November 12, 2025 • 40 mins
How a beloved movie got made despite the odds, and how the college that helped inspire it was nearly shuttered just as the film was released.
HOSTED BY: Big Rube
STARRING: Jason Weaver, Charles Stone III, Tina Gordon, Dr. Kevin James, Herman “Skip” Mason, Jr., LaTonya Randolph
SPECIAL THANKS TO: Errin Haines, Edmond Richardson, and Ronda Racha Penrice
NARRATED BY: Christina Lee
SUBJECTS: Movies, Education, Atlanta history, Atlanta places
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Atlanta is what higher level education was cool, and people
came from every city just to go to the schools.
And though I've lived with the blessings of empirical lesson,
a degree was how many saw their dreams manifested. It's
hard building in the future without access to the tools,
like where status core politics caused what's right to be overruled.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
This underdog story isn't one of self pity.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
It's how struggle gave birth to a movement and a
movie that shaped the greatness of my city. For every
door that closed to what opened up so wide that
we can hear the rhythm of our history like the
beating of a mighty drum and march to it with
pride on big Route, and Atlanta is marching to Morris Brown's.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
BBB Atlanta's historically by Colleges and Universities or HBCUs are
the foundation of the city's black middle class and their
boldest expression the Marching Bell cultural powerhouses that have captured
the mainstream. Two decades ago, Morris Brown College was home
(01:07):
to one of the most exceptional bands in the country,
the Marching Wolverines.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Just Get to Start.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
The school and its band took center stage in the
two thousand and two cult classic movie Drumline.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
That's that unstoppable, undefeatable bar In Brand.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Drumline inspired future HBCU students to audition for marching bands.
It also showed that such ensembles could command stages they
had never seen before, from Netflix documentaries to Paris Fashion
Week alongside Kendrick Lamar. These accomplishments make it hard to
remember how back in two thousand and two, both Drumline
and Morris Brown were being cast aside. For a while,
(01:53):
the studio behind Drumline wasn't convinced of its potential. Morris
Brown suffered from severe financial mismanager, and critics saw that
as reason to write off HBCUs altogether. But in the end,
both drum Line and Morris Brown became underdog triumphs that
would transform popular culture coming up. How the uphill battle
(02:14):
to make a future cult classic met a college and
crisis fighting to stay alive. I'm Christina Lee and this
is episode three of Atlanta Is It's the Start of
the Millennium. Charles Stone Third had spent the nineties directing
music videos for a tribe call Quest, Nana Cherry and
(02:36):
the Roots, but he had never found an act as
big as this one.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
A fun challenge, I must say, was filming a performance
with one hundred and seventy five to two hundred and
fifty musicians.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
This was for the blockbuster movie drum Line. It was
based on Dallas Austin's life and pitched to twentieth Century Fox.
Dallas was one of the biggest music producers in Atlanta,
having worked with Boys to Men, TLC and Madonna. But
in high school he used to play star in as
marching band, which came with major bragging rights. In the South.
When people go to a football game, they're really there
(03:11):
to see the band play, and at HBCUs the rivalries
between the bands get even more intense. Drumline tapped into
this world. Even though Dallas grew up in Columbus, Georgia,
Drumline took place in Atlanta for practical reasons, not sentimental ones.
The city provided Charles the director, more places to shoe
(03:32):
and more access to top marching bands than he would
have anywhere else.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
How we chose them has to do a lot with
the production, meaning how to get the biggest bang out
of your buck when you're making a movie.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
He wouldn't appreciate what he had to work with until
he touched down in Atlanta for the first time.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
I remember when I went down to Morris Brown's training
camp over the summer, and the wind and brassments were
all on the field and the percussion section which are
on the rogues black sheep of the marching bed and
they do their own thing and all that. They were
performing underneath the stands. It's not open air like you're
(04:14):
in like you know, tunnel. It's all concrete. I'm telling
you that's because sound bounces, right. And I remember walking
down the breezeway looking for them and I could hear
rhythms and it was echoing because it was far away.
I'm getting goosebumps now, it's just getting ant like it
was so cool. And I kind of came around, as
you know, the breezeway bends, and there they are, and
(04:37):
it's just thunderous, right. The bass drums are going and
the toms and stairs and cymbals, and on top of that,
it's just come on, like the cadences.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
It's just come on.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
It's like black folks, man, shit is just like in
the pocket and it's just going. It's a marching band,
which is you know, right, and it's like it's flipping
that shit on it, like it's doing what we did
with jazz music, what we did with rock and roll,
what we did.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
With hip hop. It's that thing.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
And it was a spiritual moment and I just was like,
I am so in it.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Charles had no idea that the marchin Wolverines and Morris
Brown's future were in jeopardy. On December tenth, two thousand
and two, just a few years after Charles witnessed the
band's glory, Morris Brown lost its accreditation. Three days later,
Drumline premiered in theaters nationwide. While the school was being
celebrated on an international stage. Morris Brown and its students
(05:42):
were scrambling to figure out their future. But first how
the makers of Drumline fought for buyen from the movie's
own studio.
Speaker 6 (05:50):
There already was a script for it, but the math
was problematic.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
When Tina Gordon agreed to meet with executives at twentieth
Century Fox, it was the first time she set foot
on a studio a lot. After dreaming of becoming an
actress and then interning at the writer's room for the
Cosby Show. Tina knew that she wanted to become a
Hollywood screenwriter. Her next step to chasing that dream was
to write a script and enter it into the HBO
World Film Festival. She didn't win the contest, but she
(06:18):
did catch Fox's attention. They had ideas that they wanted
to run by her.
Speaker 6 (06:23):
And one of them was like the idea of a drumline,
but the story was, you know, a black kid he
couldn't read.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
In this first draft of drum Line, the main character,
a young black man, was illiterate and he was part
of a white marching band. The idea was that if
his bandmates would teach him how to read, he would
teach them how to dance.
Speaker 6 (06:47):
And I just couldn't really get excited about.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
That, mind you. Charles Stone, who became Drumlines director, turned
down this version too.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
I didn't want to do something that not poopooing it.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
But that was like sister act, Like I didn't want
the magic Negro to come in and instill rhythm in
rhythmless white people. You know, just that was the fear.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
But Tina, a recent Atlanta transplant, knew what the script needed,
a shift and focus toward the Atlanta University Center. The
AUC the United States has just over one hundred HBCUs
by one estimate, ninety percent of them are in the South.
Georgia boasts ten HBCUs And what's even more impressive is
(07:32):
that Atlanta has four of them just steps away from
each other. That is the AUC, the largest and oldest
consortium of historically black colleges in the world, Clark Atlanta University,
Morehouse College, Morse Brown and Spelman College. By the time
(07:53):
Tina moved to Atlanta, the AAC was also a pop
culture hot spot. It's where Freaknik, the cruise and street
party that shut down highways was born, right or Spike Lee,
a Morehouse alum, Film school days, just Deem.
Speaker 7 (08:07):
Big Brother All Mike, How tall are you? Five feet
five inch?
Speaker 4 (08:11):
You You're a five foot five inch piece of shit.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
It's also where Tina's then recent boss, Bill Cosby shot
parts of The Cosby Show and it's been off a
different world, Different Wow. Yes, the AEC stood in for
the fictional Heilman College, bringing Cosby's landmark depictions of black
middle class existence to life. And so Tina told the
Hollywood execs.
Speaker 6 (08:35):
Did you ever think of maybe setting it in historically
black college.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Starting in the nineteen sixties, HBCU marching bands and not
the sports teams themselves, became the reason to attend a
football game. Band directors like William Foster of Florida A
and M University or fam You had their drum majors
and major attes dancing, pioneering what's called show style performances.
(09:00):
They'd lead marching band renditions of popular songs, an idea
that caught fire over the decades. Songs like Talking Out
the Side of Your Neck by Cameo, Boogie, Wonderland by
Earth Wind and Fire, and Who Run It By Three
six Mafia came to be marching band classics. Tina Gordon
(09:25):
knew that HBCU marching bands could present enough flash and
drama to carry a feature film, but Fox, the studio
behind Drumline, wasn't convinced.
Speaker 6 (09:35):
And I said, well, I'm going to go to film
some of the games and you can see what halftime
is like. And so I filmed it, I sent it
back to them and it was on from there.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
This time Charles Stone signed on to direct, and the
film was able to secure two major child stars, Nick
Cannon and Jason Weaver.
