August 12, 2025 • 40 mins
With a multifaceted career both onscreen and behind the camera, Orlando Jones is the definition of a storyteller. And he’s no stranger to being called an outlaw– from "Mad TV" to Mr. Nancy, Orlando’s been shaking things up since the 90s!
To start off, Orlando tells TS Madison about his evolution in the entertainment industry. An early adapter of mobile media content, Orlando’s media company won the first ever virtual reality Emmy Award. Next, they get into the nuances of centering Black voices in entertainment– storytelling is a powerful tool, and Orlando wants to see more stories by and for Black America!
And of course, we have to get into the “American Gods” of it all. Madison thanks Orlando for his work shaping the show’s iconic, Mr. Nancy– not only playing the character on screen but developing the character in the writer’s room as well! The pair talk Mr. Nancy’s iconic monologues, the show’s reimagining of spirituality and mythology…and of course get into the details of Orlando’s controversial firing from the show– which prompted fan backlash and boycotts of the show’s third (and ultimately final) season.
That’s not all– in an exclusive moment, Orlando Jones reveals he’s just finished a Mr. Nancy novel! Could we see a role for TS Madison if (and when) it’s ever adapted for the screen???
"Outlaws" is hosted by TS Madison, and is part of the Outspoken Network from iHeartPodcasts, co-produced by Turtle Run Entertainment.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Every time I open up my mouth up and goes out.
Don't wait, do w two inches bed bed bed bum yourself?
Is that you get a job? Ricking honey, rick hoondre
chasing it all. I'm black like that, hebout living.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
It's color easy.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
This is Outlaws, but cheers medicine. Is it on? Is
it on? Honey? Is this thing recording? What's up? YouTube?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Blend, Twitter, Land, Instagram, land, snapchat and all the lands
across the land. This is your grow tears medicine coming
to you loud, living always and forever in color from
the Outlaws podcast with me like it wouldn't be nothing
what nobody else, because I'm most definitely an outlaw now listen,
every time I have a guest on the show, my
(01:06):
guests are usually people who have went against the grain.
They've done some things, honey, where they stood, they stood,
and they and whoever they are, and this is why
they've been labeled outlaws. Because everything I do, I do
it and I stand in the motherfucker because ain't nobody
gonna whoop me?
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Okay, it is my.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Honor to have this gentleman here, who I have watched.
I've watched countless shows I've watched movies. I've watched his
career and when I was a butcher queen and right
before I turned over to a woman, I wanted to
(01:49):
be an actor because I would see this man making
me laugh so much. Ladies, gentlemen, put your hands together.
Matter of fact, I'm gonna let him introduce himself. Oh wow,
So we have this on our show. It's called talker shit. Okay,
this area of the show, it's where you where you
(02:10):
tell us who you are, what you do, what you're
proud of.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
This is your time to shine.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Like in this part, you tell us my name is,
I got this Grammy, I got this emmy, I got
this award, I've been nominated for this, I got this,
I got these many times of move This is the
area of the time where you brag on your motherfucking self,
where you come at your shell and you tell the
people because you.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Know, I don't want you.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
I don't want no humility in this. I know it's
black people. They tell us that we got to sit
down and be humble. I don't want none of that
in this. Okay, I want you to talk to your
motherfucking shit and tell them people who you are.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
My name's a Orlando Jones, and I'd probably say all
rebels are welcome. I like rebels and outlaws like shaking
shit the fuck up. I've always liked to shake the
shit up, and I like to shake it up in
your face because I ain't no other way to shake
(03:10):
the shit up. Right when I'm all hide it, that
seemed like some bullshit. So as a storyteller, that's what
I think I've done with my career. I got to
tell motherfucker's up yours for seven up and write a
campaign I'm from bringing me a bunch of money to
understand how to talk to young people about rebellion culture.
(03:32):
I got to launch reality television on FX Network and
do all of what now people call normal television, but
they don't realize It was Tom Bergeron and Jeff Probes
and me and Phil Cogan, and they went to do
Survivor and Hollywood Squares and Dancing with Stars and Amazing Race.
(03:54):
And I went to Mad TV and launched the second
longest run sketch comedy show in the history of network television.
I was the only writer and performer I left first.
I've been tenured in the Writers' Guild for thirty years
I did the first content that Viacom ever put on iTunes.
(04:18):
I was making content for mobile devices, for studios and
for myself. In two thousand and five, I was consulting
networks and studios on building platforms and concepts like best
Available Device. Meaning the traditional television business as we know
it is based on people making money off advertising dollars. Right,
(04:42):
that's the whole game. My first job is a different world,
biggest night in the history of television cosby a different world, cheers,
wings La law damn. Rather forty million people, nobody changes
the channel. That is the entire basis for the in
(05:02):
television business. You want forty million people watching overnight. Now,
you ain't even got five million people watching overnight unless
it's the Super Bowl or NFL game. Because you watch
everything in bits online over here. You don't watch like
that no more so. The business I came into was
doing that, and I was writing for that right as
(05:25):
a writer producer. Long before anybody saw me in front
of a camera, I'd already produced one hundred episode of television,
created reality television, launched a couple of bands, put Kanye on,
gave him his break, gave him Maroon five their break
put David Banner on when nobody was messing with any
of them cats on my show. So for me, I don't.
(05:49):
I'm not. You know, my job is to come smash,
I Hulk Hawk, come smash, and then I go handle
my business. Otherwise, that's that's how we do it. I
try and bring humility to it and that I'm a
human and I respect working with other humans. But if
you came to play with me, that's not probably not
gonna work out for you. So good called hunk on
(06:09):
comp smash. Oh yeah, that will hug do Yeah, what
you want? What you want to do? Kiss you?
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I kiss you.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Still.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
I'm sitting here in Glee with you running down your
resume like this, because you know, people will act as
if like whoa who is that?
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Or what do they do? You know, you know how
people try to do well? Yeah, Well, the funny thing
is they talking to me as an actor. They don't
realize I've been a writer, producer, actor, musician, director for
twenty five thirty years. They just know this part. There
are people that have no idea that I have had
a you know, major comedy career right in movies and
(06:58):
all that they only know me as a dramatic actor
because I you know, I don't. I mean, aside from
abbot elementary stuff like that. I mean, I've been pretty
heavy in the drama game since two thousand and ten,
so you know, you know, I like mister Nancy and
American Gods and good Lord Bird and you know, Sleepy Hollow.
All those guys didn't not funny, you know what I mean.
(07:20):
Mister Nancy's kind of funny, but Frank Irving is an asshole.
He ain't funny at all. But you know what I mean,
but a fun character create. But again, I wrote mister Nancy,
I produced that show when it was a mess. I
consulting produced it and land the ship, you know, when
they had all their problems. I mean, then they got
mad at me because I landed the ship. But I
mean that's what insecurity breeds. But I didn't do it
(07:43):
for them. That was the point. I did exactly what
I wanted to do. I said exactly what I wanted
to say it and then with viral twice yes, so
you know, I'm like, try again, bitches.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
I am like I'm absorbing all of this because like
I've been watching you for so long and I love
to hear I just love to hear that, like I
love to hear you.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I did this. This is what I did. I am this,
I did this.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Yeah, I put it to you this way. My company
won the first Virtual Reality Emmy in twenty fifteen. Right,
we built the Sleepy Hollow virtual reality experience. You all
of a sudden inoculus in the sleepy hollow cemetery, looking around,
it's creepy. Out of the mist comes to Ichobah Crane.
He says, be careful, headless and spotted in the area.
