaker 1: can still live here, but you have to be a business.
Speaker 1: So thus, anytime you see a terror card reading or
Speaker 1: let me read your future, it's just a residence. But
Speaker 1: they have to have a storefront that's like a business
Speaker 1: and a wink. So that now that makes sense. That
Speaker 1: shoe shine people really had a side business of moonshine
Speaker 1: speakeasies while you get your shoes shine.
Speaker 2: That makes sense, now, that makes total sense.
Speaker 4: You know they didn't sell liquor on Sundays Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: So wait, New York was a blue law state as well.
Speaker 4: You had a blue law in New York City.
Speaker 2: I never knew that.
Speaker 1: But the thing is is that, like I have, my
Speaker 1: toes also dipped in various waters. But like for me,
Speaker 1: drumming is always my passion. If you just had one
Speaker 1: thing to say, that's what I'm known for for you,
Speaker 1: because again you're known for your singing, your acting, everything,
Speaker 1: you're direct. What is the one medium in the arts
Speaker 1: that you say is your north star employment preach.
Speaker 3: That's you come on now, mayor at this point, that's
Speaker 3: you do.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But if it's all taken away from me.
Speaker 4: Drum set, yeah, yeah, for me, it's leave me my voice.
Speaker 4: Let me tell my story, my story through song, through dance,
Speaker 4: you know, tell my story. Let me give it to
Speaker 4: the young people, let me pass it on. I've lived
Speaker 4: such a life then it's nice to be able to
Speaker 4: say here it's yours. Now, go.
Speaker 1: Take me through your life as a creative. What was
Speaker 1: your first step into a profession.
Speaker 4: I just graduated from the High School for the Performing Arts.
Speaker 4: There's a woman there named Janette Carol and she was
Speaker 4: doing Michelle called The Prodigal Son off Broadway at the
Speaker 4: Greenwich News Theater. I'm talking about. You don't bout a
Speaker 4: professional show, right. I never knew anything about Broadway or
Speaker 4: the theater. I had never been on a Broadway stage
Speaker 4: until Bob Fosse. But I go to the show. It
Speaker 4: was in a graduate greennich News Theater. It was downstairs,
Speaker 4: a little theater, and uh, that was my first production.
Speaker 4: And one night I'm coming out of the theater. I
Speaker 4: was in my first Son of been born, and I
Speaker 4: was nay getting to the theater. I had to spend
Speaker 4: time with my first wife and got back to the
Speaker 4: theater and the dance captain had taken my role and
Speaker 4: gave it to his love, and I wasn't going to
Speaker 4: have that because it was my role. So I went
Speaker 4: on stage anyway. So those stage where I said they
Speaker 4: can't do that, I said, no, they can'ts. I went
Speaker 4: on stage, guy got dressed, went on stage, and we're
Speaker 4: fighting doing the show on stage. I'm he's in my place.
Speaker 4: I'm hitting him. He's hitting me this or and people
Speaker 4: must say, they're going, wow, this show is so real.
Speaker 4: I got I come off stage. I'm angry. I'm leaving
Speaker 4: the theater. I'm going to Glenn's house, you know, to
Speaker 4: get myself cooled off. And it's a little guy sitting
Speaker 4: outside of the door, and he says, he says, excuse me, Yeah,
Speaker 4: what do you want? He says, I'm looking for Benjamin Verena.
Speaker 4: I'm bench. What do you want? He said, you look
Speaker 4: like you could use the dinner. My name is Langston,
Speaker 4: used I wrote this.
Speaker 3: Whoa, Well, you can't just you just drop that.
Speaker 4: You did that? Yeah, took me to dinner. He said,
Speaker 4: you looked like good boy your dinner. So he took
Speaker 4: me a little a little Italian joy in the village
Speaker 4: and we sat and talked, and he told me about
Speaker 4: himself and told me a guy he's written the play
Speaker 4: and inviting me up the Harlem for the first time.
Speaker 4: So that was my first professional job. Uh, and the
Speaker 4: time would buy And the next time I got a
Speaker 4: job was uh, you'll read about in the book. He
Speaker 4: was on the subway, I jump turned style, I went
Speaker 4: to New York City. I was standing on the corner.
Speaker 4: I went by my school and I was really depressed.
Speaker 4: I went by Performing Arts. I looked at the school
Speaker 4: and going, where am I going? What's going to happen?
Speaker 4: And I walked down to the news stand and I
Speaker 4: opened up a newspaper. Backstage in his audition for that
Speaker 4: day for a show called Sweet Charity going to a
Speaker 4: place called Las Vegas, starring Woman and Juliet Prowse, directed
Speaker 4: by Bob Fosse. And that was the first time I
Speaker 4: was scept on Broadway Sturge at the Palace Theater. I
Speaker 4: went to the audition. It was like the opening of
Speaker 4: all that jazz. Yes, and I went that was one
Speaker 4: of those kids on the stage standing there Washington. Cool
Speaker 4: guy walked down the middle of the aisle smoking a cigarette.
Speaker 4: He gets up on stage. He does the demonstration for
Speaker 4: us to do, and the ashes never fall. I said,
Speaker 4: this guy.
Speaker 3: He just smoked to the end and the ashes just
Speaker 3: grew and grew.
Speaker 4: Hung there, but he did the combination turns and boom,
Speaker 4: steps to step boom, and they stopped. Okay, do the steps.
Speaker 4: We couldn't do the steps because you're too busy watching
Speaker 4: the ashes see if they're in Fall.
Speaker 1: Okay, So my mother is, you know, probably the show's
Speaker 1: biggest fan, and.
Speaker 2: She will scream on me.
Speaker 1: You drop so many names that she'll scream on me
Speaker 1: if I don't go in the further detail. And my
Speaker 1: mom's from Pittsburgh. Okay, I'm gonna ask about Bob Fosse.
Speaker 1: But you mentioned the legendary Martha Graham. You studying under it?
Speaker 1: What was what was it like studying under Martha Graham?
Speaker 4: Well, I didn't actually have a class about the Graham.
Speaker 4: I studied with one of her dancers named David Woods. Okay,
Speaker 4: it's one of the teachers there. It was amazing, you
Speaker 4: know for me getting into the middle. The first day
Speaker 4: of school, they have you line up and then they
Speaker 4: have you change and you get dressed for your class.
Speaker 4: You go to your glasses and my first day in school,
Speaker 4: I wore my suit that I wore with the Sensational
Speaker 4: Trials to Brooklyn. My mother bought me in the tashed sharecase.
Speaker 4: I still like my tash shad case. And then they
Speaker 4: said go get dressed. All the guys went and put
Speaker 4: on their dance clothes. I put on my dance clothes,
Speaker 4: put my suit back on. That's what it was raised,
Speaker 4: you know, don't just walk around your underwear. So I
Speaker 4: get back out there in my suit on. She said,
Speaker 4: excuse me, doctor was saying, you're taking class of that.
Speaker 4: I said yes. He said, well, where's your dance clothes?