Speaker 7 (09:58):
Hello everyone, my name is Jason Weaver, Singer, actor, all
around entertainer.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
I guess Jason was only ten years old when he
scored his first movie role. It was opposite Whoopi Goldberg
and Sissy Spasic. He played a young Michael Jackson in
the ABC mini series and was the singing voice for
Little Simba in the original Lion King movie. He would
go on to play Marcus, a high school sophomore, in
the Disney Channel sitcoms Smart Guy and with Drumline, he
(10:27):
saw a new kind of opportunity, the chance to be
grown on screen.
Speaker 7 (10:31):
It was a pivotal moment. Is like, you know, a
young man coming into my adulthood, being recognized as a
child performer for a number of years.
Speaker 8 (10:41):
Maybe.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
While Jason never aspired to go to college, he knew
the film setting well. In the late nineties, he followed
his cousin by moving down south. His cousin happens to
be Christopher Tricky Stewart, the music producer whose credits include
Baby by Justin Bieber and single Ladies by Beyonce. Tricky
had just ink to deal with La Face Records. But
(11:04):
while Tricky was in the studio, Jason and his friends
were at the AUC start struck me.
Speaker 7 (11:10):
And my partners. We would just go there and hang
out on the yard. It was just a time. You know,
you get literally balking the AU yard and you may
see chili, you know, just walking with some friends hanging out.
You may see left eye.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
You know.
Speaker 7 (11:24):
For me, I love TLC. I was in love with
all three of those ladies. So anytime I would run
into one of them at Lennox Mall or something just
in passing, you know that that would just boil my
soul is light on fire.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
In Drumline, Jason plays Ernest, who makes the Marching band
playing bass drum and pledges to a fraternity his freshman year.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
So the.
Speaker 7 (11:48):
Yo, man, I'm with over kyk till I die, Baby,
I thought you lost your damn mind. I couldn't talk
about it.
Speaker 6 (11:55):
Yeah, obviously dog.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
He was back at the AUC, though now for five
am call times to film any actually learned to play
no stunt double required opposite real life students and marching
band members.
Speaker 7 (12:09):
Even times when we weren't there on the actual set practicing,
we would just get together because we were all hanging
out at that time. And then we would just get
together and we would go through the caenuses.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Side note, Cadence is our music written specifically for drum Lines.
Speaker 7 (12:23):
Even if we were had the mall or something, or
hanging out or at lunch or you know, we were
rehearsing that stuff because we wanted to get it right.
We understood that we were telling a unique story and
we wanted to represent it right.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
In two thousand and one, Charles Stone, drum Lines director,
shot the climax scene, the final Battle of the Bands.
That scene alone took five days to film. It takes
place inside the Georgia Dome, a stadium that held eighty
thousand people before it was demolished. ESPN broadcaster Stuart Scott
called the event aj and free from one O six
(12:58):
in Park, m Seed Wrapper p D Pablo made a
surprise guest appearance, and the final round starred Morris Brown
College and their Marching Wolverines.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
It's not just a sports movie. It's like Transformers.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Director Charles Stone and I.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
Literally told the marching bands this or the percussion section.
When we do the big N battle scene, it's literally like, okay,
what types of shapes does the machine say? The percussion
section take form right when they get on top of
each other's shoulder, so they go from horizontal to vertical,
and it's transformers.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
In order to do battle, each drum line must stand
and play in their designated zone. Charles understood that to
cross those boundaries was an ultimate sign of disrespect.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
The space in between the two percussion sections. I used
to call that the neutral zone, which is a term
used in Star Trek. So if you're gonna do your
thing and angel, so I need you to go into
Klingon space. And that's what's gonna incite a war. You
can't play someone else's drums, that's a no note.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
So of course that's exactly what Nick Cannon's character Devin
did at the battles climactic moment. Charles captured this tension
with all the ingenuity and realism he could muster.
Speaker 7 (14:20):
We had cameras on Dolly's, we had steady cam operators,
we had cranes going, and I remember Charles was just
shooting from every angle because I was thinking to myself,
I was like, I wonder how he's gonna chop this
up and post, Like he's got so much footage every angle.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Charles's shot costs money way more than twentieth Century Fox
was willing to pay.
Speaker 7 (14:43):
While we were shooting Drumline, there was kind of this
cloud of uncertainty hovering over it. The studio at the
time wasn't that confident in the film as far as
how I was gonna perform at the box office. They
really thought that it was gonna hit just like a
niche audience, that it wouldn't necess sarely, you know, go
outside of a particular demographic, meaning black folks.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Drumline had a fifteen million dollar budget, but Charles needed
more money to shoot this final scene. After some negotiating,
Fox agreed to give Drumline an extra five million dollars.
But there was a catch. Here's Tina Gordon, Drumline scriptwriter.
Speaker 6 (15:19):
They basically said, if you open it up, like if
you have a white character, we might listen up and
give you a little bit more money to finish the
Atlanta classic.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Dallas Austin, the creator of Drumline, needed to figure out
how a white character ends up at a historically black
college in a way that makes sense. Here's what he
told the Quest Love Supreme podcast.
Speaker 9 (15:43):
Went to the school Morris Brown. So it's white kid
in the band.
Speaker 7 (15:45):
It was Mores Brown.
Speaker 9 (15:46):
So it's white kid in the band with red hair.
And I was like, so, how did you get here? Well,
just tell me a story. He's like, Man, I lived
down the street. I always wanted to be in this
band since I was little.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
This is how Drumline got Jason are he how to bat?
And how it got five million more dollars. It's a
good thing that extra money was there because the real
life musician shooting Drumline representing Morris Brown and other HBCUs
didn't make filming easy. Remember these HBCU marching bands take
(16:17):
their reputations very seriously.
Speaker 6 (16:20):
They had practiced the choreography so that Nick Cannon's character
will win. Take one. Nick Cannon gets smoked, Devin gets
smoked that opposing Drumline will not follow the script. They
will not follow the choreography so that Devon can win.
(16:43):
And I just remember the producers going, we are burning
cash here right now.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Despite these challenges, Drumline got its Battle of the Band
scene a year after shooting. On December fifth, two thousand
and two, the Atlantic Civic Center hosted an exclusive sneak
peak of Drumline with Morris Brown students and attendance from there.
Drumline hit just over three thousand movie theaters nationwide. It
screened for a few weeks, which wasn't the fanfare that
(17:11):
director Charles Stone had hoped for, and.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
At the time, thirty two hundred was like significant for
a big studio movie. So I think even with them,
they were hesitant because, frankly, it's a part of black
culture that is specific to black folks.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Turns out Fox had nothing to worry about. During opening weekend,
nearly half the moviegoers were white. In six weeks, Drumline
made almost fifty four million dollars. It ended up being
one of the top ten movies people saw that holiday season,
along with Lord of the Rings and Catch Me if
you Can. One industry expert called Drumline the little film
(17:50):
that could. What a good hearted film, wrote the movie
critic Roger Ebert. But as Drumline is good in glowing reviews,
Morris Brown College, the school featured most prominently in Drumline,
loses its accreditation.
Speaker 10 (18:09):
As a matter of fact, I watched drum Line like
a month ago.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Latania Randolph was a freshman at Morris Brown in nineteen
ninety eight. She joined the school's Bubbling Brown Sugar dance team,
and when Drumline was shot in two thousand and one,
she had a cameo as a majorrette.
Speaker 10 (18:22):
I saw it populated on my television and I said,
let me just go back and watch, and just sitting
there watching the movie, there again just scent. Sheels up
my arm.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Latanya managed to catch Drumline within its first five minutes
on the field. Morris Brown's band, Majors and Majorrettes are rehearsing.
Speaker 10 (18:39):
I could see us dancing on the side. Never paid
attention to that clip, and so I kept rewind and
kept pausing, and I was like, oh my god, that's me.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
During shooting days back in two thousand and one, Latania
was balancing her film cameo with her studies and extracurriculars.
She felt like a star, but she was also tired.
Speaker 10 (18:59):
I remember some days. We went out on the field
one day and it was sleeping rain and we had
on a really small outfits, and I remember telling my
parents I don't think I'm going and my boyfriend but
husband now, I was like, I don't think I'm going back,
and they were like, this is a big new what.
Speaker 6 (19:14):
Do you mean You're not going back.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Latanya was gearing up to be the first person in
her immediate family to graduate from college, but during her
senior year, one year after filming Drumline, rumors about the
school's financial mismanagement swirled around the campus. The school was
at risk of losing its accreditation, meaning the degrees would
be deemed worthless and not recognized by potential employers or
(19:38):
other academic institutions. And when at HBCU, like Morris Brown
loses its accreditation, it directly affects the well being of
Atlanta's black middle class, the very upward mobility that has
made the city known as a black mecca.