(08:36):
If you make a move, you could die. Wish you godspeed,
and you hear headless galloping up behind you and timed
off your turnaround. He dismounts and swings his axe at you,
and you reflexively duck. That's the virtual reality experience. You
take off the oculus, We snap your picture. We point
to the screen. There's your head chopped off in the
(08:57):
sleepy hollow cemetery. You share it around your social media channels,
and we data collect the audience. We put it in
San Diego Comic Con. We ran four thy seven hundred
people through it over the course of a weekend. And
we did that for Fox when we won the first
Virtual Reality Emmy for storytelling and Virtual Reality. Right, So
when I was doing that, these tools trying to talk
(09:19):
to me about what acting role I was doing this week.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
And you're like, I'm over here making virtual reality.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
I am. I'm trying to storytell in a different medium
that doesn't convey empathy by looking at somebody else. It
conveys empathy by it happening to you, you know what
I mean. That's the way VR is. So I'm trying
to It's really a code writing sonic. It's a different
type of storytelling. So I just thought it was funny that,
(09:47):
you know, as people are like, man, you know, have
you won any Immys lately, I'm like, yeah, for VR,
but you know, not for acting.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I want to talk about, Well, you know what I've
got you here for to talk about. I want to
talk about mister Nancy. First of all, I'd like to say.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Thank you, kind of you.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Thank you for standing in your blackness, thank you for
making them see us, thank you for not backing down
in your blackness, thank you, thank you for not trying
to conform. Thank you for being a voice, the voice
(10:44):
in a space like that. Show started to really make
me understand the different aspects of like im as a
trans person, you're or anywhere under the queer umbrella.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
You're already hell bound, no question, ain't no questions about you.
You're going to hell.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
But then when you start looking at the way on
a show like American Gods, and you start looking at
the way how religion has broken up into so many different,
uh civilization cultures. You know, you're looking at that or whatever,
and it is like, Okay, well, where's ours? Because black
(11:25):
people have been christian from since I know.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Where is it?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
What we was worshiping before we got here, what we
knew before we were indoctrinated into Christianity? What was it?
And for you to write that Muslim, really yeah, for
you to write that, and for.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Us to I set back.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I might have rewound that so many times just to
be like, oh my god, you know. And and when
it when it when it, when it show aired, I
was like, he's going to get in trouble. I said
this to myself, like he gonna get in trouble because
it's too it's too strong.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
He is too it's just too much.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
He's the funniest part of the thing. The first speech
from American Gods on the Slave Ship was written by
Brian Fuller and Michael Green. And Brian Fuller is a
member of the LGB DQ plus, as I like to say,
seemen receptive community, because you got seemen receptive and then
(12:32):
you got seeman denial. Yeah, yeah, yeah, even if you
are denier, you are sometimes receptive. But that's a whole
nother discussion you know, need to get into.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
But those are two white guys, and.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
The first speech is so beautifully crafted, and I had
a great meeting with those guys. And Brian's a great writer,
and so is Michael. But our collaboration, what we were
able to do to bring it to life, to me,
speaks to the beauty of art. When you put real
storytellers together, suddenly these ideas and constructs of race and
(13:10):
who and all that bullshit becomes unimportant. Right. Brian was
the type of guy who has been fighting as a
person and a member of your community his entire life.
And in American Gods, he was able to show love
in so many different colors and flavors and flowers. Right,
(13:32):
And when we talked about mixed and Nancy, that was
part of it. Like, by the time you get to
season two and you see him with Thor mm hm,
and you realize this dude is seducing Thor. What is
what is about to happen? Right? And you realize he's
(13:55):
from a matriarchy, so he doesn't see men as having
any value, not like women, not from where he's from,
because that's the culture he's from. Right. These just sort
of ideas that people think are supposedly revolutionary. It's totally true.
The Akan people of Ghana are a matrilineal society where
(14:15):
men cannot rule, and that is where he came from.
That's why he is always talking about Sheba. He's always
talking about the black goddess only that's what he values,
nothing else. And that's what I think was the most
(14:37):
controversial of it. I think that's what pushed the button
more than anything, because that's the part I wouldn't let
go of. So in season two, by the time you
see the second speech that goes viral, the one that
I wrote in the Funeral Home. Yes, suddenly there was
no first. I don't think they expected me to be
able to write something else that would go viral. I
(15:00):
think they thought that I could, right until on the
same level as Brian Fuller and Michael Green, and frankly,
the person who I think had that confidence was really
Neil Gaming, because he was the person that asked me
to do it. So it's it's so crazy how it
all sort of came to be that somehow they had
(15:21):
handed me the reins and here I was to do it,
and I you know, and I didn't ask for him.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
But but you did it.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
I knew how to do it, and they needed me
to do it, and I did it, and I'm the
job I did had the impact it was it was
meant to have. And he wasn't a bust in season
two because these guys went away right. In fact, he
(15:50):
was still a standout in season two, and then season
two launched a far bigger numbers in season one. And
then suddenly you know, you've you've embarrassed some people and
you're not supposed to do that, and you know, you
out of pocket, and you know, next thing, I know,
they got me on slot machines and they perform. Was
(16:14):
supposed to go to work. They tell me I'm no
longer working there. The funniest part of the whole thing
was I didn't even get a phone call from the
people who I had a contract with. I got a
phone call from the studio. I'm from the network who
I had no cont not that contract with, had a
marketing deal with them, but not that It was hilarious.
I laughed, and they called you and they said, hey, hey,
(16:36):
we're not picking up your option. Just wanted to call
and let you know. I was like, well, I don't
have an option with you. Well you know what I mean. Oh, okay, yeah,
I guess I do.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Sure, Well, how did you did you fight it?
Speaker 4 (16:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Before did you think that that what you needed to do?
Speaker 1 (16:59):
It did what it needed to do.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Let me tell you what happened. This is the funniest
part of the whole story to me. I got fired.
I think it was September, like mid September is when
I got that phone call, And right abround the bottom
of September early October, the funeral home went viral, and
(17:24):
by the time we got to December, it was on fire.
It was crazy, and it had surpassed the slave ship,
which I never thought whatever, I didn't believe that was possible.
It just had it. It had taken on another life,
and at that point anything I could have hoped for
(17:49):
as an artist had happened. I mean, what you can
take it away from me, was there they were selling.
People were signing up to see what was going to
happen next with Miss Nancy.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
We wanted right, we wanted to know.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
And when they dropped me, people snatched their money back.
And that was power and it scared people, and I'm
sure it made me a pariah to something right. But
the funniest part was I remain a fan. I came
into that peer of heart to bring that character to
(18:28):
life to modern day, I fought for myself and my
fellow cast members when suddenly they were trying to change
the mythology but not tell any of us what was
going on. And I think got for Ian McShane, who
was probably my biggest supporter there, and Chris Burne and
all those casts, and you know, we got it done right.
(18:51):
And the work that I was being fired from, the
work that I had just done, was exploding. So for me,
my point was made right. Had that not happened, then
you could say who cares right? But to this day,
it's jumping platforms. It's the maddeness, it's the craziest thing.
(19:15):
It is it is absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
I think we we, especially we people of color, we
go back and we watched that because I think that's
when we felt we felt the most seen. We felt
our story was the most televised, it was the most unapologetic.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Yeah, the way they way they Unfortunately, I used to
I used to joke about, I'm gonna get in trouble
for this. I used to joke about driving Miss Daisy.
I grew up in the Deep South. I'm from Mobile, Alabama. Okay,
so I'm from nobody's fancy place nowhere. I am a Southerner.
(19:57):
I went from Mobile, Alabama, but the Columbus Georgia, Columbus,
Georgia to Greenville, South Carolina. Grenville to Tylerhasset, Florida, Tahasse
to Orangeburg, South Carolina. Right then we moved back to Greenville.