Speaker 4: I said, my suit You can't dance that way. Get
Speaker 4: in there, put on your dance clothes. And that was
Speaker 4: the beginning of wonderment. Yeah. But David Woods, who was
Speaker 4: really the foundation of my actings as well, because he
Speaker 4: would tell us, he say, you can't just dance. It's
Speaker 4: got to tell a story. So find the story that
Speaker 4: you want to tell through your movement. And that's why
Speaker 4: dance is so personal to me. You know, in modern dance,
Speaker 4: you must tell a story. It isn't about just steps.
Speaker 4: It's about emotion. It's about the story that you're telling.
Speaker 4: Although it may not be the choreographer may not is
Speaker 4: telling you his story. But you got to find your
Speaker 4: story within the movement. What makes you move this way,
Speaker 4: what makes you sing this way? What makes you tell
Speaker 4: your story through drama, through the word this way? You
Speaker 4: have to create it, at least for me. You have
Speaker 4: to relate to something within you that connects to that
Speaker 4: emotion and that's how we dance be That's how I danced.
Speaker 1: For a lot of us, at least for my generation.
Speaker 1: This conversation is really transformational as far as like my
Speaker 1: mind state, because I think every person thinks that their
Speaker 1: era in the world is the kind of you know,
Speaker 1: black and white, the color Wizard of Oz thing, like
Speaker 1: everyone thinks like, oh, when I was born, then suddenly
Speaker 1: modern times began. But you know, I would zoom that
Speaker 1: until Roots came along, that a lot of African Americans
Speaker 1: weren't even thinking in terms of their history going back
Speaker 1: to Africa, unless you know, they were of the generation
Speaker 1: that watched Tarzan as a kid in the fifties and sixties.
Speaker 3: The Marcus Garvey movement, and he was down with.
Speaker 2: That, right.
Speaker 1: So what I'm asking you is when you're told to
Speaker 1: tell your story and the vocabulary of our African history
Speaker 1: really wasn't super enforced unless you were part of specialized movements.
Speaker 1: In your mind, when you are expressing yourself and reaching
Speaker 1: inside for your emotions and through dance, what is it
Speaker 1: that drove you creatively? Like what are you thinking of
Speaker 1: when they're telling you tell your story?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm thinking of my emotional feelings and what I
Speaker 4: feel in that moment of death. Story makes sense, all
Speaker 4: right if I have safe For example, if I tell
Speaker 4: a story of my listen, keep him we going to
Speaker 4: performing us? What did that make you feel? Like? How
Speaker 4: did you feel the first day you stepped on that stage,
Speaker 4: when you stepped into that studio? What was it feeling
Speaker 4: to you and feeling? What's that story that you want
Speaker 4: to tell right there? And then that creates a whole movement,
Speaker 4: yes for us coming up. And I was as far
Speaker 4: as we're talking about ancestry now, when we talked about
Speaker 4: black history in my school coming up in my era,
Speaker 4: it was one paragraph your slave and Lincoln freed you,
Speaker 4: you know, and we know that's not true. And long
Speaker 4: comes a wonderful man named Alex Haley who says, I'm
Speaker 4: going to devouch that because it's not true. And he
Speaker 4: goes back to Gambia and he finds his roots, and
Speaker 4: he writes a wonderful book called Roots. And we all
Speaker 4: now say, and now the world is going whoa wait
Speaker 4: a minute, waking up. There was more to it than
Speaker 4: this what's in our history books. There's more to my story,
Speaker 4: you see. It's so interesting. When Roots came out, it
Speaker 4: was just the book, and I had heard about it,
Speaker 4: and like a lot of us did, and I just
Speaker 4: knew I wanted to be a part of that movie,
Speaker 4: that TV series that was And I went to my
Speaker 4: agent and I said to him, listen, there's this book.
Speaker 4: I think ABC is gonna make a movie out of
Speaker 4: it called Roots. Cinda, I really i'd like to be
Speaker 4: to try out. What he says to me, Ben, you're
Speaker 4: a song and dance man. They're looking for actors, he said,
Speaker 4: So listen, there's a there's this group that starting out.
Speaker 4: You got a big hit called your Family's Sister Sledge.
Speaker 4: He says, they're going to open for you in Chicago,
Speaker 4: So why don't you go do that? And you have
Speaker 4: another to get for you guys down in Savannah. So
Speaker 4: I said yeah, But Kenny said, Ben, they're looking for actors.
Speaker 4: So I get on I get on the plane. I
Speaker 4: go to Chicago. This it's a Sledge. They opened to
Speaker 4: be a wonderful these little girls, the little Girls, and
Speaker 4: we get to Sabana, Georgia. He used to do a
Speaker 4: character called Burt Williams about my ancestry, about the performer.
Speaker 4: There was a time in American history where black people
Speaker 4: in the theater were not allowed on stage unless we
Speaker 4: wore a black face. And he went through that. So
Speaker 4: I told that story and coming at the show that
Speaker 4: afternoon in Savannah, Georgia, there was a guy came backstage
Speaker 4: and they would staying Margolis and he said, I want
Speaker 4: you to read my Chicken George And I said, I said, said,
Speaker 4: what's the chicken George? He said, We'll shoe me down
Speaker 4: here shooting a show called Roots. He said, Michael, And
Speaker 4: I said, I don't care, man, if Chicken George's guy
Speaker 4: in the boat going, let me out of here. Let
Speaker 4: me out of here, please please, I'll be there. And
Speaker 4: that's how I got the bar. I had no idea
Speaker 4: how deep it was going to go and what I mean.
Speaker 4: It opened up a whole avenue for me and for
Speaker 4: all of us to look back and honor our ancestry,
Speaker 4: which we must continue to do. This stay four because
Speaker 4: our ancestry of the reason why we're here today, their struggle,
Speaker 4: their fight, their determination to go through slavery. Imagine coming
Speaker 4: across the water, having being stolen from your family, you're
Speaker 4: on and you're put on chains. Change what was a chain,
Speaker 4: and you're being put on a boat on and you
Speaker 4: put to an island, and you're gone away with a
Speaker 4: bunch of people you've never seen. The white and you
Speaker 4: see a bunch of other people your color were not
Speaker 4: the same languages, and we're all chained inside this boat
Speaker 4: and someone jumping off the side. They refuse to go
Speaker 4: to they're gonna know what's gonna happen. They don't want
Speaker 4: to be a part of it. But the bravery of
Speaker 4: those people went through that passage and stood on that
Speaker 4: on that slave block and watch their families being torn apart,
Speaker 4: which which I think in my mind, destroyed our culture together.
Speaker 4: The that strength and to tell their stories to be forgotten. No, no,
Speaker 4: not on my watch.
Speaker 2: How long did they give you to prepare that role?
Speaker 1: Take us through the process of preparing, executing, and then
Speaker 1: leaving that character.
Speaker 4: I never looked their character.
Speaker 2: Boy all right, chicken joys.