Speaker 11 (19:52):
I used to very early say Mars Brown is original
fool Booth.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
That is Reverend Hermann Skip Mason Junior, the second generation
Morris Brown alum, who started working at the college in
nineteen ninety nine. When Skip refers to Morris Brown as
the original Fubu, he's referring to its unique history as
the only HBCU in Georgia founded by black people. In
eighteen eighty one, formerly enslaved men who had become clergy
(20:18):
at the African Methodist Episcopal or Amy Church decided to
start their own college, and they named it after Morris Brown,
one of the founders of the church. At one point, W. E. B.
Du Bois had an office on what is now Morris
Brown's campus.
Speaker 11 (20:34):
I'm so glad that when they decided to create this school,
that they named it for a revolutionary like Mars Brown.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Which is why when you talk to Reverend Mason about
Morris Brown, you do not use the school's nickname.
Speaker 11 (20:48):
I am adamantly against people referring to Marris Brown as
Mole Brown. I know it's just a nickname and a
short name, but my reverence and love and admiration for
Bishop Marris Brown is strong. So when you say Mars Brown,
don't say Moe Brown okay, because he went your boy
(21:11):
okay and he won your friend.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
And drumline, Morris Brown is the powerhouse that always wins.
But in real life, the college has always been kind
of an underdog, at least compared to its AC neighbors.
That's despite how schools within the AUC often share some
of the same teachers. The thing is, Morris Brown is
not as well resourced and has this reputation for producing
(21:34):
accountants and educators like Latanya. It's simply not as glamorous
as Morehouse College with graduates like Martin Luther King Junior
and Spike Lee, or Spelman College, where Alice Walker and
Stacy Abrams went to school, or Clark Atlanta, which is
known for its famous alumni in the arts, from Broadway
director Kenny Leon to Blackish TV show creator Kenya Barris.
(21:58):
In nineteen ninety eight, Rris Brown hired a new president,
doctor Dolores Cross, to work on strengthening the school's academic
performance and its reputation. It wasn't long before she started
implementing major changes, like providing all students with a laptop,
and when the school ran out of campus housing, she
footed the bill and sent hundreds of students to live
(22:20):
in nearby motels. Around this time, drum Lung got shot.
The release was approaching and the thinking was, surely this
will create a boom and admissions. But there was a
major problem. Morris Brown couldn't afford all of the computers
and hotel rooms, among other things, and there was certainly
no way they could afford to bring on new students,
(22:41):
let alone a high number of them. Doctor Cross, who
declined to speak with us on the record about this period,
resigned in February two thousand and two, but the problems
kept piling on. An investigation by the US Department of
Education found that Morris Brown had illegally spent millions of
dollars of financial aid money what should have gone to
(23:04):
students was going toward the school's amenities. Then, on December tenth,
two thousand and two, Morris Brown's student body learned that
the rumors on campus were true, confirming their worst fears.
Speaker 12 (23:15):
With trouble that Morris Brown began in December of two
thousand and two. Because of years of mismanagement and accumulated debt,
Morris Brown lost its accreditation. Essentially, it's right to operate
without accreditation.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
The school lost its accreditation. That means a few things.
Not only were degrees from the school now basically meaningless,
but students who wanted to go there anyway couldn't get
federal financial aid. At the time, it seemed like a
death sentence.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
We had to bring everybody into the gymnazy.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Reverend Skip Mason, who was dean of students at the time.
Speaker 11 (23:49):
I got up and the gym was packed, I mean
it was packed, and I got up and I made
some comments. I think we prayed, and then I brought
the president of so he could share the news. And
I tell you, boy, that day broke my heart. People
start getting up. You heard crying, you heard cursing. I mean,
(24:13):
people were just mad.
Speaker 10 (24:16):
I had conversation with my parents and so they were like, well,
it's going to be okay, Everything's going to work out.
By that time, I was in mode of no, it's
not okay.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
The college planned to appeal the decision in the spring
of two thousand and three, though seniors like Latanya didn't
have time to wait for the verdict. Unfortunately, only a
few schools would accept all the credits that Morris Brown
students earned thus far, like Howard University in Washington, DC
and Fisk University in Nashville. Latanya originally planned to graduate
(24:47):
in spring two thousand and three. That did not happen.
That's because she decided to transfer to Clark Atlanta. Even
though Clark Atlanta was also part of the AUC, all
the time she spent studying at Morrisprea didn't count.
Speaker 10 (25:01):
It's quite devastating because I still had to go over
in complete two additional years to meet their school's qualifications.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
But it wasn't only students who were affected. Here's Reverend
Skip Mason.
Speaker 11 (25:16):
It was on my way home one evening, and the
Directive human.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
Resources was a good friend. He called me.
Speaker 11 (25:26):
He said, I just wanted to give you a heads
up that you're scheduled to be terminated tomorrow. He did
that as a favor, as a friend, so I wouldn't
be caught off guard. And I'm driving around the curve
on my way home and I literally almost just go
off the side of the road. I mean, I remember
the most humbly moment after I lost my job at
Mars Brown was going down to where you go to
(25:50):
get unemployment benefits. I put on a suit because that's
what I always wore. I was so old addressed.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Once Morris Brown was stripped of its accreditation, it also
lost the support of its peers. It was no longer
part of the Atlanta University Center. Things got worse. The
school shut down its Greek life and marching band programs,
the very aspects of campus life that made Morris Brown
exciting to be part of and watch on screen. Drumline
(26:23):
was released on December thirteenth, two thousand and two, just
three days after Morris Brown officially lost its accreditation. By
this time, only sixty students were enrolled on the campus.
Speaker 5 (26:35):
How do you get people to believe in something that's did?
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Doctor Kevin James had always dreamed of becoming the president
of an HBCU, which is why in twenty eighteen he
successfully applied to take charge of Morris Brown. Once that
dream became reality, Kevin realized that he had his work
cut out for him.
Speaker 8 (26:54):
I know Morfroun had been through a lot of challenges,
but I didn't really know how bad it was until
my very first You know, I walked in thirty five
million dollar bankruptcy. We couldn't pay our bills, we couldn't
make payroll, we didn't have an endowment, our programs were defunct.
We had about twenty students, And I said, oh my god,
(27:15):
what in word did I just walk into.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Kevin was now part of a long list of people
who try to revive Morris Brown, like radio host Tom
Joyner and HBCU grad himself. When Morris Brown lost his accreditation,
Tom said he'd box Mike Tyson to raise money. Then
he said he wanted to buy the school outright. The
school declined his offer, though it did accept a million
(27:38):
dollar donation from the radio host, But private donations couldn't
stop Morris Brown from becoming part of a larger debate
over whether America needed HBCUs at all. HBCUs were suffering
from low graduation and retention rates. Predominantly white institutions or
pwi's snapped up the best performing black students to diversified
(28:00):
their own student bodies. Morris Brown became a shell of
its former self. Many of its buildings went vacant, others deteriorated.
One building that caught fire had joys that were completely exposed.
The stadium that Nick Cannon and Jason Weaver ride pass
at the start of Drumline had been sold to help
(28:21):
pay down the school's massive debt. Yet despite all appearances,
Morris Brown had never actually closed Since losing its accreditation,
The school even hosted two more film productions in two
thousand and six, We Are Marshall and Stopped the Yard Stomp.
The Yard in particular was significant for how it too
focused on HBCU campus life. Here's Will Packer stopped the
(28:44):
Yard's Producer.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
There was no energy at Morris Brown.
Speaker 7 (28:46):
We had to recreate it, and I'll never forget.
Speaker 13 (28:48):
There was an older lady that came up to me
while we were shooting one of the scenes on campus,
and we had all these extras, and we had done
all this art and production design, and so the campus
really look good. It looked like, you know the way
a college campus looks when it's vibranting, popping. And she
came up to me and she was in tears, and
she said, are you the producer? I heard you're the
(29:09):
producer of this movie. I said yes, ma'am, And she said,
I just want to say thank you because I am
a you know, fifty year alumni of Morris Brown College,
and I didn't think I would ever see my school
look like this again.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
When Kevin James took over in twenty eighteen, he knew
he needed to pitch Morris Brown as more than just
a film set.
Speaker 8 (29:34):
So how do I walk into a major philanthropic organization
or major corporation and say, hey, give us a million dollars?
Everyone I did that to ask me the same questions
Morris Brown, aren't you all closed? No, we're not closed.
We're still open. We've been open since eighteen eighty one.
The second question they would ask me is, well, are
(29:56):
you guys accredited I thought y'all were closed, aren't you?