I went down to College of Charleston, Montreal, Canada, and
then I came out to Hollywood when I was nineteen
twenty writing in a different world. Right, I was a teenager.
(20:20):
That's how I got here, right early nineties. I'm invisible
in the room, but I'm a writer producer, so I'm
at all the parties. I'm at all the places. You know,
I'm everywhere right, but I'm invisible. I'm this twenty year
old blanket. Ain't nobody paid me no attention. So people
are entirely themselves. And I get that complete education with
the very folks who are still in charge to this day.
(20:43):
So I was so well educated in what this was
because I was invisible in the room.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
For so long and you were just absorbing.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Just how could you not. I'm sitting in the room
where all the decisions are being made. It was a
small town. I'm sitting on the biggest show in town.
By is there. I'm invisible. Ain't nobody checking, you know,
just collecting, just listening and learning and absorbing and getting
(21:12):
a clear picture. And I was so taken care of
by this black woman her name is Susan Fails, and
this white lady who was a former Detroit school teacher,
her name was Deborah All, and that Jewish lady and
that black lady. I was untouchable, and they looked out
(21:34):
for me and I sat in their offices and I
Susan took me everywhere to everything. She called me Booboo
her son, and you know, her mother was Josephine permis
one of the most famous stage actresses in the nineteen forties.
She was Harvard every educated her as a writer. Whitley
(21:57):
Gilbert in a Different World was based on her.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Oh yeah, and you wrote all of those things.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
She was writing that character. But my first writing job
in Hollywood was writing in a different world than she
was my boss. So I learned to write in a
writing room where she was the showrunner and you were nineteen,
I was nineteen. She had me for two years and
then I went and did the pilot of Martin and
Rock Live and Simbat Show and all that. But the
person who brought me in and hired me from my
(22:27):
first job was Susan Fails.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
So when you sit back and you watch these episodes
of the show that you've written on, and watch how
they've moved culture, because a lot of these things that
you've written on and done, you're part of moving culture.
Like moving Well, that was the plan.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
I mean when I came to listen, I didn't see
nobody that was They ain't have no flavor, you know
what I mean. Like from where I'm from, I saw
these dudes, they ain't have no seasoning whatsoever, you know
what I mean? But it's a tricky game, right, because
if you got too much seasoning, they don't want you
because you know what I mean obviously, Yeah, I mean
that's a little too much, right. They want something a
(23:16):
little bit more bland, right to productize, you know what
I mean. That's the idea, right, something to productize that
makes sense. Right. There's no interest in art, right. They
don't care about what story you're trying to tell. Right,
I'm trying to see me, see my aunties, see my
fans like everybody else. You know what I'm saying. I
don't see them. I see some folks, don't get me wrong,
(23:36):
but they're not.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
You don't see you.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
I don't see what I know to be Black American culture,
which is Black Southern culture, HBCU culture, music culture. You
know what I mean, geecheese gulla. Why be from dot
you understand so, you know, because I'm from that culture,
But I don't sound like it. People mistake me, is what.
(24:00):
And I get it. That's on purpose.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Because you were in the room absorbing, absorbing it all
and really knowing how to maneuver through you can't.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
The best advice I ever got was a guy named
Paul Aaron. I love him dearly. Paul Aaron told me,
he said, listen, kid, I'm gonna give you the one
jewel I know will help you through. I want you
to shut the fuck up when you go into this
writing room for the first fourteen weeks. I want you
(24:33):
to shut the fuck up. And I want you to
sit in that room and listen and get an understanding
for who the people are in the room, what they
respond to, and what they care about before you try
and pinch an idea. Don't do that. You're not gonna
impress them, but you so funny, funny. It's never gonna work.
(24:56):
Their egos are never gonna see you as better than them.
So what the fuck are you? Just shut the fuck
up for fourteen weeks, and I promise you everything will
be fine.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
And I took his advice and found out exactly what
you need to do, which kind of which kind of
speaks to Like when I was when I got the
chance to produce my own television show, I what was
very important to me was I had black people on
(25:31):
my staff.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
I have black.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Producers, black show running black because if we're telling a
story about me, it's no shade a white person ain't
gonna understand it.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
I can. I can sit there and tell them all day.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Okay, when you're making the greens, you put the hog
mog in there that you you know what I'm saying,
You take smoke turkey there.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
I could tell them this all day.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
That's the way. It's the time unless you run up
on a white person who grew up up under lady
who grew up that way. That white lady, she knows,
she knows how to do it. That white lady is
an anomaly. Correct, That's what I'm saying about Brian Fuller
and Michael Green. Those guys are anomalies. They might have skin,
but they are disenfranchised, so they get it right.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah, but there's that's few and far between, few and
far between.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
And so that's why it's important when when you know,
when you produce and stuff or you create stuff that's
around black, you gotta have black folks in this thing
because the story ain't gonna be told right.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Look, the people who I believe really stand Tinto's down
in that that I know personally are Reggie Bythewood and
Gina Prince Bythewood, their crews through and through the stories,
even the Gena chooses to do and the Reggie choosers
to do Swagger Woman King Are, you know, are extraordinarily black,
(26:57):
and the staff that they used by which to tell
those stories are also predominantly black. That is, they have
always stood tintoes down like that as storytellers in terms
of working with other storytellers of color in front of,
behind the camera, everywhere, everywhere, And that's obviously for them,
not to the exclusion of anybody white there. You know,
(27:19):
there are there's always a multicultural group, but you see
a lot of us there and in key positions in
working and I think that's kind of the thing. Art
is tricky like that, right, Like Dallas Hawson's one of
my best friends, one of my act like Scott, stories
don't exist, right, them both be so I don't know
(27:40):
what to tell you, you know what I mean? You know,
and I ain't even got into my Latino Asian brothers
and was like eating it up, you know what I mean?
So as musicians, so I think art is kind of different.
I exist in that space, right, But once you get
outside of art and you start talking about how those
cultures behave, you're right, you know, there are anomalies with
than them. But generally the people who are the most
(28:03):
persecuted are the ones that make the most beautiful art.
I mean, what's going to probably come out of Gaza
is going to be heartbreaking, but it's going to be beautiful,
beautiful art, because that's what comes out of pain. Yeah, yes,
that's that's what it is.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
So and you need the people that are truly, that
are truly telling the story to be there to tell
the story.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
So with me on my show, we took.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
A month before we were even able to shoot it
because those were my requirements. Our requirements were I need, Yeah,
those are my requirements.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Those are my requirements. I'm not trying to get in trouble.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
My requirements is that because it's like like I wanted
to show I didn't because it's like when people start
telling our stories, it gets diluted with something. And usually
when when we get green lit for something, sure, well,
how can we fit up how can we put this
to Dever, we don't everything no need to be diverse.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
The fact no, everything does not.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Sometimes it need to be all that, it needs to
be all negro. God damn it. Because if we're trying
to tell if we're doing the show. We're trying to
tell a story. They're not a part of that.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
If you've learned anything from Woody Allen as a storyteller,
his New York is a very, very very Jewish New
York with very few black faces even in the background
for New York City, because that's not the story he's telling.
Not to the exclusion of you, but not to the
(29:44):
inclusion of you either.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Right, So, I mean I understand it.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
So as such, every storyteller has the right to tell
it the way they want to tell it. I'm proud
of you for grabbing the reins, because what mostly happens
is people are more interested in being famous than they
are telling stories.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
I need I need people to know that when you're
watching something that got something to do with me.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
It's niggas to this bitch.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
Yes it's niggas in here, and you got to know
that that it's not again, it's not excluding you know,
our white counterparts.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
It's just that.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
When I was growing up, we was in this neighborhood
over here, they were in over there. We went hold
of hands going down the street. We had we were
in separate neighborhoods. And when we start talking about when
we start telling our story and saying why we were
over there seeing, what I think tends to happen is
people don't want to They don't want to admit how
(30:40):
divided we were at how divided we alreadyn't want to
admit that, and they want to be like, oh, when
we all was together, know we were not.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
No, that's not what happened. What happened was.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
What what happened was right here on the paper is
it's this saying math a patient practication and according to
this your paper. This ain't my paper, that's your paper. Yeah,
I'm free Now. I don't know why you thought you
had to write on a piece of paper I was free.