Speaker 4: Well, for me, it was all because understand, my family
Speaker 4: we never sat around and talked about then, because we
Speaker 4: were surviving in the now. My family was the educators
Speaker 4: or the the you know, they were not of that elk,
Speaker 4: you know, if they were field workers, you know, survivors,
Speaker 4: and so We never sat around and talked about education,
Speaker 4: about government, about what's going on day to day survival.
Speaker 4: So I got this. I knew there was a deeper story.
Speaker 4: When I got the opportunity to tell my story, it
Speaker 4: was like, how do I find my research? So I
Speaker 4: called my elders. You know, can you tell me about
Speaker 4: what it was like during this time that time? And
Speaker 4: you know, and a lot of it came from imagination
Speaker 4: once again, what it must have felt like. And Chicken
Speaker 4: George was so he's so beautiful. You know, the one
Speaker 4: thing I do is that when I get to a character,
Speaker 4: especially someone like Chicken George, I asked permission to enter
Speaker 4: into that realm of consciousness and what's been like for you?
Speaker 4: Educate me, teach me. And he took me on his journey.
Speaker 4: And I tell you the respect and the admiration that
Speaker 4: the cast and the crew had doing that, it was amazing.
Speaker 4: It was amazing.
Speaker 3: Did it feel safe?
Speaker 5: Did they provide like a cause you know in twenty
Speaker 5: twenty if you guys made this in twenty twenty four
Speaker 5: or twenty five, there would be all kind.
Speaker 3: Of counseling on set.
Speaker 5: And you know, when you when you broke out a
Speaker 5: character there'd be somebody to make sure are you okay?
Speaker 3: Like, how did y'all handle that?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 6: Not in twenty twenty four, sorry to jump in now,
Speaker 6: please go.
Speaker 3: Please cabar that will come later. Oh not in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four, My bad. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 4: Four. During that time, it was self nurturing. And that's
Speaker 4: why I say the cat the crew, even the crew
Speaker 4: was aware that we were touching upon something that was
Speaker 4: in other words, I hate to use this word but taboo.
Speaker 4: But the respect and reverence that the crew had and
Speaker 4: would like to see that one scene I never forget
Speaker 4: the scene where Richard Rowntree was dating my mother time
Speaker 4: Leslie other one was playing kissing and there's a scene
Speaker 4: where she had talked him into taking her to find
Speaker 4: her father and they go back and they're late coming
Speaker 4: back to the plantation and his masa at the time
Speaker 4: were supposed to chastise him and Richard round. She was
Speaker 4: supposed to beg for him, not to beat him. And
Speaker 4: I'll never get this. Richard said, you want me to
Speaker 4: grobble to a white man? Do you know why? I
Speaker 4: am mm hmmm. I don't groobble for no white man.
Speaker 4: And the director said said Richard, we need this just
Speaker 4: for the next scene. He said, nord to he said,
Speaker 4: he said, you can do this. He says, I ain't
Speaker 4: grabbling and no white man, it's like that. And he said, well,
Speaker 4: he said, just one time, he said. He looked around,
Speaker 4: He looked at at Kissey and my mother Leslie, looked
Speaker 4: at the castle and the crew. You went, you got
Speaker 4: one shot. And he gets down. He does that scene
Speaker 4: where he says, please bost some morsel, don't beat me,
Speaker 4: and we just finished. The director said, goud, okay, that
Speaker 4: was a good friend. Anybody go home sake, Okay, thank you,
Speaker 4: thank you very much. Because it was like, I mean,
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, we had to reflect on the
Speaker 4: fact that what it must have been like to have
Speaker 4: the wobble to white people for our survival. That the
Speaker 4: big you know, I think about my oof, don't get
Speaker 4: me started. I think about what people went through as slaves, kings, inventors, doctors,
Speaker 4: leaders being stripped. We built empires and civilizations and now
Speaker 4: we are at the bottom of the chain. They gave
Speaker 4: us slop and we made it a cuisine. We made
Speaker 4: it a cuisine.
Speaker 5: I can't even get to that extent of thought it
Speaker 5: makes me think of also the artists who have had
Speaker 5: to play these roles. And it's funny because as you said,
Speaker 5: as you said, this was a taboo thing and now
Speaker 5: it's not. Now we've had several movies that have followed,
Speaker 5: and it makes me think about all the black actors
Speaker 5: who have had to tackle these rolls, like from Chiwaitali,
Speaker 5: Joe for to Jamie Fox, to Lapita and Jongo. And
Speaker 5: I'm curious if anybody ever reached back to you and went,
Speaker 5: how did you do this?
Speaker 3: How did you do this thing?
Speaker 4: Because we who were there at the first beginning a
Speaker 4: waiting to say this is how we did it? Because
Speaker 4: what annoysment? I loved my brother LaVar Burdon loved him,
Speaker 4: yet he felt that maybe I let me take it
Speaker 4: this way, but he never allowed us to talk to
Speaker 4: the cast, They say, what did you go through? How
Speaker 4: did you get there this point? Oh?
Speaker 3: With the newer roots? Are you talking about the new roots?
Speaker 3: The newer roots?
Speaker 4: I said, Okay, they did a good job, but as
Speaker 4: far as they could do. But we could have given
Speaker 4: them another layer that's much deeper, because we were there.
Speaker 3: We were I was curious about thank you for answering
Speaker 3: that question.
Speaker 4: We cried and wept and what to do, but we
Speaker 4: knew we had to do it for the art and
Speaker 4: to tell the truth story as far as Hollywood would
Speaker 4: allow us to tell the truth stories. You understand, Ruth
Speaker 4: just scrounged upon the surface really went down, But what
Speaker 4: really went down you can do those wounds, you go deeper.
Speaker 4: They were knights. I come home and my wife Nancy,
Speaker 4: she go you okay, I say yeah, And nights I
Speaker 4: was just being tears, like okay, okay, and let me
Speaker 4: get myself ready, Okay, let's go do the scene. And
Speaker 4: although I was friend chicken George, who was like a dandy,
Speaker 4: but there was that moment when he finds out his
Speaker 4: father is white. It's what he's gone through. And watching
Speaker 4: your fellow neighbor, brothers, sister, they whipped because they didn't
Speaker 4: want to pick up something they didn't want to do,
Speaker 4: so they said the same wrong thing because they were
Speaker 4: field niggas, then the house niggas. Because it's to you
Speaker 4: a little better with the field telling those stories. And
Speaker 4: I think those stories have not been told enough. As
Speaker 4: long as my Jewish brothers and sisters can tell us
Speaker 4: about the Holocaust. We must talk about our Holocaust. Excuse me.
Speaker 3: I agreed.
Speaker 4: Let's read so we know where we are going, otherwise
Speaker 4: they will do it to us again.
Speaker 5: Did this journey at all make you want to go
Speaker 5: back to your own roots and find out about who
Speaker 5: you are? And can you talk about that a little bit?