Are you guys accredited? And then I would say, oh, no,
we're not accredited. You know, we're working on it. Well,
how long have you been without your creditation? Oh, we've
been without our creditation for twenty years. How many students
do you have? Oh, we have twenty students. Get out
of my office.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
To regain its accreditation, Morris Brown needed a plan to
pay back all its debt. Kevin realized that he should
start fundraising with the very people who'd shown the school
the most support from the beginning, the Ame Church and
the alumni. The Ame Church, of course, was the institution
that made Morris Brown possible in the first place. The alumni,
(30:34):
most of whom attended the school well before all the
financial chaos, were still strongly connected to their alma mater.
Just ask Reverend Skip Mason, the former dean of students.
His class raised fifty thousand dollars ahead of its forty
year college reunion.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
Because Mars Brown was so good to us in nurtured us.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Or Latanya Randolph, the educator who, despite Morris Brown not
having a football team or marching band anymore, has returned
every every single year to attend homecoming. Latanya got her
degree from Clark Atlanta University, but she introduces herself first
and foremost as a Morris Brown alum.
Speaker 10 (31:10):
When I walk into any school building, whether it's in
the state of Georgia a beyond, I have this great
air and confidence that's instilled in me because of what
I gained from my professor's, mentors, teachers, sorority sisters lone
sisters right there at Morris Brown. So although that accreditation
went away, every year, we still came back for homecoming
(31:33):
because it was a heartbeat and a love there that
can ever be replaced.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Support from Morris Brown has kept growing, and I'm not
just talking about the alumni. Georgia Senator John Ossoff successfully
called on the Biden administration to restore federal financial aid
for Morris Brown students, and in twenty nineteen, Kanye West
donated money to New Birth Missionary Baptist Church as thanks
for hosting one of his shows. But New Birth pay
(31:59):
that donatetion forward to Morris Brown. It's where Yeay's late mother,
Donda West was once a faculty member.
Speaker 8 (32:06):
We owed it to our founders, these former slaves that
started the school. That resilience, that perseverance, that legacy has
been translated for generations, and so it wasn't our nature
to give up.
Speaker 13 (32:22):
Fam After a twenty year battle, Atlantis, Morris Brown College
is now a fully accredited universities.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
On April twenty seventh, twenty twenty two, Morris Brown's accreditation
was restored.
Speaker 8 (32:37):
We just made history as the first HBCU to rebound
after a twenty year hiatus, and we're.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Kevin James wants to raise three million dollars to bring
back the famous Marching Wolverines. Fortunately, mentioning Drumline makes for
a great elevator pitch.
Speaker 8 (32:55):
You know, when I go around the community and I
meet different people and they asked me. Some folks say
where's Oars Brown? And I always ask the same question,
have you ever seen the movie Drumline? And I have
never met someone to say no.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
He should expect to receive that kind of response in
the foreseeable future, because as Morris Brown works on getting
the band back together, the role it played in Drumline
continues to impact pop culture today. Twenty years ago, Atlanta's
Mighty Outcast was one of the rare acts that uplifted
Morris Brown College. Previously, Outcast had the schools gospel choir
(33:28):
and the song Bombs Over Baghdad. Then in two thousand
and six, Outcast had the Marching Wolverines on one of
its very last singles as a group. The song was
called Morris Brown. The school may have been in dire straits,
but the song was an uplifting tribute. It was as
if Outcast refused to let the school's legacy die. Oh Yes,
(33:54):
for a while, it was only rap artists from the
South who were paying attention. But then Drumline comes out
and it has this domino effect on popular culture. Today,
artists like Young Thug Gunna and Lil nas X take
major stages flanked with marching.
Speaker 6 (34:09):
Bands, USC Trojans drum Line.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Think the Tonight show The VMAs. Tyler, the creator featured
drum line members from Atlanta's Westlake High School in his
twenty twenty four songs Sticky and of Course. You have
Beyonce and her twenty eighteen Coachella performance, where actual HBCU
majors and majorrettes filled the bleacher she brought on stage.
(34:34):
Half of the show's musicians came from Atlanta and they
were all hand selected by Don Roberts, a band director
from Southwestercap High School just east of Atlanta. Drumln my
company had a lot of credibility.
Speaker 7 (34:48):
They got out the plane and we landed in California
and said, okay, guys, come to gather around.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
Let me tell you going to play for And it
was like we're gonna be performing with Beyonce and.
Speaker 5 (34:57):
It's like.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
Don had previously worked on Drumline. His job was to
make sure the Hollywood actors appeared convincing on the big
screen and staff the production with players from his own
high school in places where Morris Brown and other HBCUs
couldn't fill in. His demand has kept growing in Hollywood.
HBO tapped him for the first season finale of its
critically acclaimed teen drama Euphoria. The episode ends with a
(35:23):
coke fueled fantasy sequence or Sindaea's character Rue stumbles, lurches,
and gets lifted up in the air to a marching
band version of the song All for Us by Labyrinth.
This backing ensemble isn't explicitly in EACHBCU marching band, but
if you look closely, the signs of Drumlines influences are there.
(35:45):
How the brass players performed Showman style and dance with
a flash mob that crowds around Zindeya. Those signs are
there because Don Roberts consulted on this scene too. Marching
band performances wouldn't have become pop culture fodder without HBCUs.
Don himself graduated for FAMU. In twenty twenty two, The
(36:06):
Washington Post spoke with musicians and band directors who saw
increased participation in marching bands thanks to drumline. A trumpet
player at HBCU in Mississippi told the newspaper quote, when
I joined the band, all the boys wanted to play
snare like Nick Cannon, the movie that twentieth Century Fox
was nervous about featuring an HBCU that everyone was ready
(36:30):
to count out. Has been more influential than anyone could
have anticipated. Then, in summer twenty twenty five, there was
a moment where life truly imitated art. On July eighteenth,
the day he turned forty six years old, Jason Weaver
spent his birthday flying three into something miles from Atlanta
to Lexington, Kentucky to be inducted in the band fraternity
(36:53):
Kappa Kappa PSI. That's the same band fraternity that is
Drumline character joins in the film. Side was so touched
by its inclusion and Drumline that, nearly twenty five years
after the film hit theaters, during its national convention in Lexington,
the organization made Jason an honorary member.
Speaker 7 (37:11):
That was my college experience was working on Drumline.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Drumline wouldn't have had such credibility if it weren't for
the real life HBCUs in Atlanta that participated That especially
goes from Morris Brown.
Speaker 7 (37:25):
You were literally helping tell this beautiful story while also
learning more about your people and just the rich history
here in Atlanta. It was an eye opening and rewarding experience.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
With each of us. This show we truly value ourself.
We can inspire to next, to rise up and overcome,
regardless of wealth.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
When the whale runs dry, we.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Keep our heads lie to live through the thirst and
darkest days. We find new ways to deal with the
worst when a positive end result justifies exhausting our own means.
When success is reached, we see the struggle isn't as
hard as it seems.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Through the roughest times, we have.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
The heart to climb up out the dread and show
those that assume you wouldn't survive and left you for dead.
The underestimation is a grave mistake that only feeds the
will of those that are strong enough to do what
it takes to prove them wrong.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
In the next episode, we tell the story of an
unlikely cast who turned their cinematic dreams into reality and
transform the city into a movie making capital. In Atlanta
is filmed on location.
Speaker 5 (38:51):
We like for.
Speaker 13 (38:52):
Naggled our way into a meeting with Jermaine du Prix,
you know, and we foragled our way into a meeting
with Dallas Ausoin, Like we were hustled, so we had
to get to these people. These are like big music
industry legends that we did not know. We did not
shoot one music video.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Atlanta is the Will Packer Media Production in partnership with
iHeart Podcast, Idea, Generation and Complex. This episode was written, reported,
and produced by Christina Lee, with additional production from Maurice
Garland and Jewel Wicker. Our supervising producer and editor is
Shiva bayad Our. Managing producers are Rose Froulini Bacon, Omari
(39:34):
Graham At Shamara Rochester. Editorial support from Sean Setero and
Jack Irwin.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Original theme music by Alman Shota.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Sound designed by Shiva Bayat and Our Mind Sahota, mixed
and mastered by Oman Sahota. Fact Checking done by Sean Setero,
Clarence Counsel, Donison, Caliph Perez, Lisa Kliff and Jacqueline Schwedt.
Executive producers for will Packer Meet A Will Packer and
Alex Bowden. Co producer for will Packer. Media is Nimmi Mohunt,
(40:06):
executive producers for Idea Generation from Complex of Jack Irwin
and Noah Callahan.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Beber. Head of Talent.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Relations for Complex is Anthony Already, Talent associate for Complex,
is Ryan Houston. Senior attorney for Complex is Jordan Washington.