I don't know why you thought that necessary. That had
not in my business. Yes, I knew I was free
(31:14):
the whole damn time. But thank you, I guess, thank
you for this paper that telling me I'm I'm free.
But you know what you did because see I got
this fucking paper a bunch of nights on it.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
But the gag is we should have never had that paper.
You should have never owned us in the beginning.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
You know, WB de boys tell us a very interesting
story about how that paper came into existence. And in
the comedy of this is that this story, I don't
even know what political world it would fall under, but
it's just the story, and it's the truth of what happened.
What happened was there was no such thing as indentured
servitude in the uh. I mean, there was only indentured
(31:52):
servitude in the American colonies in the fifteenth and sixteenth century.
There weren't no slaves. There wasn't even a concept of race,
like nobody gapers shit. People were all kind of color.
So what literally happened was there was a very very
short number of white women. Because if you were well
to do, white women, why the fuck was you getting
on a boat coming anywhere over the water for a year?
(32:12):
Would these rough you into what to get raped? No,
thank you, sir, you weren't taking that trip. So the
white women who made that trip often worked as indentured
servants next to black men, and subsequently did not wish
to marry white men that they had previously worked for.
They married the black men, and they were having biracial children,
and biracial children was becoming a majority, and it was
(32:35):
a norm, and it was nothing weird about it, and
nobody cared, and wealthy white men and business owners had
a problem, and that is that the price was rising
for the cost of labor because these new biracial kids
were not indentured servants and they weren't second class citizens,
so they weren't about to play your game. They demanded more,
(32:55):
and they needed a way to suppress wages, and they
also needed to know a way to move what was
happening separate this sort of unholy alliance between white women
marrying these black men and producing these workers who were
too expensive and way too arrogant. And as such, they
created the concept of race that they inscribed in law
(33:18):
to say that if you had pigment, well then you're
an automatic second class citizen, and then you could be
a slave in essence. And the guy who made the
case for it, Anthony Johnson is his name. Take a look.
He was a black man, He was an indentured servant,
married a black woman, he became free. He became the
(33:41):
wealthiest slave owner, tobacco tobacco farmer in the American colonies.
Stupid wealthy. He had a blacksmith that worked for him
that wanted to leave after his seven years and go
work with a white man. He said, you can't leave,
and the dudes said, I work myself. I mean it's
like you worked your seven years. What are you talking about.
(34:02):
Of course I'm going to leave me and this dude's
gonna start our own business. I'm done. He sued the
white man for taking his worker, and he won, and
the court gave him the black man's life rights into perpetuity.
Oh god, and that legal precedent is what opened the
door for what we have been badly against so long.
(34:26):
But the door got opened and then exploited later because
white slave owners were like, well, what is this? He
gets to keep his black slaves into perpetuity, and we don't, Well,
that's not right. This, along with the growing problem, create
a narrative, and we end up with Birth of a Nation. Right,
(34:47):
black man's the boogeyman. Birth of a Nation? I guess
the first Hollywood blockbuster, right, What was the original title
of Birth of a Nation? What was it? The Clansman,
That's what it was. The Klansman. Was there title a
Birth of a Nation? The first Hollywood blockbuster? And they
thought that's not playing well, let's call it Birth of
a Nation. And then they changed it to that. So
(35:09):
with that context of how stories are being told, how
narrative is being driven, how perceptions are being pushed on people,
and my work be a doctor lead mister Nancy in
your work. What I love about you is that we
are pushing against that culture, saying that despite where you
come from, you can still be all of these fucking
(35:33):
things no matter who you are, and that liberation has
nothing to do with race, but everything to do with race.
At the same time, I don't believe it to be
the exclusion of anyone. Fuck I don't want anybody to
be excluded, But I don't think we got to be
stepped on all the motherfucking time. Me too, that's the
ludicrous concept. And look, right now, we're the number two minority.
(35:54):
You know, Latinos are the number one minority in the country.
So the real question is what y'all doing to get
us back to number one? Who you got pregnant lately?
Y'all need to get y'all game together, y'all need to
get y'all.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Orlando. I love you much. I love your work. Obviously
I didn't know. I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Deeply how deep you were in the works. So I've
been loving your work without even knowing it.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
This was your work.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
I thank you immensely for American for your I ain't
watching it.
Speaker 4 (36:31):
I just finished the novel. By the way, I just
finished the Annanci novel. Are you going to Yeah? I
literally I got to get it out to my publisher.
Are you My publishers watching and asking why I'm not
getting you your manuscript and I'm sitting here. I'm sorry,
but Madison hack All, but this is the thing, right,
you know what I'm saying. Now we know we're getting
(36:52):
a missing Yes, you are. You're getting one. So, I mean,
I was already doing it, so I was like, I'm
just gonna write the world I know I want to write.
So I'm happy with it. It's really dope. So I'm
excited about you.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Oh my god, I'm almso about to cry.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
So yeah, you'll get him, So thank him and his
daughter after Nikki.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Oh my god, I'm so excited. I'm so excited, and
thank you.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
I love you. Thank you for coming on my show.
Thank you for that exclusive. Is that an exclusive we
give miss Nicks?
Speaker 4 (37:25):
Yeah? Oh that's right, this is an exclusive, that's right. Yeah,
I haven't told anybody that's right exclusive. Oh my god,
I mean for you. Yeah, Oh my god, Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
I'm too excited, like like, bro, it can be fun.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Oh god, Can I get a part in it?
Speaker 4 (37:47):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (37:49):
You know, I'm a bihicle's in my own in my
own life. Yes, but I'm but I'm but I'm I'm
the goddess of all with all the part by the way, yes, yes, yes, absolutely,
It's all about the gods and goddesses. Write me some
kind of stuff that I'll be in there, you know,
because I'm definitely a seductress.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
I definitely you will fit perfectly. I got you. You
don't even have to think about this. I got you.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
Oh god, I'm excited. Listen, ladies and gentlemen. This is
the Orlando Jones and we have just outlawed on the
Outlaws podcast.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
We love you, O Little. Tell them where they can
follow you and the Orlando Jones. You know, Facebook, Instagram,
x snapping, the chats, TikTok uh, you know everywhere. Yes, absolutely,
and I'm actually back on social media. I was kind
of like, you did go for a second, girl, You
(38:46):
did go for a second. You know, Facebook got the
change in the algorithm, and then I had like million's
phone and somebody jacked my page. And when I called Facebook,
I was like, yo, somebody jacked my page, Like what's popping?
And they were say, oh no, we can't, we can't
do nothing about that. I was like, wait, wait, wait,
the hackers got more control of us. Then you object
(39:08):
all the time I put and then you're just like
you know what. I was like, I'm done with y'all.
