BIN Daily Podcast. March 8, 2023

On today's episode, Host Ramses Ja talks with actor and director Markuann Smith about his career and role as Executive Producer of  the hit  TV series Godfather of Harlem starring Academy Award winning actor Forest Whitaker. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Known for being a fearsome crime boss. Ellsworth Raymond Bumpy
Johnson ruled the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in
the mid twentieth century for more than thirty years. Bumpy
Johnson was famous for being one of New York City's
most revered and feared crime bosses. His wife called him
the Harlem Godfather and for good reason. Known for ruling

(00:20):
Harlem with an iron fist, he dealt with anyone who
dared challenge him in a brutal fashion. Based on a
true story and starring Oscar winner Forrest Whittaker, Godfather of Harlem,
now in its third season on Hulu, is inspired by
the life of infamous crime boss Bumpy Johnson what has
been referenced as a collision of the criminal underworld and
the civil rights movement during one of the most tumultuous

(00:42):
times in American history. The Godfather of Harlem has quickly
become a hit across demographics, an industry trailblazer with a
unique perspective and dedication to showcasing the black experience in
his work. Here with us to share the real story
behind The Godfather of Harlem and more about the hit show.
To discuss his notable career and to talk more about

(01:04):
diversity in the entertainment industry. We have creator, actor, an
executive producer of Who Loves Godfather of Harlem, mister Mark
Quan Smith. I am Maggie be Knowing and this is
the Black Information Network Daily Podcast with your host Rams
this Jaw mister Mark Quan Smith. Welcome to the show. Man,

(01:25):
how are you doing today? Thank you for having me, Rams,
It's appreciate it. Yeah, man, looks like you're on the move. Man,
I've been. I've been doing some research on you making
the rounds. Yeah. You know. Um, it's so important to
us that we are on the season three right now,
and it's such an awker this season that's different from
season one in season two that we get the you know,
the narrative of the show out there and he are

(01:48):
one of the highest rated shows that they ever had.
So it's you know, I want to keep pressing in,
pressing in President, keep on keep on it. I love
it man, I've been seeing it. You the man right
about now. So that's that's my hats off to you, sir.
So here on this show on the Black Information Network
Daily Podcast, we like to start at the beginning. So
for our listeners who may not be as familiar with

(02:11):
you and your work, do us a favor, share a
bit about yourself, specifically your background, your upbringing, and what
led you to the career path that you have. So
that's a great, great question. Grew up in Harlem, Hallom,
New York. Was raised in Far Rockaway, Queens. If anybody's
from New York, people Rockaway is the last stop on

(02:34):
a train. They don't even consider it cooling as they
just call it far Rockaway. And I grew up in
the entertainment industry. My older brother is a rap about
a name of Fate. So I was always around creating
content in some full sort of way, whether it's scripted
or music and things. So that sort where I grew

(02:55):
up at was nothing but housing projects out there, So
it wasn't really a lot of things for young black
man to do at that time. Imagine you have twenty
buildings and they are warring with each other, trying to
share the same McDonald's or the ship share to get
the same slice of pizza. You know. I used to
do was the drown that noise out. I used to

(03:16):
lock myself in a room and just watch movies. I
used to watch Rubble without a Cause, Raging Bull down
these mean streets. One of my favorite movies is Once
Upon a Time in America directed by Sergio Leon. And
watching these movies, I was able to escape the reality
what was happening outside around me, and you became these
imaginary characters, and I just fell in love with the

(03:36):
auto creating content, whether it was acting, producing, directing, or
even writing. Now, you mentioned something that your older brother
was father MC. I heard that right right, Yes you did. Okay, okay,
so we can't just gloss over that. What was it
like with father MC as your older brother. Well, you know,

(04:00):
my brother, he really gave me the initiative of never
giving up about tenacity. I mean, he used to work
in Kentucky Fried Chicken. Everybody used to call him the
flower guy, right because he used to come out on
his brakes and he would have flower all over himself
from friding to chicken. But he always had this dreams
and aspirations to becoming a rapper. And I remember us
hopping on the A train and going to like seminars,