Speaker 4: When I was with Sammy Davis Junior, I got I
Speaker 4: was finishing a movie called Sweet Charity with Shortian McClair, Yep,
Speaker 4: Davis Junior and Sammy and I was, I was, I
Speaker 4: was feeling pissed to Sammy. Why well, sam went on
Speaker 4: on TV television, those dames. He had three channels. The
Speaker 4: fourth channel came out and he said, well, you know,
Speaker 4: I know how how hard it is for us in
Speaker 4: this business. So there's any young black entertainer out there?
Speaker 4: I think no? In those days were negroes in colored right.
Speaker 4: I want to talk to me. I'm open to talking
Speaker 4: to him. I mean, you know how much courage it
Speaker 4: took me to get up the skids from Brooklyn and
Speaker 4: we opened Caesar's Palace. I'm there Caesar's Palace and I'm
Speaker 4: going into Casino, which I'm hearing stories. Lean on hornhurlbelly
Speaker 4: had to be in trailers outside and walk through the
Speaker 4: slop before they got on stage. Now I'm staying in
Speaker 4: a hole in an apartment right across the street from
Speaker 4: from the Caesar's Palace, and I'm coming in there and
Speaker 4: I'm standing there. I see Joe esuis walking down and
Speaker 4: how Tomorrow giv him money. And I'm sending wipe that
Speaker 4: still gave me money to gamble, And I mean, I'm like, wow,
Speaker 4: I'm skips from Brooklyn look at me. And then Sammy
Speaker 4: says he'll talk to me. Yes. So I'm waiting one
Speaker 4: day for sam to come to me Rose Nook, which
Speaker 4: the lounge the head there with people like Jack Machel
Speaker 4: hangout and the platters and and so he was coming
Speaker 4: and walking with fifty of his closest friends. So I
Speaker 4: walk over and I go, miss mister Davis, I heard
Speaker 4: that he said, talk to my secretary. I went, what
Speaker 4: mm hmm, really okay. So then I get to show
Speaker 4: Sweet Charity. I'm on tour with with Cheter rivera end
Speaker 4: up in catalog. I get a telegram we want it.
Speaker 4: I'm doing Daddy Blue Bank a role in the show.
Speaker 4: You know, I got to sing my own solo I
Speaker 4: was excited all let Bob Fosk and trusted business role.
Speaker 4: Now I get this telegram we want you to come
Speaker 4: to Hollywood to star in the movie Sweet Charity, and
Speaker 4: I went, wow, I'm gonna do doing the role. Oh
Speaker 4: Daddy brew Bank. Then I get to the movie and
Speaker 4: they said, no, Sammy Davis is gonna do this role.
Speaker 4: Saturday attitude. Chake my role too, man, I have done
Speaker 4: do with you. He walks in and say says, Samy's
Speaker 4: too sick to do the row. I went, whoa, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna put apart. Yeah, so I'm standing on line and
Speaker 4: who should walk through the door in the wheelchair? Sammy
Speaker 4: David Juni and everybody goes, oh, sam oh Sam, I say,
Speaker 4: I do I sit back? So saf notices I have
Speaker 4: this attitude man. He goes, yeah, don't come on the
Speaker 4: stories say fight everybody, fight everybody over. We're gonna have
Speaker 4: this much with everybody. Everybody goes, I stand outside. So
Speaker 4: Sammy sends over on his henchmen. He says, uh, mister
Speaker 4: Davis likes to have dinner with you in Little Santa Monica.
Speaker 4: I said, yeah, right, cool. I got so excited, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna put brand New Soon I got the little got
Speaker 4: to the hotel like an hour before. Right, I went
Speaker 4: in the restaurant. I said, mister, my name is benjam Veren,
Speaker 4: and miss Davids Many said, wait who wo wo wo
Speaker 4: wo wo. Well not here, you know, let's see if
Speaker 4: you're in the list. Listen Benjamin, Yeah, okay, come in.
Speaker 4: So I go to this long table and I'm sitting
Speaker 4: his long table. As I got there, like at six thirty.
Speaker 4: We want to be there at seven seven things dinner.
Speaker 4: And I'm looking around the room. There's Joey Bishop, There's
Speaker 4: you know, Dean Martin, there's Lucio Ball, all these celebrities
Speaker 4: sitting around, and I'm sitting this long table smoking, waiting
Speaker 4: for Sammy. Nine thirty. No, Sammy, I'm sitting there at nine.
Speaker 4: I said, okay, say you guys, you're not coming. So
Speaker 4: I got up. I started to leave. Who walks in
Speaker 4: Sammy with the same fifty closest friends, He says, So
Speaker 4: sit down, sit sener. He says, you know, I did
Speaker 4: a show called Golden Boys some years ago on Broadway
Speaker 4: and think about doing it again taking it to London.
Speaker 4: So well, now it's a different time because we have
Speaker 4: the black panthers. There's a black movement going on, and
Speaker 4: we need somebody who's angry, who's the fire And his
Speaker 4: agent says, nudget, we go asking for the role, and
Speaker 4: what is asking for the role? I said, missus David,
Speaker 4: we got the role. So he hires me to do
Speaker 4: poll the Boy. Right. So we says, now we're going
Speaker 4: to do the show, uh in Chicago. Then we're going
Speaker 4: to London, and he says, we have a passport. I said, no,
Speaker 4: I don't I have a passport. He said oh. He said, okay,
Speaker 4: just right down to where you were you were born
Speaker 4: and you'll send you your birth certification. We got the
Speaker 4: crassport and you're gone. I said, okay, so right down
Speaker 4: to Florida. Mimi flund I get this letter back saying
Speaker 4: we do not have a Benjamin Augustus Verene born to
Speaker 4: an SSI Varene. However we do have are born to
Speaker 4: a Pauline Verene. However, we do have a Benjamin Augustus
Speaker 4: Middleton born to an SSI middle East Middleton on that date.
Speaker 2: What wait, that's how you found your roots?
Speaker 4: So I called my mother. I said, Mom, you got
Speaker 4: to call these people. I'm saying any days, you don't
Speaker 4: take him to London. And I ain't need my passport,
Speaker 4: I need you. And they say, said I read a
Speaker 4: letter and she went it was quiet. I said, mom,
Speaker 4: whoa and she said, I was hoping you'd never know.
Speaker 5: Hm.
Speaker 4: And that's how I had my journey, then my my daughter.
Speaker 4: When I had my daughters, you know, they came to me.
Speaker 4: Babies came to me and said, Dad, all we have
Speaker 4: is mom, and but we don't have any We're gonna
Speaker 4: have children one day, and we didn't know who's in
Speaker 4: our So I said, okay, So I started searching. I
Speaker 4: was down in Mexico and ran to a friend named
Speaker 4: uh La Fever Rocks and the Fever and this lady
Speaker 4: and I got to talk and went to Mexico to
Speaker 4: get vitamin drip because in those days invited the States been.