I was, And that's when I was like, let me
just take a break because I just spent all this time.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
But you got to come listen. With this project that
you're working on, you got to get back.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
Oh no, I'm in it. I'm in it. I'm about
to relaunch everything YouTube, the whole nuns.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
And I'm gonna be so acitive over there pushing all
this stuff.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
Oh girl, come on, yeah, yes, no one that mister
Nancy Bag Oh no, yeah, mister min Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
And then I oh, all right, y'all, y'all heard it
here first, honey, Just to make sure y'all tune into
the podcast and keep your eyes open because you never
know where're gonna find.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
The doll Hey.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Outlaws is a production of the Outspoken Network from iHeart
Podcasts and Turtle Run Entertainment Come created by Tyler Rabinowitz
and Olivia Piece. I'm your host Tias Madison.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
We are executive produced by Tyler Rabinowitz, Maya Howard and
Tias Madison. Our supervising producer is Jessica Krinchich and our
producers are Joey pat and Common Bra. Our video editor
is Tyler Rabinowitz and our sound editor is Just crimechicch
Our associate producer is Trent high Tower Special thanks to
our producer's assistant, Daniel Rabino Wiz.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
Our theme song is composed by Wazi Merritt.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Our show art is by Pablo Martinina Got You Next Week, Honey,
Every time I open up my mouth up and goes out.
Don't wait, do w two inches bed bed bed bum yourself?
Is that you get a job? Ricking honey, rick hoondre
chasing it all. I'm black like that, hebout living.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
It's color easy.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
This is Outlaws, but cheers medicine. Is it on? Is
it on? Honey? Is this thing recording? What's up? YouTube?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Blend, Twitter, Land, Instagram, land, snapchat and all the lands
across the land. This is your grow tears medicine coming
to you loud, living always and forever in color from
the Outlaws podcast with me like it wouldn't be nothing
what nobody else, because I'm most definitely an outlaw now listen,
every time I have a guest on the show, my
(01:06):
guests are usually people who have went against the grain.
They've done some things, honey, where they stood, they stood,
and they and whoever they are, and this is why
they've been labeled outlaws. Because everything I do, I do
it and I stand in the motherfucker because ain't nobody
gonna whoop me?
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Okay, it is my.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Honor to have this gentleman here, who I have watched.
I've watched countless shows I've watched movies. I've watched his
career and when I was a butcher queen and right
before I turned over to a woman, I wanted to
(01:49):
be an actor because I would see this man making
me laugh so much. Ladies, gentlemen, put your hands together.
Matter of fact, I'm gonna let him introduce himself. Oh wow,
So we have this on our show. It's called talker shit. Okay,
this area of the show, it's where you where you
(02:10):
tell us who you are, what you do, what you're
proud of.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
This is your time to shine.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Like in this part, you tell us my name is,
I got this Grammy, I got this emmy, I got
this award, I've been nominated for this, I got this,
I got these many times of move This is the
area of the time where you brag on your motherfucking self,
where you come at your shell and you tell the
people because you.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Know, I don't want you.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
I don't want no humility in this. I know it's
black people. They tell us that we got to sit
down and be humble. I don't want none of that
in this. Okay, I want you to talk to your
motherfucking shit and tell them people who you are.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
My name's a Orlando Jones, and I'd probably say all
rebels are welcome. I like rebels and outlaws like shaking
shit the fuck up. I've always liked to shake the
shit up, and I like to shake it up in
your face because I ain't no other way to shake
(03:10):
the shit up. Right when I'm all hide it, that
seemed like some bullshit. So as a storyteller, that's what
I think I've done with my career. I got to
tell motherfucker's up yours for seven up and write a
campaign I'm from bringing me a bunch of money to
understand how to talk to young people about rebellion culture.
(03:32):
I got to launch reality television on FX Network and
do all of what now people call normal television, but
they don't realize It was Tom Bergeron and Jeff Probes
and me and Phil Cogan, and they went to do
Survivor and Hollywood Squares and Dancing with Stars and Amazing Race.
(03:54):
And I went to Mad TV and launched the second
longest run sketch comedy show in the history of network television.
I was the only writer and performer I left first.
I've been tenured in the Writers' Guild for thirty years
I did the first content that Viacom ever put on iTunes.
(04:18):
I was making content for mobile devices, for studios and
for myself. In two thousand and five, I was consulting
networks and studios on building platforms and concepts like best
Available Device. Meaning the traditional television business as we know
it is based on people making money off advertising dollars. Right,
(04:42):
that's the whole game. My first job is a different world,
biggest night in the history of television cosby a different world, cheers,
wings La law damn. Rather forty million people, nobody changes
the channel. That is the entire basis for the in
(05:02):
television business. You want forty million people watching overnight. Now,
you ain't even got five million people watching overnight unless
it's the Super Bowl or NFL game. Because you watch
everything in bits online over here. You don't watch like
that no more so. The business I came into was
doing that, and I was writing for that right as
(05:25):
a writer producer. Long before anybody saw me in front
of a camera, I'd already produced one hundred episode of television,
created reality television, launched a couple of bands, put Kanye on,
gave him his break, gave him Maroon five their break
put David Banner on when nobody was messing with any
of them cats on my show. So for me, I don't.
(05:49):
I'm not. You know, my job is to come smash,
I Hulk Hawk, come smash, and then I go handle
my business. Otherwise, that's that's how we do it. I
try and bring humility to it and that I'm a
human and I respect working with other humans. But if
you came to play with me, that's not probably not
gonna work out for you. So good called hunk on
(06:09):
comp smash. Oh yeah, that will hug do Yeah, what
you want? What you want to do? Kiss you?
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I kiss you.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Still.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
I'm sitting here in Glee with you running down your
resume like this, because you know, people will act as
if like whoa who is that?
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Or what do they do? You know, you know how
people try to do well? Yeah, Well, the funny thing
is they talking to me as an actor. They don't
realize I've been a writer, producer, actor, musician, director for
twenty five thirty years. They just know this part. There
are people that have no idea that I have had
a you know, major comedy career right in movies and
(06:58):
all that they only know me as a dramatic actor
because I you know, I don't. I mean, aside from
abbot elementary stuff like that. I mean, I've been pretty
heavy in the drama game since two thousand and ten,
so you know, you know, I like mister Nancy and
American Gods and good Lord Bird and you know, Sleepy Hollow.
All those guys didn't not funny, you know what I mean.
(07:20):
Mister Nancy's kind of funny, but Frank Irving is an asshole.
He ain't funny at all. But you know what I mean,
but a fun character create. But again, I wrote mister Nancy,
I produced that show when it was a mess. I
consulting produced it and land the ship, you know, when
they had all their problems. I mean, then they got
mad at me because I landed the ship. But I
mean that's what insecurity breeds. But I didn't do it
(07:43):
for them. That was the point. I did exactly what
I wanted to do. I said exactly what I wanted
to say it and then with viral twice yes, so
you know, I'm like, try again, bitches.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
I am like I'm absorbing all of this because like
I've been watching you for so long and I love
to hear I just love to hear that, like I
love to hear you.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I did this. This is what I did. I am this,
I did this.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Yeah, I put it to you this way. My company
won the first Virtual Reality Emmy in twenty fifteen. Right,
we built the Sleepy Hollow virtual reality experience. You all
of a sudden inoculus in the sleepy hollow cemetery, looking around,
it's creepy. Out of the mist comes to Ichobah Crane.
He says, be careful, headless and spotted in the area.