(04:23):
like the New Music Seminar or going out of town
and Jack the rapper and trying to get a record deal,
you know, staying up late at night at Howiet Studio,
when Brooklyn taking that train all the way back to
Far Rockaway till you know, one day he finally was
able to get his deal with Andre Horrell rest in Peace,
who was the president of Uptown MCA Records. My brother

(04:44):
gave me an opportunity to travel the world. One of
my good friends was Tupac Shakur and we were both roadies.
So being a roadie is like it's the grunt work,
you know, for an audience, like I had to be
the first one off the bus, last one on. And
Tupac was a roadie for Digital Underground. I was a
roadie for Father Truch was a roadie for Latifa. So

(05:05):
we had this common bond myself in Poc about just
trying to achieve things, you know. I remember Poc telling me,
you know, I just want to have a number one record.
I just want to be on a big screen. I
just want to keep creating, creating, And that's how I
felt as well. It took me eighteen years to get
Godfather hallm done. I remember going to a Lennox terrace

(05:26):
and Lennox terraces. It's a community in Harlem that a
lot of affluent people lived there, politicians, actors, musicians. And
I used to go to my godmother. Her name is
Margaret Johnson. Margaret is played by Demi Singleton and a
godfather of Halem. If everybody knows Demi was played Serena

(05:46):
Williams and King Richard. And she used to tell me
these magical stories about Harlem. How she used to walk
out of a tenement building the smell fresh laundry hanging
out of a window, or walked past one hundred and
twenty fifth Street. Look up, you see James Brown's name
on them our key. Walk past Sugar Ray Robinson's barbershop,
you'll see his pink Cadillac, or maybe maybe even saying
nak and co waiting to get a haircut, or Sam

(06:08):
Cook's voice coming out of a transistor radio. So these
magical stories about Harlem was just so amazing. I looked
forward every Sunday to go to our house just to
hear these stories. And she also told me about how
African Americans migrated from the South coming up north, whether
it's Virginia, whether it's New Jersey, whether it's New York
trying to escape bullcon as waterhoses and his dogs, and

(06:30):
they were still facing racism. It was one of the
most two undous times in African American history in Harlem
to purchase a hat simple things walking into the store,
purchased a hat to store on him and say, you know,
I want you to put a shower cap in your
head because he didn't want the hat to touch your
scalp because you were African American or a family of four.
The father worked all week and wants to just treat

(06:52):
his family to a steak dinner. You can't eat inside
with the rest of the patrons. You gotta take it
to go. And she also told me about her ground father.
His name is Ellsworth Raymond Johnson, the streets Nooman's Bumpy.
He migrated from Charleston, South Carolina. He's a Gichi and
he didn't come up to New York to become a gangster.
He actually came up to New York to become an
attorney like Malcolm X. But when the Burst's office said

(07:13):
we don't get financial aid to people of color, he
took the cards that he was dealt with and played
it the best way that he could. He was the
first African American mom figure that sat down with the
Five Families, whether it was Lucky Lucciano, whether it's Frank Costello,
Vito genevievez Bugsy Siegel. You know, these are the roots
of the La Cosa Nostro or the mafia. And they

(07:35):
allowed a black man to sit at the table the
water and the Alcatraz said he had the highest rated
IQ he ever saw for a person of color. But
he wasn't just like I said, a gangster. He was
also a philosopher. He read nietzche he read Shakespeare. It's
rumors that he beat Bobby Fisher in chess. So she
wanted me to get the real story of who her

(07:56):
grandfather was, not what you saw on the hood of
I was a great movie, not what you saw in
American Gangster or the Cotton Club, but who he was
as an individual. I made a promise over eighteen years
ago that I I would go make that happen for him.
So naturally, that's kind of the nexus of the Godfather

(08:16):
of Harlem. That was the inspiration, That was a particular
story to life. That was the inspiration. Not only that,
when you're pitching shows, the logline has to make sense
in one simple sentence, and the logline for the Godfather
Harlem is the corruption of civil rights or the collision