Speaker 4: So I go down to meet her and we go
Speaker 4: to dinner, and I stought. She starts telling me she's
Speaker 4: a genealogist. So I said, oh yeah, I said, well,
Speaker 4: and I saw telling my story. She said, well, why
Speaker 4: don't we go searching? So I go to an office
Speaker 4: in Washington and see she worked for the Pearson And
Speaker 4: that's when the journey began and I found my family
Speaker 4: about what is it Toborrow sixteen years ago?
Speaker 6: Yeah, fifteen years ago around.
Speaker 4: My family And here's the ironic thing, he said, We
Speaker 4: all read this in the book. The book is much
Speaker 4: better than this interview.
Speaker 1: This interview is much better than your career retrospective. Like
Speaker 1: this might be my favorite episode of the Quest of Supreme.
Speaker 1: I did not know this was coming.
Speaker 4: So we start searching, and here we is a wonderful story.
Speaker 4: When I got married at a very young age, it
Speaker 4: was to the bishop's daughter of the Holiness Church. When
Speaker 4: I find my family, come to find out my grandfather
Speaker 4: was the originator of the Holiness churches in the South
Speaker 4: pier Since, now here's the thing. My first father in law,
Speaker 4: we go to a place in Connecticut. We haveing Connecticut.
Speaker 4: We had a thing called Complication. That's where you know,
Speaker 4: all the black churches get together and we celebrate the other.
Speaker 4: And so when I found my family, I called my
Speaker 4: sister Gloria, and it was so weird. You know how
Speaker 4: it is you find you just like it was what
Speaker 4: a conversation. I said, hello, she said hi, I said Gloria.
Speaker 4: She said yeah, I said, my name is Benjamin, I'm
Speaker 4: your brother. She said, yeah, they're telling me. You told
Speaker 4: me that. So how she found out? She said that
Speaker 4: someone called and said you better sit down. He said,
Speaker 4: well she got another brother. Said I don't know, I
Speaker 4: got a brother. Said no, you better sit down. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I said, it's your oldest sister.
Speaker 4: Huh, oldest sister. You have a Yeah, his name is Benjamin,
Speaker 4: said Benjamin. She said yeah, She said, I got my Eugene.
Speaker 4: I got She said, no, you have another brother. His
Speaker 4: name is ben Vereen. You better sit down. So I
Speaker 4: call her and I say who I am, introduced myself
Speaker 4: and they said that year they were having the my family.
Speaker 4: Part of the family was about the Pearsons, and so
Speaker 4: in Connecticut. Now I lived an hour away from my
Speaker 4: mother my entire life and never never. And here's the thing.
Speaker 4: We're sitting at the table at the reunion and my
Speaker 4: wife there, my children, my grandchildren, and we're sitting there celebrating.
Speaker 4: There was only supposed to be fifty p or sixty
Speaker 4: people showing up. It was one hundred or two hundred
Speaker 4: people showed up. When they found out I was part
Speaker 4: of the family, they all come to Connecticut. Who was
Speaker 4: sitting at the table and in walks my first wife's
Speaker 4: aunt and she looks at me. She said, you're Essie's son.
Speaker 4: Oh god, yes, she said, ESSI was my best friend.
Speaker 4: I could have been in church with my first family
Speaker 4: sitting next to my mother and never knew it.
Speaker 6: And it's heartbreaking because she also really admired him an artist,
Speaker 6: and she was a fan of his, and she would
Speaker 6: when he was on television, she would shut off. She
Speaker 6: would tell everybody to be quiet because she had to
Speaker 6: have full attention on my father's performances. But she didn't
Speaker 6: know that was her son.
Speaker 4: It's so heartbreaking, he said, did not didn't know, And I.
Speaker 2: No, I'm messed up.
Speaker 4: She was gone when I found she got to stand something.
Speaker 4: In the black Communitian those days, they do things like that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like you just send somebody off
Speaker 5: or you you know.
Speaker 4: You just like you know me. Look, the woman lived
Speaker 4: upstairs with us on Herkim the street. She had fourteen
Speaker 4: kids because the government said you don't have to work,
Speaker 4: just have babies, so she'd have babies, you know. And
Speaker 4: there was a lot of that going on in what
Speaker 4: they called the ghetto. Yeah, and so my mother is
Speaker 4: my mother. The story I got was, my mother just
Speaker 4: came from New Orleans where she got into an altercation
Speaker 4: and beautiful and she's working as an orderly at the
Speaker 4: hospital in Miami. She was coming home one night. She
Speaker 4: told me it was raining and she was standing in
Speaker 4: the hall in the storeway, and there was this woman
Speaker 4: standing beside us, pregnant, and they got a conversation. Name
Speaker 4: was Essay. They had a conversation going on, and she
Speaker 4: invited a woman home to her home, and she said
Speaker 4: a few days later she had practice. I can't and
Speaker 4: she said, she went to work, came home and there
Speaker 4: was a nope beside me, saying I don't want to
Speaker 4: take it. And she said, okay, no man, let's go
Speaker 4: to New York City. And it's an interesting thing about
Speaker 4: that scenario because I told my sister, I said, I'm
Speaker 4: sorry I wasn't here for you as a brother. She
Speaker 4: looked at me, she said, don't be sorry, she said,
Speaker 4: and you came with us, you probably wouldn't. Benbury, I was.
Speaker 1: Going to ask you, how conflicted do you feel because
Speaker 1: you had to go through your life in order to
Speaker 1: get to this very place right now. But I know
Speaker 1: there has to be a part of you that wonders
Speaker 1: in an alternate reality where you're with your actual family,
Speaker 1: that somehow you might serendipitously wind up in the same position, Like,
Speaker 1: how did that make it? How long did it take
Speaker 1: you to process? And really did it make you feel
Speaker 1: complete as a human? Did it leave you more conflicted
Speaker 1: about your history?
Speaker 4: Was still a question because my father I have yet
Speaker 4: to find that family, the Middletons. All I know is
Speaker 4: he died in Philadelphia, and so we don't know.
Speaker 6: We don't know if that's truly the father to that.
Speaker 6: We're still trying to figure out the identity of the father,
Speaker 6: the true How.
Speaker 3: Would you do that, Kamar? How do y'all even get.
Speaker 2: To Skip Gates?
Speaker 6: Well, we've been in touch with Skip Gates. Hopefully we're
Speaker 6: going to be on next season, and but we've been
Speaker 6: in that process for a while. But we'd love now.
Speaker 3: I would have assumed he would have been on Find
Speaker 3: My Roots, because it's.
Speaker 1: Well, not many people were privy to the story, And
Speaker 1: you're right even right now, I mean, I'm not spoiler
Speaker 1: a learning because he wrote about in this book Maurice
Speaker 1: White of earthvend Fire, same thing he was five years old,
Speaker 1: his mom gave him to the next door neighbor, and
Speaker 1: she went off to Chicago, had a fit, you know,
Speaker 1: got lucky, married a doctor, had seven children. Maurice joins
Speaker 1: her at eighteen. But there's something inherently broken inside of
Speaker 1: maurice white soul that, yes, he was given away, that
Speaker 1: even though he miraculously kind of wound up in a
Speaker 1: metaphysical self love space at least musically and creatively to
Speaker 1: teach us to love ourselves, you know, afrocentricity and all that.