(08:36):
If you make a move, you could die. Wish you godspeed,
and you hear headless galloping up behind you and timed
off your turnaround. He dismounts and swings his axe at you,
and you reflexively duck. That's the virtual reality experience. You
take off the oculus, We snap your picture. We point
to the screen. There's your head chopped off in the
(08:57):
sleepy hollow cemetery. You share it around your social media channels,
and we data collect the audience. We put it in
San Diego Comic Con. We ran four thy seven hundred
people through it over the course of a weekend. And
we did that for Fox when we won the first
Virtual Reality Emmy for storytelling and Virtual Reality. Right, So
when I was doing that, these tools trying to talk
(09:19):
to me about what acting role I was doing this week.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
And you're like, I'm over here making virtual reality.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
I am. I'm trying to storytell in a different medium
that doesn't convey empathy by looking at somebody else. It
conveys empathy by it happening to you, you know what
I mean. That's the way VR is. So I'm trying
to It's really a code writing sonic. It's a different
type of storytelling. So I just thought it was funny that,
(09:47):
you know, as people are like, man, you know, have
you won any Immys lately, I'm like, yeah, for VR,
but you know, not for acting.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I want to talk about, Well, you know what I've
got you here for to talk about. I want to
talk about mister Nancy. First of all, I'd like to say.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Thank you, kind of you.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Thank you for standing in your blackness, thank you for
making them see us, thank you for not backing down
in your blackness, thank you, thank you for not trying
to conform. Thank you for being a voice, the voice
(10:44):
in a space like that. Show started to really make
me understand the different aspects of like im as a
trans person, you're or anywhere under the queer umbrella.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
You're already hell bound, no question, ain't no questions about you.
You're going to hell.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
But then when you start looking at the way on
a show like American Gods, and you start looking at
the way how religion has broken up into so many different,
uh civilization cultures. You know, you're looking at that or whatever,
and it is like, Okay, well, where's ours? Because black
(11:25):
people have been christian from since I know.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Where is it?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
What we was worshiping before we got here, what we
knew before we were indoctrinated into Christianity? What was it?
And for you to write that Muslim, really yeah, for
you to write that, and for.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Us to I set back.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I might have rewound that so many times just to
be like, oh my god, you know. And and when
it when it when it, when it show aired, I
was like, he's going to get in trouble. I said
this to myself, like he gonna get in trouble because
it's too it's too strong.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
He is too it's just too much.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
He's the funniest part of the thing. The first speech
from American Gods on the Slave Ship was written by
Brian Fuller and Michael Green. And Brian Fuller is a
member of the LGB DQ plus, as I like to say,
seemen receptive community, because you got seemen receptive and then
(12:32):
you got seeman denial. Yeah, yeah, yeah, even if you
are denier, you are sometimes receptive. But that's a whole
nother discussion you know, need to get into.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
But those are two white guys, and.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
The first speech is so beautifully crafted, and I had
a great meeting with those guys. And Brian's a great writer,
and so is Michael. But our collaboration, what we were
able to do to bring it to life, to me,
speaks to the beauty of art. When you put real
storytellers together, suddenly these ideas and constructs of race and
(13:10):
who and all that bullshit becomes unimportant. Right. Brian was
the type of guy who has been fighting as a
person and a member of your community his entire life.
And in American Gods, he was able to show love
in so many different colors and flavors and flowers. Right,
(13:32):
And when we talked about mixed and Nancy, that was
part of it. Like, by the time you get to
season two and you see him with Thor mm hm,
and you realize this dude is seducing Thor. What is
what is about to happen? Right? And you realize he's
(13:55):
from a matriarchy, so he doesn't see men as having
any value, not like women, not from where he's from,
because that's the culture he's from. Right. These just sort
of ideas that people think are supposedly revolutionary. It's totally true.
The Akan people of Ghana are a matrilineal society where
(14:15):
men cannot rule, and that is where he came from.
That's why he is always talking about Sheba. He's always
talking about the black goddess only that's what he values,
nothing else. And that's what I think was the most
(14:37):
controversial of it. I think that's what pushed the button
more than anything, because that's the part I wouldn't let
go of. So in season two, by the time you
see the second speech that goes viral, the one that
I wrote in the Funeral Home. Yes, suddenly there was
no first. I don't think they expected me to be
able to write something else that would go viral. I
(15:00):
think they thought that I could, right until on the
same level as Brian Fuller and Michael Green, and frankly,
the person who I think had that confidence was really
Neil Gaming, because he was the person that asked me
to do it. So it's it's so crazy how it
all sort of came to be that somehow they had
(15:21):
handed me the reins and here I was to do it,
and I you know, and I didn't ask for him.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
But but you did it.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
I knew how to do it, and they needed me
to do it, and I did it, and I'm the
job I did had the impact it was it was
meant to have. And he wasn't a bust in season
two because these guys went away right. In fact, he
(15:50):
was still a standout in season two, and then season
two launched a far bigger numbers in season one. And
then suddenly you know, you've you've embarrassed some people and
you're not supposed to do that, and you know, you
out of pocket, and you know, next thing, I know,
they got me on slot machines and they perform. Was
(16:14):
supposed to go to work. They tell me I'm no
longer working there. The funniest part of the whole thing
was I didn't even get a phone call from the
people who I had a contract with. I got a
phone call from the studio. I'm from the network who
I had no cont not that contract with, had a
marketing deal with them, but not that It was hilarious.
I laughed, and they called you and they said, hey, hey,
(16:36):
we're not picking up your option. Just wanted to call
and let you know. I was like, well, I don't
have an option with you. Well you know what I mean. Oh, okay, yeah,
I guess I do.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Sure, Well, how did you did you fight it?
Speaker 4 (16:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Before did you think that that what you needed to do?
Speaker 1 (16:59):
It did what it needed to do.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Let me tell you what happened. This is the funniest
part of the whole story to me. I got fired.
I think it was September, like mid September is when
I got that phone call, And right abround the bottom
of September early October, the funeral home went viral, and
(17:24):
by the time we got to December, it was on fire.
It was crazy, and it had surpassed the slave ship,
which I never thought whatever, I didn't believe that was possible.
It just had it. It had taken on another life,
and at that point anything I could have hoped for
(17:49):
as an artist had happened. I mean, what you can
take it away from me, was there they were selling.
People were signing up to see what was going to
happen next with Miss Nancy.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
We wanted right, we wanted to know.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
And when they dropped me, people snatched their money back.
And that was power and it scared people, and I'm
sure it made me a pariah to something right. But
the funniest part was I remain a fan. I came
into that peer of heart to bring that character to
(18:28):
life to modern day, I fought for myself and my
fellow cast members when suddenly they were trying to change
the mythology but not tell any of us what was
going on. And I think got for Ian McShane, who
was probably my biggest supporter there, and Chris Burne and
all those casts, and you know, we got it done right.
(18:51):
And the work that I was being fired from, the
work that I had just done, was exploding. So for me,
my point was made right. Had that not happened, then
you could say who cares right? But to this day,
it's jumping platforms. It's the maddeness, it's the craziest thing.
(19:15):
It is it is absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
I think we we, especially we people of color, we
go back and we watched that because I think that's
when we felt we felt the most seen. We felt
our story was the most televised, it was the most unapologetic.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Yeah, the way they way they Unfortunately, I used to
I used to joke about, I'm gonna get in trouble
for this. I used to joke about driving Miss Daisy.
I grew up in the Deep South. I'm from Mobile, Alabama. Okay,
so I'm from nobody's fancy place nowhere. I am a Southerner.
(19:57):
I went from Mobile, Alabama, but the Columbus Georgia, Columbus,
Georgia to Greenville, South Carolina. Grenville to Tylerhasset, Florida, Tahasse
to Orangeburg, South Carolina. Right then we moved back to Greenville.
I went down to College of Charleston, Montreal, Canada, and
then I came out to Hollywood when I was nineteen
twenty writing in a different world. Right, I was a teenager.
(20:20):
That's how I got here, right early nineties. I'm invisible
in the room, but I'm a writer producer, so I'm
at all the parties. I'm at all the places. You know,
I'm everywhere right, but I'm invisible. I'm this twenty year
old blanket. Ain't nobody paid me no attention. So people
are entirely themselves. And I get that complete education with
the very folks who are still in charge to this day.