(08:37):
of civil rights in the underworld and doing that. You know,
my favorite show is one of my favorite shows was
Tony Soprano. You never saw the on TV the relationship
between a mob boss and his therapist, Walter White, a
chemistry teacher breaking bad. He's selling meth amphetames. Why because
he needs to get money to afford the treatment. That's

(08:59):
what's going on going on in his body at the time.
So with what you're seeing with with Bumpy Johnson, you're
seeing a character that's introducing Harlem. He's our portal to
into Harlem. And that was our way to be able
to show the relationship between Malcolm and Bumpy Johnson. Yeah, yeah,
and that's that's um. I remember that the scene where

(09:24):
there was um, Bumpy Johnson and Malcolm and they like
confronted a group of I'm not sure if they were
Italian not or not, but a group of they were
white and they had, you know, their pistols, and then
you know, Bumpy points to the rooftops and he's like, hey,
we came out deep too. They would definitely. They were
definitely Italian and um yeah, okay, there we go. Bumpy

(09:47):
had his way of you know, we don't take away
the fact that he is a drug deal not trying
to make him a hero. Just because he bought kids
book bags to go to school, or you are bought
some families some turkeys on Thingsgiving Day, or you're sending
kids away to college, doesn't take away from how he

(10:09):
poisoned the community. But he was also a troubled individual
fighting with his demons, whether it's the good angel on
the right showed on the debt on the left. He
was trying to figure out how he could be righteous
in the cause that was dealt to him. And that
was Malcolm and him coming together and Malcolm trying to,
you know, show him I was Detroit Red, I was

(10:31):
a pimp and look at me right now. Some of
the things and Malcolm talks about Bump people believes in
and some of the things he doesn't. So it's a
constant conversation that's happening in these three seasons with Malcolm
and Bumpy. You know, That's one of the things that
I noticed too, is that from where I sit, I'm
not going to pretend to know the full story of

(10:51):
Bumpy Johnson. I've never been the sort of person who's
been really into like gangster movies, in particular Italian gangster movies.
But in watching what I have seen of the Godfather
of Harlem, uh, it did seem like you were telling
a story as authentically as I've ever seen. And the

(11:14):
as you mentioned like sort of the portal into Harlem
and uh the portal indeed into Bumpy Johnson's lifestyle, uh, psyche, etc.
I think what it has shown, at least what I
took from it, is that people are complicated. You know,

(11:35):
there are people that you know pass out turkeys and
and they're drug dealers. There are people who you know
sell drugs, but they want to live and this is
the way that they can you know, pay for treatment.
And you know, I learned this some years back with
um Kobe Bryant. I learned it with I Mean, there's
there's a list, endless list of names of people who

(11:58):
we idolize in espouse, you know their track record, and
then they make a mistake and you start to realize
that books are complicated. And so again, I really do
feel like you didn't shy away from one part of
this or another part of it. It feels as authentic
as I've ever seen with that set. Again, I'm talking
about it from a cinematic perspective. I'm not comparing it

(12:19):
to many other gangster movies. So credit to you for that.
Thank you so much. Authenticity was very key to this.
You know, obviously a much younger I didn't live in
that time, but so we brought on an individual by
the name of Professor James Smalls. Jane Smalls is an
African American historian. I used to be a professor of

(12:41):
City College, but he was also Malcolm X's sisters bodyguard
when Malcolm X passed away. So having him on set
made sure the authenticity was as close as we can get,
you know, from the mannerisms of Muslim women Muslim men,
to even the lingo and the history and the movements

(13:03):
and things of that sort. So being authentic was very
important because when you're putting out a product that the
world is looking at, you really don't have time for
any mistakes. Yeah, that's a fair point. We are here
today with creator, actor and executive producer mister Mark Quan
Smith discussing his Hulu hit the Godfather of Harlem, learning

(13:25):
about his notable career, as well as talking more about
the overall importance of diversity in the entertainment industry. Now,
speaking of you know, not making any mistakes, I'm sure
that this was a challenging thing to pull off. You
mentioned that you were working on it for eighteen years,
or at least you had the inspiration to do this