Speaker 2: Stuff, But.
Speaker 1: That I believe the emotional blockage that Maurice had with
Speaker 1: really not coming to grips with I was so unlovable,
Speaker 1: no one wanted me. I felt personally led to his
Speaker 1: Parkinson's disease.
Speaker 4: There, but the scars still I'm dealing with. Accordingly, It's
Speaker 4: take me some very strange prices. You've regotten the book,
Speaker 4: But what.
Speaker 1: Can I ask, did you go through any sort of
Speaker 1: therapeutic process to sort of deal with that feeling, that
Speaker 1: emotion so it doesn't live inside you.
Speaker 4: Well, you know it's going to always live inside of you.
Speaker 4: Says how to process your life through that? I've been
Speaker 4: through many counselors and people like that. And try to
Speaker 4: try to help me. But it really comes down to
Speaker 4: individual choice of what you choose to be today and
Speaker 4: how you live each day in processing your life. Accepting.
Speaker 4: It's a big word, acceptance, And I'm grateful that for
Speaker 4: my journey. Would I have done it differently had I known,
Speaker 4: baby so? But I can't say that because I am
Speaker 4: not the one who's controlling the spiritual aspect of my life.
Speaker 4: I have my human aspect which is going on the
Speaker 4: journey that the spirit wants to experience through me. But
Speaker 4: had I known, I don't know. I can't say I
Speaker 4: know what I know today, And I'm grateful. When the
Speaker 4: Quest Love.
Speaker 1: Show, Okay, I wasn't going to make a big, rough
Speaker 1: high of this only because you have such an expansive
Speaker 1: career and I know where you're going that I didn't
Speaker 1: want to reduce it to this question that I now
Speaker 1: feel like I have to ask you.
Speaker 2: Yes, yo, man, I'm yo. Oh God. You remember the
Speaker 2: Matthew Knowles episode where hang on, oh shit, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: what's going on?
Speaker 1: Look For the last year and a half, in hearing
Speaker 1: these stories slid Stone, earth Wind and Fire, this this
Speaker 1: really hits me in my heart only because And the
Speaker 1: reason why I keep grappling with emotions is again, as
Speaker 1: human beings were really not you know, we're taught to
Speaker 1: suck it up, you know, man up, and really not
Speaker 1: process our emotions. And I was wondering, like, how have
Speaker 1: we dealt with this for five hundred years? And you
Speaker 1: explained that through dance, through music, through me drumming. Perhaps
Speaker 1: maybe that's how I get my rage out my you
Speaker 1: know that sort of thing. But the reason why your
Speaker 1: episode of The Fresh Prince of bell Air resonates so
Speaker 1: much with my generation and millennials and gen z is
Speaker 1: we all felt Will Smith's pain, and we you know,
Speaker 1: the whole fight.
Speaker 2: And I'm gonna be a man. I'm gonna be all
Speaker 2: right like that whole Martin.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be all right like we're taught to sucking
Speaker 1: the tears and not show like. I won't let you
Speaker 1: see me sweat or see me cry or any sort
Speaker 1: of as a sign of defeat. Knowing what you knew
Speaker 1: about your own family history, were the creators of The
Speaker 1: Fresh Prince of bel Air or Will Smith himself, were
Speaker 1: any of them aware?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: Did you?
Speaker 2: You didn't share with them?
Speaker 6: This information hasn't been really shared publicly.
Speaker 4: I'm just I.
Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing that because it's it's it's it's
Speaker 1: touched me.
Speaker 4: They knew nothing about this, hadn't been talking about this,
Speaker 4: has kept it to myself. I'm just beginning to open
Speaker 4: up about this. But they should choose to tell this
Speaker 4: story at the time in my life and here we
Speaker 4: are talking about it. It was a very deep subject
Speaker 4: for all of us.
Speaker 3: How was that to shoot?
Speaker 4: Was that?
Speaker 5: What did it make it in your head? Or were
Speaker 5: you just the constantly professional and just you know.
Speaker 4: Tell that story, find the seed of that story and
Speaker 4: sharing it and being that man who rejected his son
Speaker 4: because of his background, his fear, his pain. You know
Speaker 4: that moment when I'm silent, So I went through so
Speaker 4: much in that silence as not being said when I'm
Speaker 4: walking out the door. Was nobody saw that pain, what
Speaker 4: I went through personally, So I had no words for him,
Speaker 4: and the writers had no idea this was going down.
Speaker 4: Why they were chose to write this particular show for
Speaker 4: me or why will say I want him to do
Speaker 4: this part? Oh pay it? No? But the university and
Speaker 4: it was the beginning of this conversation we're having right then,
Speaker 4: and as a daughter.
Speaker 6: It was a hard thing to watch as well, because
Speaker 6: my father growing up was always on the road, you know,
Speaker 6: and when everyone thinks, you know, when you're this kid
Speaker 6: of a hate to use the word celebrity, you have
Speaker 6: this privileged life and everything's great and you're these fabulous
Speaker 6: parties and your parents are ever present. But no, I
Speaker 6: would tell people, when you see my father on television,
Speaker 6: that's time that he's not with me. He's not with
Speaker 6: my siblings. And especially when we were young, you know,
Speaker 6: the only times you would see him is during breaks
Speaker 6: for school and he was working because those were prime times.
Speaker 6: And you know, people thought it was cool because at
Speaker 6: one point he was hosting all the Disney specials, you know,
Speaker 6: in the holidays, and yeah, great, you get to cut
Speaker 6: the line at Disney. But I still don't have my father.
Speaker 6: You know. My mother was amazing. She did everything that
Speaker 6: she could within herself, but we also had to grapple.
Speaker 6: And watching that episode for me was because, you know it, well,
Speaker 6: it was an interesting time in my life period. But
Speaker 6: I was probably in college around that time, and my
Speaker 6: father and I had gone through a lot, like just emotionally,
Speaker 6: We've always had this like kind of hard relationship because
Speaker 6: even as a little kid, it was this whole thing
Speaker 6: of Dad's coming home. Oh my god, Dad's home. And
Speaker 6: I would kind of stand back because I was resemful
Speaker 6: because I didn't have time with my dad. And then
Speaker 6: it was always the limos here. Okay, the assistants are
Speaker 6: here putting everything in the car, and he's off again,
Speaker 6: you know. And I always was kind of the defiant one.
Speaker 6: I remember this one instance. I don't know if you
Speaker 6: remember this.
Speaker 4: Dad.
Speaker 6: We're living in Saddle River because my parents decided to
Speaker 6: move us out of Hollywood. So it was about eight
Speaker 6: the time, and you know, spoiled had the Apple computer
Speaker 6: and the television in my room and everything like that.