Special thanks to Tyler Klan, Terry Harrison, Chris Senator, Noams Griffin,
and Candice Howard.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
I'm Big Rude piece
Atlanta is what higher level education was cool, and people
came from every city just to go to the schools.
And though I've lived with the blessings of empirical lesson,
a degree was how many saw their dreams manifested. It's
hard building in the future without access to the tools,
like where status core politics caused what's right to be overruled.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
This underdog story isn't one of self pity.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
It's how struggle gave birth to a movement and a
movie that shaped the greatness of my city. For every
door that closed to what opened up so wide that
we can hear the rhythm of our history like the
beating of a mighty drum and march to it with
pride on big Route, and Atlanta is marching to Morris Brown's.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
BBB Atlanta's historically by Colleges and Universities or HBCUs are
the foundation of the city's black middle class and their
boldest expression the Marching Bell cultural powerhouses that have captured
the mainstream. Two decades ago, Morris Brown College was home
(01:07):
to one of the most exceptional bands in the country,
the Marching Wolverines.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Just Get to Start.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
The school and its band took center stage in the
two thousand and two cult classic movie Drumline.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
That's that unstoppable, undefeatable bar In Brand.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Drumline inspired future HBCU students to audition for marching bands.
It also showed that such ensembles could command stages they
had never seen before, from Netflix documentaries to Paris Fashion
Week alongside Kendrick Lamar. These accomplishments make it hard to
remember how back in two thousand and two, both Drumline
and Morris Brown were being cast aside. For a while,
(01:53):
the studio behind Drumline wasn't convinced of its potential. Morris
Brown suffered from severe financial mismanager, and critics saw that
as reason to write off HBCUs altogether. But in the end,
both drum Line and Morris Brown became underdog triumphs that
would transform popular culture coming up. How the uphill battle
(02:14):
to make a future cult classic met a college and
crisis fighting to stay alive. I'm Christina Lee and this
is episode three of Atlanta Is It's the Start of
the Millennium. Charles Stone Third had spent the nineties directing
music videos for a tribe call Quest, Nana Cherry and
(02:36):
the Roots, but he had never found an act as
big as this one.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
A fun challenge, I must say, was filming a performance
with one hundred and seventy five to two hundred and
fifty musicians.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
This was for the blockbuster movie drum Line. It was
based on Dallas Austin's life and pitched to twentieth Century Fox.
Dallas was one of the biggest music producers in Atlanta,
having worked with Boys to Men, TLC and Madonna. But
in high school he used to play star in as
marching band, which came with major bragging rights. In the South.
When people go to a football game, they're really there
(03:11):
to see the band play, and at HBCUs the rivalries
between the bands get even more intense. Drumline tapped into
this world. Even though Dallas grew up in Columbus, Georgia,
Drumline took place in Atlanta for practical reasons, not sentimental ones.
The city provided Charles the director, more places to shoe
(03:32):
and more access to top marching bands than he would
have anywhere else.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
How we chose them has to do a lot with
the production, meaning how to get the biggest bang out
of your buck when you're making a movie.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
He wouldn't appreciate what he had to work with until
he touched down in Atlanta for the first time.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
I remember when I went down to Morris Brown's training
camp over the summer, and the wind and brassments were
all on the field and the percussion section which are
on the rogues black sheep of the marching bed and
they do their own thing and all that. They were
performing underneath the stands. It's not open air like you're
(04:14):
in like you know, tunnel. It's all concrete. I'm telling
you that's because sound bounces, right. And I remember walking
down the breezeway looking for them and I could hear
rhythms and it was echoing because it was far away.
I'm getting goosebumps now, it's just getting ant like it
was so cool. And I kind of came around, as
you know, the breezeway bends, and there they are, and
(04:37):
it's just thunderous, right. The bass drums are going and
the toms and stairs and cymbals, and on top of that,
it's just come on, like the cadences.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
It's just come on.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
It's like black folks, man, shit is just like in
the pocket and it's just going. It's a marching band,
which is you know, right, and it's like it's flipping
that shit on it, like it's doing what we did
with jazz music, what we did with rock and roll,
what we did.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
With hip hop. It's that thing.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
And it was a spiritual moment and I just was like,
I am so in it.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Charles had no idea that the marchin Wolverines and Morris
Brown's future were in jeopardy. On December tenth, two thousand
and two, just a few years after Charles witnessed the
band's glory, Morris Brown lost its accreditation. Three days later,
Drumline premiered in theaters nationwide. While the school was being
celebrated on an international stage. Morris Brown and its students
(05:42):
were scrambling to figure out their future. But first how
the makers of Drumline fought for buyen from the movie's
own studio.
Speaker 6 (05:50):
There already was a script for it, but the math
was problematic.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
When Tina Gordon agreed to meet with executives at twentieth
Century Fox, it was the first time she set foot
on a studio a lot. After dreaming of becoming an
actress and then interning at the writer's room for the
Cosby Show. Tina knew that she wanted to become a
Hollywood screenwriter. Her next step to chasing that dream was
to write a script and enter it into the HBO
World Film Festival. She didn't win the contest, but she
(06:18):
did catch Fox's attention. They had ideas that they wanted
to run by her.
Speaker 6 (06:23):
And one of them was like the idea of a drumline,
but the story was, you know, a black kid he
couldn't read.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
In this first draft of drum Line, the main character,
a young black man, was illiterate and he was part
of a white marching band. The idea was that if
his bandmates would teach him how to read, he would
teach them how to dance.
Speaker 6 (06:47):
And I just couldn't really get excited about.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
That, mind you. Charles Stone, who became Drumlines director, turned
down this version too.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
I didn't want to do something that not poopooing it.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
But that was like sister act, Like I didn't want
the magic Negro to come in and instill rhythm in
rhythmless white people. You know, just that was the fear.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
But Tina, a recent Atlanta transplant, knew what the script needed,
a shift and focus toward the Atlanta University Center. The
AUC the United States has just over one hundred HBCUs
by one estimate, ninety percent of them are in the South.
Georgia boasts ten HBCUs And what's even more impressive is
(07:32):
that Atlanta has four of them just steps away from
each other. That is the AUC, the largest and oldest
consortium of historically black colleges in the world, Clark Atlanta University,
Morehouse College, Morse Brown and Spelman College. By the time
(07:53):
Tina moved to Atlanta, the AAC was also a pop
culture hot spot. It's where Freaknik, the cruise and street
party that shut down highways was born, right or Spike Lee,
a Morehouse alum, Film school days, just Deem.
Speaker 7 (08:07):
Big Brother All Mike, How tall are you? Five feet
five inch?
Speaker 4 (08:11):
You You're a five foot five inch piece of shit.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
It's also where Tina's then recent boss, Bill Cosby shot
parts of The Cosby Show and it's been off a
different world, Different Wow. Yes, the AEC stood in for
the fictional Heilman College, bringing Cosby's landmark depictions of black
middle class existence to life. And so Tina told the
Hollywood execs.
Speaker 6 (08:35):
Did you ever think of maybe setting it in historically
black college.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Starting in the nineteen sixties, HBCU marching bands and not
the sports teams themselves, became the reason to attend a
football game. Band directors like William Foster of Florida A
and M University or fam You had their drum majors
and major attes dancing, pioneering what's called show style performances.
(09:00):
They'd lead marching band renditions of popular songs, an idea
that caught fire over the decades. Songs like Talking Out
the Side of Your Neck by Cameo, Boogie, Wonderland by
Earth Wind and Fire, and Who Run It By Three
six Mafia came to be marching band classics. Tina Gordon
(09:25):
knew that HBCU marching bands could present enough flash and
drama to carry a feature film, but Fox, the studio
behind Drumline, wasn't convinced.
Speaker 6 (09:35):
And I said, well, I'm going to go to film
some of the games and you can see what halftime
is like. And so I filmed it, I sent it
back to them and it was on from there.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
This time Charles Stone signed on to direct, and the
film was able to secure two major child stars, Nick
Cannon and Jason Weaver.
Speaker 7 (09:58):
Hello everyone, my name is Jason Weaver, Singer, actor, all
around entertainer.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
I guess Jason was only ten years old when he
scored his first movie role. It was opposite Whoopi Goldberg
and Sissy Spasic. He played a young Michael Jackson in
the ABC mini series and was the singing voice for
Little Simba in the original Lion King movie. He would
go on to play Marcus, a high school sophomore, in
the Disney Channel sitcoms Smart Guy and with Drumline, he
(10:27):
saw a new kind of opportunity, the chance to be
grown on screen.