(13:47):
and kind of followed it up for eighteen years. So
these sorts of things, as we know, don't often see
the light of day. Were there many challenges on your
path to getting this to season three? Even now it
was easy? It was a slam dunk. Okay, cool, No,

(14:08):
I'm just playing man, brother. I think this is one
of the hardest journeys in my life. He got turned
down by three networks. He got turned down twice by
one network. Stars turned this down. Netflix turned this down.
Apple turned this down because they didn't see the vision.
And I tell people all the time, a lot of

(14:29):
people want success, but are you ready for what success brings?
Are you ready to eat Tunafi sandwiches? Are you ready
to eat rama noodles? Are you ready to sleep on
somebody's floor because you can't afford a hotel. Are you
ready to say, hey, Ramses, I need you got any
access to buddy passes? Because I have a meeting on

(14:50):
Monday and I got to leave out on Sunday. I
tell people all the time, you could chase your pension
or chase your passion. That's up to you. I decided
to chase my passion because when you knock an opportunity
door and doesn't open for you, go to home depot
by some lumber creature own path. I remember sleeping on
the garage floor of my rightst house just going through

(15:14):
note skeleton scripts just because of the division was It
was not easy because at the end of the day,
all the executives think about is the ROI was the
return of investment. They're not thinking about anything else. They
want to know, how are we making money? It was
a great concept of how are we making money? And
you know, we're in a time where the word harlem
means oh god, you've got another urban urban film. But

(15:34):
it's not urban. We have such a diverse cast, we
have a diverse writers room. Just that word harlem scared people.
So yeah, it was. It was. It was very hard.
If it wasn't for an individual who believed in this
project by the name of Michael Wright, who just came
from Steven Spielberg's company, Ambulin Entertainment, and him saying in

(15:54):
the room because I came back to New York, I
mean I was. I was almost defeated, man. But I
never believe in having a plan B. I've always had
a stick to your plan A, because if you plan
on having a plan B, that means you really don't
believe in your plan A. That's my thought. And I
came back to New York in January and we got

(16:15):
after getting turned down three times. I mean, my big
brother Forrest would if he is in the room with
me pitching, So it's not just he's in the trenches
with me. Chris Brancato, who created Narcles, is in the
trenches with me, Paul Extey, James Atchison, Nina Yang bon
Jovi in the trenches or we're pitching and pitching. And
came back to New York and it was a no go.

(16:38):
Everybody said no. And I mean I remember this story
like it was yesterday. I'm in my mother's house and
she's like, baby, don't you want to try something else?
And I looked at her. And there was one last
meeting that I couldn't attend because I didn't have any
money to get back to LA and have my phone off.

(17:00):
So I knew I was going to get a call,
but I didn't want to answer the call because I
didn't want to get another No, and Forrest was calling
me like seven times, and finally picked up the phone,
turned it on, and he said, why don't you pick
up your phone? He said, we just sold the show
in the room, so one of the stairs and I
hit my mother in the head and it was one

(17:22):
of the most It was one of the most joyous
days to know that this is so surreal, that this
is really happening. Yeah, And what really touched me was
when the teamster walked up to me in season one
and said, thank you for never giving up. Because you're
not giving up allowed me to feed my family for
the next six months. I like that. You know, that

(17:45):
was where I was gonna go with it. You kind
of went there already. But there's a lot of opportunities.
Not only are you making black history yourself, but you know,
you're creating a lot of opportunities for people in a
space where we the black community have been insisting in
more opportunities be created. So again I salute you. And

(18:06):
then of course you know the uh the uh what
was it? You can chase your your passion or you
can chase your pension. I'm starting to realize that you're
you're full of these insightful little quotes and and uh,
I was going to bring up the fact that you
were on uh Godfrey's podcast. Yeah, and you dropped a

(18:31):
few gems. I'm going to read a couple of them here.
There are no bunk beds in the graveyard. Um, don't
chase your pets, chase your passion. Uh, don't look at
my glory. Listen to my story, Uh trying to stay
sucker free in a world full of lollipops. Um. So,
so do us a favor, because I know our times running.
Shure to do us a favor. Um, elaborate a bit