Speaker 6: And I said something to you, Dad, and you were
Speaker 6: getting ready to go somewhere because the limo was outside.
Speaker 6: He was dressed up in his tucks and he said, you.
Speaker 3: Said what to me?
Speaker 6: And I said whatever I said, and he like was
Speaker 6: coming at me, and I was in my nightgown getting
Speaker 6: ready to go to bed. I got up and iran
Speaker 6: across the property. We had huge property, and I remember
Speaker 6: standing in this creek that we had because I knew
Speaker 6: he didn't have time to come into that creek after me,
Speaker 6: and we just looking at each other.
Speaker 7: You better get out of that creek, You better get out,
Speaker 7: You better come here and talk to me. As your
Speaker 7: father said, uh, He's like, I'm taking everything out of
Speaker 7: your room, and I was just like, okay, great, because
Speaker 7: you're not going to be there when I get back,
Speaker 7: you know.
Speaker 6: So that part when I you know, we had this
Speaker 6: release ship for a very long time, and when I
Speaker 6: did see the episode, I felt that pain on the
Speaker 6: other side of it where he felt the pain as
Speaker 6: the adult leaving the child, you know. So it is
Speaker 6: very emotional, I think for all.
Speaker 3: Of the kids.
Speaker 4: So, you know, in tap of that character and the
Speaker 4: character that I have had to be in my life
Speaker 4: and I missed those moments now of being there for them.
Speaker 4: It's an emptiness that I gobbled with every day you
Speaker 4: did what Why wasn't I there? But I was raised
Speaker 4: of a mindset of my mother was about providing, and
Speaker 4: so she would often say to me, you know, we'd
Speaker 4: be sitting around our tenement building and you know, we
Speaker 4: have one of his little pop belly stole and she
Speaker 4: say to me, Bunny because she couldn't pronounce Benjamin, and
Speaker 4: mounderstood this. She couldn't have pronounced Benjamin. I look at
Speaker 4: my father. They always called me Joe or she called
Speaker 4: me bunny. Bunny. If all we have was a donut,
Speaker 4: you need the donut the whole.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 4: So you know that was the way I was raised.
Speaker 4: And so when this opportunity of show business fell upon me,
Speaker 4: all I knew was to do is provide and got
Speaker 4: caught up in the madness. Listen, all you read about
Speaker 4: all this in the book, but it's about that missing
Speaker 4: part which I grobble.
Speaker 6: With as a daughter. I don't want him to feel
Speaker 6: guilty about it because I'm very privileged. You know, I
Speaker 6: don't have college loans. You know that was all paid
Speaker 6: for it.
Speaker 3: I was going to afford the work to the mental
Speaker 3: work in the council end too.
Speaker 6: Yes, yes, and my my father and I have had
Speaker 6: this tremendous journey and it's heavy on my heart that
Speaker 6: he has this guilt.
Speaker 5: But the bar the fact that j'all was sharing this,
Speaker 5: I just got to say it. I know Amre is
Speaker 5: feeling this too, like this is the result of having
Speaker 5: a black boomer daddy, Like this trauma is not You
Speaker 5: are not alone in this thing, understand father's trauma. And
Speaker 5: because the beautiful thing to me as I look at
Speaker 5: you guys and beautiful daughters, where we are now, where
Speaker 5: you are with him, wherever he goes, and how you
Speaker 5: take care of him.
Speaker 6: Is just along with my sister Karan Kan.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I guess.
Speaker 7: Yeah, likea she's out there somewhere the way the girls
Speaker 7: take care of you.
Speaker 2: How many children in total?
Speaker 4: I had four five children. I had an Najah whom
Speaker 4: I lost an automobile accident, and my son. Okay, so
Speaker 4: I have I have three daughter, beautiful daughters, and I'm
Speaker 4: so honored and privilege. Honest, I'm blessed. I'm truly blessed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, daughters, take care of you different right.
Speaker 4: Recommend the people who were handling me in my business.
Speaker 4: I mean, I've had some messed up people in my
Speaker 4: life who did not even think about my children. I
Speaker 4: was in rehab in Utah place called Circu and I
Speaker 4: had had my bow. I've had my bous and alcohol
Speaker 4: and drugs and things, and I'd find my last cleanup
Speaker 4: and I'll never forget. Ron and my wife came up
Speaker 4: for counseling and this has never happened, and I never
Speaker 4: forget her sitting there and saying, you do not like
Speaker 4: what it's like being the wife of ben Vereen. And
Speaker 4: she said there were times that I have to go
Speaker 4: through his pockets to find money to pay for my
Speaker 4: baby Steed. I hit the ceiling. I had no idea
Speaker 4: the robbery had been happening to my children. And I
Speaker 4: looked at it. I said, never mind me my babies.
Speaker 4: Why didn't you go up and say where excuse the expression,
Speaker 4: are the effing books? I want to see them books?
Speaker 4: Why are my babies? Why didn't I have the book
Speaker 4: to my husband's pockets to buy money? And I'm busting
Speaker 4: my ass not spending time with my babies. Keep them
Speaker 4: yachts and houses and things like that. That's another part
Speaker 4: of this interview, but one another day. That's the whole book.
Speaker 2: When when is this book coming out?
Speaker 4: Opening next ten months? In the title thank you for
Speaker 4: the Journey, I say that you know. Some people ask
Speaker 4: me you know? You say you know? So we Oh God,
Speaker 4: you're such a legend. I say thank you for receiving both.
Speaker 4: For you, I would not be here. I would not
Speaker 4: have this journey. I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be
Speaker 4: here talking to the old question. Well, mm hmm, you see,
Speaker 4: so thank you for the journey.
Speaker 1: Usually when our listenership comes to this show, it's more
Speaker 1: factual things than like a person's story. I want to
Speaker 1: I want to no no, no, no, no no no no
Speaker 1: no no no no no. I apologize in advance. Look,
Speaker 1: I have a lot of tense, speed and brown shoe questions.
Speaker 1: I wanted to know what it was like winning for
Speaker 1: Pippin or Bob Foster. He was like all these things
Speaker 1: that you've been through. But for me, this is a
Speaker 1: way more important story, the totality of your career achievements.
Speaker 1: And yes, I do implore everyone to get this book.
Speaker 2: Man, I'm just damn yeah.
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask about Al Perryman and Dan You're
Speaker 3: right questions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we can.
Speaker 3: Still ask them.
Speaker 2: Let's rapid fire, okay.
Speaker 5: So, so, Ben, can you talk about because we talked
Speaker 5: about black dance back in like the sixties and seventies,
Speaker 5: and you talked about how you know, it wasn't a
Speaker 5: thing where you would see us on those stages on TV,
Speaker 5: but there were so My father as well in New
Speaker 5: Yorker of Your Age, and he too is an artist,
Speaker 5: photographer and a drummer, and he took a lot of
Speaker 5: photos of the black dancers of that time, and I
Speaker 5: just wanted you to speak about like he spoke about
Speaker 5: Al Perryman, and he spoke about just this black dance scene.