(20:43):
So I was so well educated in what this was
because I was invisible in the room.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
For so long and you were just absorbing.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Just how could you not. I'm sitting in the room
where all the decisions are being made. It was a
small town. I'm sitting on the biggest show in town.
By is there. I'm invisible. Ain't nobody checking, you know,
just collecting, just listening and learning and absorbing and getting
(21:12):
a clear picture. And I was so taken care of
by this black woman her name is Susan Fails, and
this white lady who was a former Detroit school teacher,
her name was Deborah All, and that Jewish lady and
that black lady. I was untouchable, and they looked out
(21:34):
for me and I sat in their offices and I
Susan took me everywhere to everything. She called me Booboo
her son, and you know, her mother was Josephine permis
one of the most famous stage actresses in the nineteen forties.
She was Harvard every educated her as a writer. Whitley
(21:57):
Gilbert in a Different World was based on her.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Oh yeah, and you wrote all of those things.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
She was writing that character. But my first writing job
in Hollywood was writing in a different world than she
was my boss. So I learned to write in a
writing room where she was the showrunner and you were nineteen,
I was nineteen. She had me for two years and
then I went and did the pilot of Martin and
Rock Live and Simbat Show and all that. But the
person who brought me in and hired me from my
(22:27):
first job was Susan Fails.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
So when you sit back and you watch these episodes
of the show that you've written on, and watch how
they've moved culture, because a lot of these things that
you've written on and done, you're part of moving culture.
Like moving Well, that was the plan.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
I mean when I came to listen, I didn't see
nobody that was They ain't have no flavor, you know
what I mean. Like from where I'm from, I saw
these dudes, they ain't have no seasoning whatsoever, you know
what I mean? But it's a tricky game, right, because
if you got too much seasoning, they don't want you
because you know what I mean obviously, Yeah, I mean
that's a little too much, right. They want something a
(23:16):
little bit more bland, right to productize, you know what
I mean. That's the idea, right, something to productize that
makes sense. Right. There's no interest in art, right. They
don't care about what story you're trying to tell. Right,
I'm trying to see me, see my aunties, see my
fans like everybody else. You know what I'm saying. I
don't see them. I see some folks, don't get me wrong,
(23:36):
but they're not.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
You don't see you.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
I don't see what I know to be Black American culture,
which is Black Southern culture, HBCU culture, music culture. You
know what I mean, geecheese gulla. Why be from dot
you understand so, you know, because I'm from that culture,
But I don't sound like it. People mistake me, is what.
(24:00):
And I get it. That's on purpose.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Because you were in the room absorbing, absorbing it all
and really knowing how to maneuver through you can't.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
The best advice I ever got was a guy named
Paul Aaron. I love him dearly. Paul Aaron told me,
he said, listen, kid, I'm gonna give you the one
jewel I know will help you through. I want you
to shut the fuck up when you go into this
writing room for the first fourteen weeks. I want you
(24:33):
to shut the fuck up. And I want you to
sit in that room and listen and get an understanding
for who the people are in the room, what they
respond to, and what they care about before you try
and pinch an idea. Don't do that. You're not gonna
impress them, but you so funny, funny. It's never gonna work.
(24:56):
Their egos are never gonna see you as better than them.
So what the fuck are you? Just shut the fuck
up for fourteen weeks, and I promise you everything will
be fine.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
And I took his advice and found out exactly what
you need to do, which kind of which kind of
speaks to Like when I was when I got the
chance to produce my own television show, I what was
very important to me was I had black people on
(25:31):
my staff.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
I have black.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Producers, black show running black because if we're telling a
story about me, it's no shade a white person ain't
gonna understand it.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
I can. I can sit there and tell them all day.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Okay, when you're making the greens, you put the hog
mog in there that you you know what I'm saying,
You take smoke turkey there.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
I could tell them this all day.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
That's the way. It's the time unless you run up
on a white person who grew up up under lady
who grew up that way. That white lady, she knows,
she knows how to do it. That white lady is
an anomaly. Correct, That's what I'm saying about Brian Fuller
and Michael Green. Those guys are anomalies. They might have skin,
but they are disenfranchised, so they get it right.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah, but there's that's few and far between, few and
far between.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
And so that's why it's important when when you know,
when you produce and stuff or you create stuff that's
around black, you gotta have black folks in this thing
because the story ain't gonna be told right.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Look, the people who I believe really stand Tinto's down
in that that I know personally are Reggie Bythewood and
Gina Prince Bythewood, their crews through and through the stories,
even the Gena chooses to do and the Reggie choosers
to do Swagger Woman King Are, you know, are extraordinarily black,
(26:57):
and the staff that they used by which to tell
those stories are also predominantly black. That is, they have
always stood tintoes down like that as storytellers in terms
of working with other storytellers of color in front of,
behind the camera, everywhere, everywhere, And that's obviously for them,
not to the exclusion of anybody white there. You know,
(27:19):
there are there's always a multicultural group, but you see
a lot of us there and in key positions in
working and I think that's kind of the thing. Art
is tricky like that, right, Like Dallas Hawson's one of
my best friends, one of my act like Scott, stories
don't exist, right, them both be so I don't know
(27:40):
what to tell you, you know what I mean? You know,
and I ain't even got into my Latino Asian brothers
and was like eating it up, you know what I mean?
So as musicians, so I think art is kind of different.
I exist in that space, right, But once you get
outside of art and you start talking about how those
cultures behave, you're right, you know, there are anomalies with
than them. But generally the people who are the most
(28:03):
persecuted are the ones that make the most beautiful art.
I mean, what's going to probably come out of Gaza
is going to be heartbreaking, but it's going to be beautiful,
beautiful art, because that's what comes out of pain. Yeah, yes,
that's that's what it is.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
So and you need the people that are truly, that
are truly telling the story to be there to tell
the story.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
So with me on my show, we took.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
A month before we were even able to shoot it
because those were my requirements. Our requirements were I need, Yeah,
those are my requirements.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Those are my requirements. I'm not trying to get in trouble.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
My requirements is that because it's like like I wanted
to show I didn't because it's like when people start
telling our stories, it gets diluted with something. And usually
when when we get green lit for something, sure, well,
how can we fit up how can we put this
to Dever, we don't everything no need to be diverse.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
The fact no, everything does not.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Sometimes it need to be all that, it needs to
be all negro. God damn it. Because if we're trying
to tell if we're doing the show. We're trying to
tell a story. They're not a part of that.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
If you've learned anything from Woody Allen as a storyteller,
his New York is a very, very very Jewish New
York with very few black faces even in the background
for New York City, because that's not the story he's telling.
Not to the exclusion of you, but not to the
(29:44):
inclusion of you either.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Right, So, I mean I understand it.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
So as such, every storyteller has the right to tell
it the way they want to tell it. I'm proud
of you for grabbing the reins, because what mostly happens
is people are more interested in being famous than they
are telling stories.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
I need I need people to know that when you're
watching something that got something to do with me.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
It's niggas to this bitch.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
Yes it's niggas in here, and you got to know
that that it's not again, it's not excluding you know,
our white counterparts.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
It's just that.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
When I was growing up, we was in this neighborhood
over here, they were in over there. We went hold
of hands going down the street. We had we were
in separate neighborhoods. And when we start talking about when
we start telling our story and saying why we were
over there seeing, what I think tends to happen is
people don't want to They don't want to admit how
(30:40):
divided we were at how divided we alreadyn't want to
admit that, and they want to be like, oh, when
we all was together, know we were not.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
No, that's not what happened. What happened was.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
What what happened was right here on the paper is
it's this saying math a patient practication and according to
this your paper. This ain't my paper, that's your paper. Yeah,
I'm free Now. I don't know why you thought you
had to write on a piece of paper I was free.