(18:54):
more about what these things mean to you and what
they should mean to other folks, because obviously there are
the people that are looking at your success like man,
that's crazy, people that have similar passions, and they can
look to you, they can look to your brother even
and see that you know, things are possible, folks from
from Harlem, folks from Brooklyn, folks from all over New York,

(19:15):
and indeed all of the country. So um, just just
elaborate a bit more on sort of what these things
mean to you and what they should mean other folks.
So when I said there's no bunk beds in the graveyard,
basically saying this ram just if the grim reapercomes and
knock on your door today, you can't call Chris right

(19:40):
or anyone else and say, you know, it's time for
us to go. No, it's time for you to go. Yeah. Right.
That's why I said, is there's no bump beds in
the graveyard. When you leave this world, you leave by yourself.
You know, I never saw an armored truck chaseing a
hearse like it's that's it's It's so simple. And when

(20:02):
I'm saying I'm trying to stay sucker free in a
world full of lollipops, meaning of fact, I'm trying to
stay away from suckers. I'm trying to turn my circle
into squares. Back in the days when you use the
lingo square right, square was supposed to be corny and boring.
You know, he's a square right, I'm corny, I'm boring.
I love that, you know. So I changed my circles

(20:23):
from where I came from into squares. Okay, so these
are some of the things that I I live by.
You know. I want to do a book based on
the sayings, you know, explaining to people what I mean
and adapt to adapting to my life, what I what
I've been through. That's you. We need that book. We
all need that book. So so yeah, I appreciate you

(20:44):
humoring me and answering that question. Um, just a couple
more quick ones before we go. Um, let's say, uh,
for instance, some of our listeners today have not seen
The Godfather of Harlem. Um, why should they tune in?

(21:05):
First of all, the show is inspirational. My job I
wanted to do was create a show that boy family together.
I remember growing up watching The Cosby Show and being
very excited about just watching the show with my mother
and my father and sitting there in the living room.
I think we're missing that experience, especially in a black household.
But the way that we were going about doing it

(21:26):
was to make sure that we could bridge both demographics
because music was key. So I tell people to watch
the show because you're gonna get your favorite artists. You
might hear rip Ross, you might hear Martha the Vendela's,
you might hear Sam Cook, you might hear Gee Herbo
or Zenda. You know, it's a show for everybody. It's
a show for everyone telling real narratives and the same

(21:49):
history repeats itself. Is so true because if you look
at it, look the Ferguson rights, are the halland riots,
Colin Kaepernick, that's Muhammad Ali all over again. Right. So
the just the position just shows that history is parallel.
As we can see with George Floyd, as we can
see what just happened in Memphis, these things are still

(22:09):
happening in America today. So just to make the POV
of the world of yesterday collide with the world of
today was so interesting to me, and I think people
need to watch it. Let's see. I love that answer.
Um so do what's your favor besides season three? Besides

(22:31):
the the upcoming book that we've decided that you're gonna
work on and that we're gonna probably maybe you could
help me. Probably let's let's collabor on it. Man, I'd
love that. But besides those, is there anything else? That
you're working on you need to know about. Yes, yes, Um.
I have an amazing project I'm working on with Joe
Morton and Joe morn is your actor's favorite actor. He

(22:53):
played Uh Papa Pope and Scandal and we're right now.
We're doing it with Matt Carnahan who created House Allives
on Showtime with Don Cheatle And it's a TV series.
You know about DC from eighty five to ninety about Reaganomics, capitalism,
socialism is about the halves and the have nots, you

(23:14):
know lenbaias John Thompson times, just showing a city divided.
I'm very excited about that. I'm looking forward to taking
that out. Hopefully I won't get three knows and get
that soul, but it's very exciting. And I want to
use Gogo Music as the heartbeat of the show because
Google Music was DC's native language, and I went to
an HBCU, I went to Morgan and just coming down