Speaker 7 (10:31):
It was a pivotal moment. Is like, you know, a
young man coming into my adulthood, being recognized as a
child performer for a number of years.
Speaker 8 (10:41):
Maybe.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
While Jason never aspired to go to college, he knew
the film setting well. In the late nineties, he followed
his cousin by moving down south. His cousin happens to
be Christopher Tricky Stewart, the music producer whose credits include
Baby by Justin Bieber and single Ladies by Beyonce. Tricky
had just ink to deal with La Face Records. But
(11:04):
while Tricky was in the studio, Jason and his friends
were at the AUC start struck me.
Speaker 7 (11:10):
And my partners. We would just go there and hang
out on the yard. It was just a time. You know,
you get literally balking the AU yard and you may
see chili, you know, just walking with some friends hanging out.
You may see left eye.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
You know.
Speaker 7 (11:24):
For me, I love TLC. I was in love with
all three of those ladies. So anytime I would run
into one of them at Lennox Mall or something just
in passing, you know that that would just boil my
soul is light on fire.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
In Drumline, Jason plays Ernest, who makes the Marching band
playing bass drum and pledges to a fraternity his freshman year.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
So the.
Speaker 7 (11:48):
Yo, man, I'm with over kyk till I die, Baby,
I thought you lost your damn mind. I couldn't talk
about it.
Speaker 6 (11:55):
Yeah, obviously dog.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
He was back at the AUC, though now for five
am call times to film any actually learned to play
no stunt double required opposite real life students and marching
band members.
Speaker 7 (12:09):
Even times when we weren't there on the actual set practicing,
we would just get together because we were all hanging
out at that time. And then we would just get
together and we would go through the caenuses.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Side note, Cadence is our music written specifically for drum Lines.
Speaker 7 (12:23):
Even if we were had the mall or something, or
hanging out or at lunch or you know, we were
rehearsing that stuff because we wanted to get it right.
We understood that we were telling a unique story and
we wanted to represent it right.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
In two thousand and one, Charles Stone, drum Lines director,
shot the climax scene, the final Battle of the Bands.
That scene alone took five days to film. It takes
place inside the Georgia Dome, a stadium that held eighty
thousand people before it was demolished. ESPN broadcaster Stuart Scott
called the event aj and free from one O six
(12:58):
in Park, m Seed Wrapper p D Pablo made a
surprise guest appearance, and the final round starred Morris Brown
College and their Marching Wolverines.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
It's not just a sports movie. It's like Transformers.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Director Charles Stone and I.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
Literally told the marching bands this or the percussion section.
When we do the big N battle scene, it's literally like, okay,
what types of shapes does the machine say? The percussion
section take form right when they get on top of
each other's shoulder, so they go from horizontal to vertical,
and it's transformers.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
In order to do battle, each drum line must stand
and play in their designated zone. Charles understood that to
cross those boundaries was an ultimate sign of disrespect.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
The space in between the two percussion sections. I used
to call that the neutral zone, which is a term
used in Star Trek. So if you're gonna do your
thing and angel, so I need you to go into
Klingon space. And that's what's gonna incite a war. You
can't play someone else's drums, that's a no note.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
So of course that's exactly what Nick Cannon's character Devin
did at the battles climactic moment. Charles captured this tension
with all the ingenuity and realism he could muster.
Speaker 7 (14:20):
We had cameras on Dolly's, we had steady cam operators,
we had cranes going, and I remember Charles was just
shooting from every angle because I was thinking to myself,
I was like, I wonder how he's gonna chop this
up and post, Like he's got so much footage every angle.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Charles's shot costs money way more than twentieth Century Fox
was willing to pay.
Speaker 7 (14:43):
While we were shooting Drumline, there was kind of this
cloud of uncertainty hovering over it. The studio at the
time wasn't that confident in the film as far as
how I was gonna perform at the box office. They
really thought that it was gonna hit just like a
niche audience, that it wouldn't necess sarely, you know, go
outside of a particular demographic, meaning black folks.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Drumline had a fifteen million dollar budget, but Charles needed
more money to shoot this final scene. After some negotiating,
Fox agreed to give Drumline an extra five million dollars.
But there was a catch. Here's Tina Gordon, Drumline scriptwriter.
Speaker 6 (15:19):
They basically said, if you open it up, like if
you have a white character, we might listen up and
give you a little bit more money to finish the
Atlanta classic.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Dallas Austin, the creator of Drumline, needed to figure out
how a white character ends up at a historically black
college in a way that makes sense. Here's what he
told the Quest Love Supreme podcast.
Speaker 9 (15:43):
Went to the school Morris Brown. So it's white kid
in the band.
Speaker 7 (15:45):
It was Mores Brown.
Speaker 9 (15:46):
So it's white kid in the band with red hair.
And I was like, so, how did you get here? Well,
just tell me a story. He's like, Man, I lived
down the street. I always wanted to be in this
band since I was little.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
This is how Drumline got Jason are he how to bat?
And how it got five million more dollars. It's a
good thing that extra money was there because the real
life musician shooting Drumline representing Morris Brown and other HBCUs
didn't make filming easy. Remember these HBCU marching bands take
(16:17):
their reputations very seriously.
Speaker 6 (16:20):
They had practiced the choreography so that Nick Cannon's character
will win. Take one. Nick Cannon gets smoked, Devin gets
smoked that opposing Drumline will not follow the script. They
will not follow the choreography so that Devon can win.
(16:43):
And I just remember the producers going, we are burning
cash here right now.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Despite these challenges, Drumline got its Battle of the Band
scene a year after shooting. On December fifth, two thousand
and two, the Atlantic Civic Center hosted an exclusive sneak
peak of Drumline with Morris Brown students and attendance from there.
Drumline hit just over three thousand movie theaters nationwide. It
screened for a few weeks, which wasn't the fanfare that
(17:11):
director Charles Stone had hoped for, and.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
At the time, thirty two hundred was like significant for
a big studio movie. So I think even with them,
they were hesitant because, frankly, it's a part of black
culture that is specific to black folks.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Turns out Fox had nothing to worry about. During opening weekend,
nearly half the moviegoers were white. In six weeks, Drumline
made almost fifty four million dollars. It ended up being
one of the top ten movies people saw that holiday season,
along with Lord of the Rings and Catch Me if
you Can. One industry expert called Drumline the little film
(17:50):
that could. What a good hearted film, wrote the movie
critic Roger Ebert. But as Drumline is good in glowing reviews,
Morris Brown College, the school featured most prominently in Drumline,
loses its accreditation.
Speaker 10 (18:09):
As a matter of fact, I watched drum Line like
a month ago.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Latania Randolph was a freshman at Morris Brown in nineteen
ninety eight. She joined the school's Bubbling Brown Sugar dance team,
and when Drumline was shot in two thousand and one,
she had a cameo as a majorrette.
Speaker 10 (18:22):
I saw it populated on my television and I said,
let me just go back and watch, and just sitting
there watching the movie, there again just scent. Sheels up
my arm.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Latanya managed to catch Drumline within its first five minutes
on the field. Morris Brown's band, Majors and Majorrettes are rehearsing.
Speaker 10 (18:39):
I could see us dancing on the side. Never paid
attention to that clip, and so I kept rewind and
kept pausing, and I was like, oh my god, that's me.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
During shooting days back in two thousand and one, Latania
was balancing her film cameo with her studies and extracurriculars.
She felt like a star, but she was also tired.
Speaker 10 (18:59):
I remember some days. We went out on the field
one day and it was sleeping rain and we had
on a really small outfits, and I remember telling my
parents I don't think I'm going and my boyfriend but
husband now, I was like, I don't think I'm going back,
and they were like, this is a big new what.
Speaker 6 (19:14):
Do you mean You're not going back.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Latanya was gearing up to be the first person in
her immediate family to graduate from college, but during her
senior year, one year after filming Drumline, rumors about the
school's financial mismanagement swirled around the campus. The school was
at risk of losing its accreditation, meaning the degrees would
be deemed worthless and not recognized by potential employers or
(19:38):
other academic institutions. And when at HBCU, like Morris Brown
loses its accreditation, it directly affects the well being of
Atlanta's black middle class, the very upward mobility that has
made the city known as a black mecca.