Speaker 3: And I've seen.
Speaker 5: These beautiful photos of the black dancers going to the
Speaker 5: park where a Mere shot his documentary, And so can
Speaker 5: you just.
Speaker 3: Talk about how and then you kind of see it when.
Speaker 5: You watch the Wiz and you see all this black
Speaker 5: dance at the end, you know, brand new day and
Speaker 5: you see all these dancers of that time.
Speaker 3: Can you just George, come on, George face. We had
Speaker 3: you know, we had them on the show.
Speaker 4: George Face.
Speaker 3: Yes, Michael Peters, come on, let's go.
Speaker 4: We'll talk about Michael Peters. Mike. You know, I see
Speaker 4: he was saying, you know, this year, I was I've
Speaker 4: been watching what they call it, not Instagram, you know,
Speaker 4: young people in general, this stuff you work. But anyway,
Speaker 4: I'm watching all this and then now finally the recognizing
Speaker 4: that Michael Jackson is a product of Michael Peters beat
Speaker 4: it really. I mean, I mean before, I mean he
Speaker 4: was doing all that Motown stuff, but then he met
Speaker 4: Michael Peters and broke out the whole New Moonwalking and
Speaker 4: all these thriller beat it.
Speaker 2: Glass was Lester Wilson also part of that.
Speaker 4: Wilson was the foundation for all of us. At Bernie's
Speaker 4: Johnson's dance studio after school, we would go by Jerry Grimes,
Speaker 4: Mister Emsley, Michael Peters, Lorraine.
Speaker 3: Fields, Oh, Debbie Allen shout around too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we all go to Bernie's Johnson and there was
Speaker 4: Lester Wilson with Chief Bad Flaying Kunga and we'd be
Speaker 4: dancing and he would he would give us. Oh he
Speaker 4: was such a smooth, beautiful dancer. Bout Fossey loved. That's
Speaker 4: the Wilson. He talked about Lester Wilson, all of his
Speaker 4: moves and how liquid and fluid he was. I looked
Speaker 4: at him, Mi, he was so fluid, so beautiful. Oh,
Speaker 4: I mission mess.
Speaker 6: I was slad.
Speaker 4: We die so angry. It's so foolish. But anyway, yeah,
Speaker 4: Lester Wilson and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm glad he
Speaker 4: had documented all of us. Thank you.
Speaker 5: So you're telling a story about people, and I just
Speaker 5: I don't want them to ever forget the power of
Speaker 5: Judah Jamison. Since we recently lost her. What do you
Speaker 5: what comes to mind when we say Judith jameson.
Speaker 4: Stature of beauty and fluidity. She was the cream oh
Speaker 4: oo talking about cry. She cried for all of us.
Speaker 4: Oh I love Judith. I'm glad she came through my life.
Speaker 4: That's sit in the studio, just watch her. Oof.
Speaker 1: So this journey in your life you are right now
Speaker 1: and working on what is it that you want us
Speaker 1: to know, especially in terms of you being in your
Speaker 1: instructor phase, your your choreography phase, your your your director phase.
Speaker 4: What is it?
Speaker 1: What is it that you want This particular generation, those
Speaker 1: born in the nineties him in the two thousands.
Speaker 4: Attached to the rhetoric that you're human is listening to
Speaker 4: always know there's a power within you, greater than that
Speaker 4: outside of you, and stay in touch with who you've
Speaker 4: come to this planet to be. You'll get all the
Speaker 4: rhetoric from education, edumacation, and you'll get all the rhetoric
Speaker 4: from society what they're going through, but you understand that
Speaker 4: within you it's a core of creation and whatever you
Speaker 4: need to do to stay there, get there, get there
Speaker 4: and breathe that in and breathe that out. For all
Speaker 4: of us. That's what I want you to do. That's
Speaker 4: what I want you to know.
Speaker 2: Where you are, well, I'm good, I have a good day.
Speaker 5: It's such a it's such I just gotta say, it's
Speaker 5: a blessing to be a child of My dad calls
Speaker 5: you guys, the last of the new children, this generation.
Speaker 5: You know, I said to Kabara into Charlie Melvinmore's daughter,
Speaker 5: I was like, you guys are of a generation of
Speaker 5: creation that was just broke all of these barriers for
Speaker 5: people and also New Yorkers, and so the poet just
Speaker 5: the rhythm of when you just talk is like unmatched
Speaker 5: and we can never lose it.
Speaker 3: Just a treasure. I just we honor you.
Speaker 2: This is a great emotional episode of Quest Love Supreme Sorority.
Speaker 2: I thank you.
Speaker 1: Kabar and Ben for really really being open because oftentimes
Speaker 1: artists are taught to not overshare or that stuff. But
Speaker 1: I think now, especially where we are, yes, it's about
Speaker 1: honesty about who we are and what we're going through
Speaker 1: and things aren't perfect.
Speaker 2: And I think you know, I too thought I was alone.
Speaker 1: I am also a son of a traveling musician father
Speaker 1: and mother that had to go through the same thing.
Speaker 1: And you know you often think that you're isolated, but
Speaker 1: I really this is not just lip service. This moment
Speaker 1: right now, me speaking to you like I needed to
Speaker 1: have this conversation and I love you too for it,
Speaker 1: and thank.
Speaker 2: You very much for that. It's an awesome episode, so.
Speaker 5: Net of a kabar in that way, I'm here too,
Speaker 5: because Peers, you're right, you're not alone exactly.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm surprised we didn't run into each other up
Speaker 6: on the borsch Felts.
Speaker 1: No, you know what, it's weird. I felt as though
Speaker 1: you and I have crosspaths. I know we had common
Speaker 1: like friends in common and whatnot. Yet this this is
Speaker 1: this is great to meet you this way, and you
Speaker 1: know I appreciate it. On behalf of a on Sugar
Speaker 1: Steve and and Unpaid Bill and Layah Kabara, Ben Veren.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. This is Quest Love Supreme and
Speaker 2: we will see you on the next go.
Speaker 3: Thank you, hey, Thank y'all for listening to Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 5: This podcast is hosted by an Afro a mouth, an
Speaker 5: engineer and a man with too many jobs aka a
Speaker 5: mere Quest Love Thompson.
Speaker 3: Why you, Saint Clair Douga, Steve Mandell and unpaid Bill Sherman.
Speaker 3: The executive producers, well get paid the big bucks.
Speaker 5: A mere quest Love Thompson, Sean g and Brian Calhoun
Speaker 5: asked them for money. Produced by the people who do
Speaker 5: all the real work Ritny Benjamin, Jake Payne and.
Speaker 3: Yes, why are You St? Claus?
Speaker 5: Edited by another person who does the real work, Alex Conroy.
Speaker 3: And those who approved the real work. Produced for iHeart
Speaker 3: by Noel Brown.
Speaker 1: What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.