(23:38):
to Howard, I remember the epitome of what a black
mecha would be, and that was Washington, DC. You know,
it was called Chocolate City at the time. So I'm
very excited about that. I have another project I'm doing
with George Tilman and Bob title. It's called Once a Cop.
George Tillman. He did mud mud Bound that Hate You Given.
They're doing a new Bob Marley movie on Paramount and

(23:59):
this one is called Once a Cop with Ed Bonnaro
who created Criminal Minds and Third wid and Once a
Cop is a story about a guy out the name
of Corey Pighee, so you could actually see his documentary
on Hulu was called Cops and Roberts, and he used
to sell drugs for notorious gang queens called the Supreme Team.
When he decided that he didn't want to sell drugs

(24:19):
anymore after they tol him to kill someone and his
gun jammed, he went away to the army, came back
and became one of the highest ranked African American police
officers in New York City. He was Deputy Inspector. I
mean he has He was writing police reform. He has
double Masters and when he went on to Combat Jack
podcast to let kids know that I did it, you

(24:42):
can do it too, and wrote the best New York
Times bestselling novel. The Commissioner Ray Kelly found out his
past and they tried to take his pension. His stripes
everything that he earned and worked for they tried to
take away from him because of what he did in
his past. So I'm looking forward to getting that done
as well too. Okay, well, you got your your work

(25:05):
cut out for you. But I like to make I like,
I like to make history cool. I call you know,
everybody has their lane. Fifty has his lane. Um, Lena
Waite has her lane, has a lane. I like to
make history cool. I like I call it entertainment. I
learned that from terres one. You're educating and you're entertaining
at the same time. That works for me. All right,
Well how about this, um, so that the people can

(25:28):
keep up with you. Uh. Let's let's uh lest your
social media websites anything like that, just so folks can
uh stay stay tuned, stay tapped. In my instagram is
Mark Kuan that's at m A R k U A
N N and uh Mark Kuan smith dot com is
my website. Okay, all right, perfect man. Well listen, thank

(25:50):
you for coming on UH and sharing your insight and
your stories, and of course thank you for your commitment
to tell these stories to entertainment and of course to
UH to black people. In my estimation, UM, and uh,
I can't wait to see what else is to come.

(26:12):
Please come back on the show. Thank you, Shall we
work with us? Yeah? Absolutely? Once again, ladies and gentlemen,
Today's guest is creator, actor, and executive producer of Hulu's
Godfather of Harlem, which is in season three MGM plus.
It's It's MGM plus Hulu and we're on Amazon. I
love it, I love it even more even more. There

(26:33):
you go, So once again, ladies and gentlemen, mister Mark
Quan Smith, thank you, sir, thank you. I'm Maggie been
Noan and today I'll leave you with this quote. Education
is the passport to the future or tomorrow, belongs to
those who prepare for it. Today. In addition to the
powerful comments share throughout today's conversation, he's encouraging word. It's

(26:57):
from Bumpy Johnson's long time associate, the late Great Malcolm X,
remind us of the importance of education and preparation in
creating a better future for ourselves and others, demonstrating a
prime example of how hard work, determination and talent can
lead to a lifetime of purposed experience in successful outcomes.

(27:19):
Let us leave today's discussion with mister Marquan Smith. Both
informed and inspired, looking forward to tuning into the Godfather
of Harlem or its entertaining yet historical account of some
of our community's most important history. More motivated to supporting
our Black creatives in all arenas and motivating each other
as we continue to strive for excellence. May we continue

(27:40):
to be committed to claiming our seats, elongating tables, telling
our authentic stories, and creating an ever brightening future for
ourselves and our community. This has been a production of
the Black Information Network. Today's show is produced by Chris Thompson.
If eve any thoughts you'd like to share, use a
red microphone talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app. We'd love

(28:02):
to hear from you. While you're there, be sure to
hit subscribe and download all of our episodes. Find your
daily podcast host at Ramsas Shaw on all social media.
We look forward to joining us tomorrow as we share
our news with our voice from our perspective right here
on the Black Information Network Daily Podcast