Speaker 11 (19:52):
I used to very early say Mars Brown is original
fool Booth.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
That is Reverend Hermann Skip Mason Junior, the second generation
Morris Brown alum, who started working at the college in
nineteen ninety nine. When Skip refers to Morris Brown as
the original Fubu, he's referring to its unique history as
the only HBCU in Georgia founded by black people. In
eighteen eighty one, formerly enslaved men who had become clergy
(20:18):
at the African Methodist Episcopal or Amy Church decided to
start their own college, and they named it after Morris Brown,
one of the founders of the church. At one point, W. E. B.
Du Bois had an office on what is now Morris
Brown's campus.
Speaker 11 (20:34):
I'm so glad that when they decided to create this school,
that they named it for a revolutionary like Mars Brown.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Which is why when you talk to Reverend Mason about
Morris Brown, you do not use the school's nickname.
Speaker 11 (20:48):
I am adamantly against people referring to Marris Brown as
Mole Brown. I know it's just a nickname and a
short name, but my reverence and love and admiration for
Bishop Marris Brown is strong. So when you say Mars Brown,
don't say Moe Brown okay, because he went your boy
(21:11):
okay and he won your friend.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
And drumline, Morris Brown is the powerhouse that always wins.
But in real life, the college has always been kind
of an underdog, at least compared to its AC neighbors.
That's despite how schools within the AUC often share some
of the same teachers. The thing is, Morris Brown is
not as well resourced and has this reputation for producing
(21:34):
accountants and educators like Latanya. It's simply not as glamorous
as Morehouse College with graduates like Martin Luther King Junior
and Spike Lee, or Spelman College, where Alice Walker and
Stacy Abrams went to school, or Clark Atlanta, which is
known for its famous alumni in the arts, from Broadway
director Kenny Leon to Blackish TV show creator Kenya Barris.
(21:58):
In nineteen ninety eight, Rris Brown hired a new president,
doctor Dolores Cross, to work on strengthening the school's academic
performance and its reputation. It wasn't long before she started
implementing major changes, like providing all students with a laptop,
and when the school ran out of campus housing, she
footed the bill and sent hundreds of students to live
(22:20):
in nearby motels. Around this time, drum Lung got shot.
The release was approaching and the thinking was, surely this
will create a boom and admissions. But there was a
major problem. Morris Brown couldn't afford all of the computers
and hotel rooms, among other things, and there was certainly
no way they could afford to bring on new students,
(22:41):
let alone a high number of them. Doctor Cross, who
declined to speak with us on the record about this period,
resigned in February two thousand and two, but the problems
kept piling on. An investigation by the US Department of
Education found that Morris Brown had illegally spent millions of
dollars of financial aid money what should have gone to
(23:04):
students was going toward the school's amenities. Then, on December tenth,
two thousand and two, Morris Brown's student body learned that
the rumors on campus were true, confirming their worst fears.
Speaker 12 (23:15):
With trouble that Morris Brown began in December of two
thousand and two. Because of years of mismanagement and accumulated debt,
Morris Brown lost its accreditation. Essentially, it's right to operate
without accreditation.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
The school lost its accreditation. That means a few things.
Not only were degrees from the school now basically meaningless,
but students who wanted to go there anyway couldn't get
federal financial aid. At the time, it seemed like a
death sentence.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
We had to bring everybody into the gymnazy.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Reverend Skip Mason, who was dean of students at the time.
Speaker 11 (23:49):
I got up and the gym was packed, I mean
it was packed, and I got up and I made
some comments. I think we prayed, and then I brought
the president of so he could share the news. And
I tell you, boy, that day broke my heart. People
start getting up. You heard crying, you heard cursing. I mean,
(24:13):
people were just mad.
Speaker 10 (24:16):
I had conversation with my parents and so they were like, well,
it's going to be okay, Everything's going to work out.
By that time, I was in mode of no, it's
not okay.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
The college planned to appeal the decision in the spring
of two thousand and three, though seniors like Latanya didn't
have time to wait for the verdict. Unfortunately, only a
few schools would accept all the credits that Morris Brown
students earned thus far, like Howard University in Washington, DC
and Fisk University in Nashville. Latanya originally planned to graduate
(24:47):
in spring two thousand and three. That did not happen.
That's because she decided to transfer to Clark Atlanta. Even
though Clark Atlanta was also part of the AUC, all
the time she spent studying at Morrisprea didn't count.
Speaker 10 (25:01):
It's quite devastating because I still had to go over
in complete two additional years to meet their school's qualifications.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
But it wasn't only students who were affected. Here's Reverend
Skip Mason.
Speaker 11 (25:16):
It was on my way home one evening, and the
Directive human.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
Resources was a good friend. He called me.
Speaker 11 (25:26):
He said, I just wanted to give you a heads
up that you're scheduled to be terminated tomorrow. He did
that as a favor, as a friend, so I wouldn't
be caught off guard. And I'm driving around the curve
on my way home and I literally almost just go
off the side of the road. I mean, I remember
the most humbly moment after I lost my job at
Mars Brown was going down to where you go to
(25:50):
get unemployment benefits. I put on a suit because that's
what I always wore. I was so old addressed.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Once Morris Brown was stripped of its accreditation, it also
lost the support of its peers. It was no longer
part of the Atlanta University Center. Things got worse. The
school shut down its Greek life and marching band programs,
the very aspects of campus life that made Morris Brown
exciting to be part of and watch on screen. Drumline
(26:23):
was released on December thirteenth, two thousand and two, just
three days after Morris Brown officially lost its accreditation. By
this time, only sixty students were enrolled on the campus.
Speaker 5 (26:35):
How do you get people to believe in something that's did?
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Doctor Kevin James had always dreamed of becoming the president
of an HBCU, which is why in twenty eighteen he
successfully applied to take charge of Morris Brown. Once that
dream became reality, Kevin realized that he had his work
cut out for him.
Speaker 8 (26:54):
I know Morfroun had been through a lot of challenges,
but I didn't really know how bad it was until
my very first You know, I walked in thirty five
million dollar bankruptcy. We couldn't pay our bills, we couldn't
make payroll, we didn't have an endowment, our programs were defunct.
We had about twenty students, And I said, oh my god,
(27:15):
what in word did I just walk into.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Kevin was now part of a long list of people
who try to revive Morris Brown, like radio host Tom
Joyner and HBCU grad himself. When Morris Brown lost his accreditation,
Tom said he'd box Mike Tyson to raise money. Then
he said he wanted to buy the school outright. The
school declined his offer, though it did accept a million
(27:38):
dollar donation from the radio host, But private donations couldn't
stop Morris Brown from becoming part of a larger debate
over whether America needed HBCUs at all. HBCUs were suffering
from low graduation and retention rates. Predominantly white institutions or
pwi's snapped up the best performing black students to diversified
(28:00):
their own student bodies. Morris Brown became a shell of
its former self. Many of its buildings went vacant, others deteriorated.
One building that caught fire had joys that were completely exposed.
The stadium that Nick Cannon and Jason Weaver ride pass
at the start of Drumline had been sold to help
(28:21):
pay down the school's massive debt. Yet despite all appearances,
Morris Brown had never actually closed Since losing its accreditation,
The school even hosted two more film productions in two
thousand and six, We Are Marshall and Stopped the Yard Stomp.
The Yard in particular was significant for how it too
focused on HBCU campus life. Here's Will Packer stopped the
(28:44):
Yard's Producer.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
There was no energy at Morris Brown.
Speaker 7 (28:46):
We had to recreate it, and I'll never forget.
Speaker 13 (28:48):
There was an older lady that came up to me
while we were shooting one of the scenes on campus,
and we had all these extras, and we had done
all this art and production design, and so the campus
really look good. It looked like, you know the way
a college campus looks when it's vibranting, popping. And she
came up to me and she was in tears, and
she said, are you the producer? I heard you're the
(29:09):
producer of this movie. I said yes, ma'am, And she said,
I just want to say thank you because I am
a you know, fifty year alumni of Morris Brown College,
and I didn't think I would ever see my school
look like this again.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
When Kevin James took over in twenty eighteen, he knew
he needed to pitch Morris Brown as more than just
a film set.
Speaker 8 (29:34):
So how do I walk into a major philanthropic organization
or major corporation and say, hey, give us a million dollars?
Everyone I did that to ask me the same questions
Morris Brown, aren't you all closed? No, we're not closed.
We're still open. We've been open since eighteen eighty one.
The second question they would ask me is, well, are
(29:56):
you guys accredited I thought y'all were closed, aren't you?
Are you guys accredited? And then I would say, oh, no,
we're not accredited. You know, we're working on it. Well,
how long have you been without your creditation? Oh, we've
been without our creditation for twenty years. How many students
do you have? Oh, we have twenty students. Get out
of my office.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
To regain its accreditation, Morris Brown needed a plan to
pay back all its debt. Kevin realized that he should
start fundraising with the very people who'd shown the school
the most support from the beginning, the Ame Church and
the alumni. The Ame Church, of course, was the institution
that made Morris Brown possible in the first place. The alumni,
(30:34):
most of whom attended the school well before all the
financial chaos, were still strongly connected to their alma mater.
Just ask Reverend Skip Mason, the former dean of students.
His class raised fifty thousand dollars ahead of its forty
year college reunion.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
Because Mars Brown was so good to us in nurtured us.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Or Latanya Randolph, the educator who, despite Morris Brown not
having a football team or marching band anymore, has returned
every every single year to attend homecoming. Latanya got her
degree from Clark Atlanta University, but she introduces herself first
and foremost as a Morris Brown alum.
Speaker 10 (31:10):
When I walk into any school building, whether it's in
the state of Georgia a beyond, I have this great
air and confidence that's instilled in me because of what
I gained from my professor's, mentors, teachers, sorority sisters lone
sisters right there at Morris Brown. So although that accreditation
went away, every year, we still came back for homecoming
(31:33):
because it was a heartbeat and a love there that
can ever be replaced.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Support from Morris Brown has kept growing, and I'm not
just talking about the alumni. Georgia Senator John Ossoff successfully
called on the Biden administration to restore federal financial aid
for Morris Brown students, and in twenty nineteen, Kanye West
donated money to New Birth Missionary Baptist Church as thanks
for hosting one of his shows. But New Birth pay
(31:59):
that donatetion forward to Morris Brown. It's where Yeay's late mother,
Donda West was once a faculty member.
Speaker 8 (32:06):
We owed it to our founders, these former slaves that
started the school. That resilience, that perseverance, that legacy has
been translated for generations, and so it wasn't our nature
to give up.
Speaker 13 (32:22):
Fam After a twenty year battle, Atlantis, Morris Brown College
is now a fully accredited universities.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
On April twenty seventh, twenty twenty two, Morris Brown's accreditation
was restored.
Speaker 8 (32:37):
We just made history as the first HBCU to rebound
after a twenty year hiatus, and we're.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Kevin James wants to raise three million dollars to bring
back the famous Marching Wolverines. Fortunately, mentioning Drumline makes for
a great elevator pitch.
Speaker 8 (32:55):
You know, when I go around the community and I
meet different people and they asked me. Some folks say
where's Oars Brown? And I always ask the same question,
have you ever seen the movie Drumline? And I have
never met someone to say no.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
He should expect to receive that kind of response in
the foreseeable future, because as Morris Brown works on getting
the band back together, the role it played in Drumline
continues to impact pop culture today. Twenty years ago, Atlanta's
Mighty Outcast was one of the rare acts that uplifted
Morris Brown College. Previously, Outcast had the schools gospel choir
(33:28):
and the song Bombs Over Baghdad. Then in two thousand
and six, Outcast had the Marching Wolverines on one of
its very last singles as a group. The song was
called Morris Brown. The school may have been in dire straits,
but the song was an uplifting tribute. It was as
if Outcast refused to let the school's legacy die. Oh Yes,
(33:54):
for a while, it was only rap artists from the
South who were paying attention. But then Drumline comes out
and it has this domino effect on popular culture. Today,
artists like Young Thug Gunna and Lil nas X take
major stages flanked with marching.
Speaker 6 (34:09):
Bands, USC Trojans drum Line.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Think the Tonight show The VMAs. Tyler, the creator featured
drum line members from Atlanta's Westlake High School in his
twenty twenty four songs Sticky and of Course. You have
Beyonce and her twenty eighteen Coachella performance, where actual HBCU
majors and majorrettes filled the bleacher she brought on stage.
(34:34):
Half of the show's musicians came from Atlanta and they
were all hand selected by Don Roberts, a band director
from Southwestercap High School just east of Atlanta. Drumln my
company had a lot of credibility.
Speaker 7 (34:48):
They got out the plane and we landed in California
and said, okay, guys, come to gather around.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
Let me tell you going to play for And it
was like we're gonna be performing with Beyonce and.
Speaker 5 (34:57):
It's like.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
Don had previously worked on Drumline. His job was to
make sure the Hollywood actors appeared convincing on the big
screen and staff the production with players from his own
high school in places where Morris Brown and other HBCUs
couldn't fill in. His demand has kept growing in Hollywood.
HBO tapped him for the first season finale of its
critically acclaimed teen drama Euphoria. The episode ends with a
(35:23):
coke fueled fantasy sequence or Sindaea's character Rue stumbles, lurches,
and gets lifted up in the air to a marching
band version of the song All for Us by Labyrinth.
This backing ensemble isn't explicitly in EACHBCU marching band, but
if you look closely, the signs of Drumlines influences are there.
(35:45):
How the brass players performed Showman style and dance with
a flash mob that crowds around Zindeya. Those signs are
there because Don Roberts consulted on this scene too. Marching
band performances wouldn't have become pop culture fodder without HBCUs.
Don himself graduated for FAMU. In twenty twenty two, The
(36:06):
Washington Post spoke with musicians and band directors who saw
increased participation in marching bands thanks to drumline. A trumpet
player at HBCU in Mississippi told the newspaper quote, when
I joined the band, all the boys wanted to play
snare like Nick Cannon, the movie that twentieth Century Fox
was nervous about featuring an HBCU that everyone was ready
(36:30):
to count out. Has been more influential than anyone could
have anticipated. Then, in summer twenty twenty five, there was
a moment where life truly imitated art. On July eighteenth,
the day he turned forty six years old, Jason Weaver
spent his birthday flying three into something miles from Atlanta
to Lexington, Kentucky to be inducted in the band fraternity
(36:53):
Kappa Kappa PSI. That's the same band fraternity that is
Drumline character joins in the film. Side was so touched
by its inclusion and Drumline that, nearly twenty five years
after the film hit theaters, during its national convention in Lexington,
the organization made Jason an honorary member.
Speaker 7 (37:11):
That was my college experience was working on Drumline.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Drumline wouldn't have had such credibility if it weren't for
the real life HBCUs in Atlanta that participated That especially
goes from Morris Brown.
Speaker 7 (37:25):
You were literally helping tell this beautiful story while also
learning more about your people and just the rich history
here in Atlanta. It was an eye opening and rewarding experience.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
With each of us. This show we truly value ourself.
We can inspire to next, to rise up and overcome,
regardless of wealth.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
When the whale runs dry, we.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Keep our heads lie to live through the thirst and
darkest days. We find new ways to deal with the
worst when a positive end result justifies exhausting our own means.
When success is reached, we see the struggle isn't as
hard as it seems.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Through the roughest times, we have.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
The heart to climb up out the dread and show
those that assume you wouldn't survive and left you for dead.
The underestimation is a grave mistake that only feeds the
will of those that are strong enough to do what
it takes to prove them wrong.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
In the next episode, we tell the story of an
unlikely cast who turned their cinematic dreams into reality and
transform the city into a movie making capital. In Atlanta
is filmed on location.
Speaker 5 (38:51):
We like for.
Speaker 13 (38:52):
Naggled our way into a meeting with Jermaine du Prix,
you know, and we foragled our way into a meeting
with Dallas Ausoin, Like we were hustled, so we had
to get to these people. These are like big music
industry legends that we did not know. We did not
shoot one music video.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Atlanta is the Will Packer Media Production in partnership with
iHeart Podcast, Idea, Generation and Complex. This episode was written, reported,
and produced by Christina Lee, with additional production from Maurice
Garland and Jewel Wicker. Our supervising producer and editor is
Shiva bayad Our. Managing producers are Rose Froulini Bacon, Omari
(39:34):
Graham At Shamara Rochester. Editorial support from Sean Setero and
Jack Irwin.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Original theme music by Alman Shota.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Sound designed by Shiva Bayat and Our Mind Sahota, mixed
and mastered by Oman Sahota. Fact Checking done by Sean Setero,
Clarence Counsel, Donison, Caliph Perez, Lisa Kliff and Jacqueline Schwedt.
Executive producers for will Packer Meet A Will Packer and
Alex Bowden. Co producer for will Packer. Media is Nimmi Mohunt,
(40:06):
executive producers for Idea Generation from Complex of Jack Irwin
and Noah Callahan.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Beber. Head of Talent.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Relations for Complex is Anthony Already, Talent associate for Complex,
is Ryan Houston. Senior attorney for Complex is Jordan Washington.
Special thanks to Tyler Klan, Terry Harrison, Chris Senator, Noams Griffin,
and Candice Howard.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
I'm Big Rude piece
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