I don't know why you thought that necessary. That had
not in my business. Yes, I knew I was free
(31:14):
the whole damn time. But thank you, I guess, thank
you for this paper that telling me I'm I'm free.
But you know what you did because see I got
this fucking paper a bunch of nights on it.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
But the gag is we should have never had that paper.
You should have never owned us in the beginning.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
You know, WB de boys tell us a very interesting
story about how that paper came into existence. And in
the comedy of this is that this story, I don't
even know what political world it would fall under, but
it's just the story, and it's the truth of what happened.
What happened was there was no such thing as indentured
servitude in the uh. I mean, there was only indentured
(31:52):
servitude in the American colonies in the fifteenth and sixteenth century.
There weren't no slaves. There wasn't even a concept of race,
like nobody gapers shit. People were all kind of color.
So what literally happened was there was a very very
short number of white women. Because if you were well
to do, white women, why the fuck was you getting
on a boat coming anywhere over the water for a year?
(32:12):
Would these rough you into what to get raped? No,
thank you, sir, you weren't taking that trip. So the
white women who made that trip often worked as indentured
servants next to black men, and subsequently did not wish
to marry white men that they had previously worked for.
They married the black men, and they were having biracial children,
and biracial children was becoming a majority, and it was
(32:35):
a norm, and it was nothing weird about it, and
nobody cared, and wealthy white men and business owners had
a problem, and that is that the price was rising
for the cost of labor because these new biracial kids
were not indentured servants and they weren't second class citizens,
so they weren't about to play your game. They demanded more,
(32:55):
and they needed a way to suppress wages, and they
also needed to know a way to move what was
happening separate this sort of unholy alliance between white women
marrying these black men and producing these workers who were
too expensive and way too arrogant. And as such, they
created the concept of race that they inscribed in law
(33:18):
to say that if you had pigment, well then you're
an automatic second class citizen, and then you could be
a slave in essence. And the guy who made the
case for it, Anthony Johnson is his name. Take a look.
He was a black man, He was an indentured servant,
married a black woman, he became free. He became the
(33:41):
wealthiest slave owner, tobacco tobacco farmer in the American colonies.
Stupid wealthy. He had a blacksmith that worked for him
that wanted to leave after his seven years and go
work with a white man. He said, you can't leave,
and the dudes said, I work myself. I mean it's
like you worked your seven years. What are you talking about.
(34:02):
Of course I'm going to leave me and this dude's
gonna start our own business. I'm done. He sued the
white man for taking his worker, and he won, and
the court gave him the black man's life rights into perpetuity.
Oh god, and that legal precedent is what opened the
door for what we have been badly against so long.
(34:26):
But the door got opened and then exploited later because
white slave owners were like, well, what is this? He
gets to keep his black slaves into perpetuity, and we don't, Well,
that's not right. This, along with the growing problem, create
a narrative, and we end up with Birth of a Nation. Right,
(34:47):
black man's the boogeyman. Birth of a Nation? I guess
the first Hollywood blockbuster, right, What was the original title
of Birth of a Nation? What was it? The Clansman,
That's what it was. The Klansman. Was there title a
Birth of a Nation? The first Hollywood blockbuster? And they
thought that's not playing well, let's call it Birth of
a Nation. And then they changed it to that. So
(35:09):
with that context of how stories are being told, how
narrative is being driven, how perceptions are being pushed on people,
and my work be a doctor lead mister Nancy in
your work. What I love about you is that we
are pushing against that culture, saying that despite where you
come from, you can still be all of these fucking
(35:33):
things no matter who you are, and that liberation has
nothing to do with race, but everything to do with race.
At the same time, I don't believe it to be
the exclusion of anyone. Fuck I don't want anybody to
be excluded, But I don't think we got to be
stepped on all the motherfucking time. Me too, that's the
ludicrous concept. And look, right now, we're the number two minority.
(35:54):
You know, Latinos are the number one minority in the country.
So the real question is what y'all doing to get
us back to number one? Who you got pregnant lately?
Y'all need to get y'all game together, y'all need to
get y'all.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Orlando. I love you much. I love your work. Obviously
I didn't know. I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Deeply how deep you were in the works. So I've
been loving your work without even knowing it.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
This was your work.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
I thank you immensely for American for your I ain't
watching it.
Speaker 4 (36:31):
I just finished the novel. By the way, I just
finished the Annanci novel. Are you going to Yeah? I
literally I got to get it out to my publisher.
Are you My publishers watching and asking why I'm not
getting you your manuscript and I'm sitting here. I'm sorry,
but Madison hack All, but this is the thing, right,
you know what I'm saying. Now we know we're getting
(36:52):
a missing Yes, you are. You're getting one. So, I mean,
I was already doing it, so I was like, I'm
just gonna write the world I know I want to write.
So I'm happy with it. It's really dope. So I'm
excited about you.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Oh my god, I'm almso about to cry.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
So yeah, you'll get him, So thank him and his
daughter after Nikki.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Oh my god, I'm so excited. I'm so excited, and
thank you.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
I love you. Thank you for coming on my show.
Thank you for that exclusive. Is that an exclusive we
give miss Nicks?
Speaker 4 (37:25):
Yeah? Oh that's right, this is an exclusive, that's right. Yeah,
I haven't told anybody that's right exclusive. Oh my god,
I mean for you. Yeah, Oh my god, Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
I'm too excited, like like, bro, it can be fun.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Oh god, Can I get a part in it?
Speaker 4 (37:47):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (37:49):
You know, I'm a bihicle's in my own in my
own life. Yes, but I'm but I'm but I'm I'm
the goddess of all with all the part by the way, yes, yes, yes, absolutely,
It's all about the gods and goddesses. Write me some
kind of stuff that I'll be in there, you know,
because I'm definitely a seductress.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
I definitely you will fit perfectly. I got you. You
don't even have to think about this. I got you.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
Oh god, I'm excited. Listen, ladies and gentlemen. This is
the Orlando Jones and we have just outlawed on the
Outlaws podcast.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
We love you, O Little. Tell them where they can
follow you and the Orlando Jones. You know, Facebook, Instagram,
x snapping, the chats, TikTok uh, you know everywhere. Yes, absolutely,
and I'm actually back on social media. I was kind
of like, you did go for a second, girl, You
(38:46):
did go for a second. You know, Facebook got the
change in the algorithm, and then I had like million's
phone and somebody jacked my page. And when I called Facebook,
I was like, yo, somebody jacked my page, Like what's popping?
And they were say, oh no, we can't, we can't
do nothing about that. I was like, wait, wait, wait,
the hackers got more control of us. Then you object
(39:08):
all the time I put and then you're just like
you know what. I was like, I'm done with y'all.
I was, And that's when I was like, let me
just take a break because I just spent all this time.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
But you got to come listen. With this project that
you're working on, you got to get back.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
Oh no, I'm in it. I'm in it. I'm about
to relaunch everything YouTube, the whole nuns.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
And I'm gonna be so acitive over there pushing all
this stuff.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
Oh girl, come on, yeah, yes, no one that mister
Nancy Bag Oh no, yeah, mister min Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
And then I oh, all right, y'all, y'all heard it
here first, honey, Just to make sure y'all tune into
the podcast and keep your eyes open because you never
know where're gonna find.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
The doll Hey.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Outlaws is a production of the Outspoken Network from iHeart
Podcasts and Turtle Run Entertainment Come created by Tyler Rabinowitz
and Olivia Piece. I'm your host Tias Madison.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
We are executive produced by Tyler Rabinowitz, Maya Howard and
Tias Madison. Our supervising producer is Jessica Krinchich and our
producers are Joey pat and Common Bra. Our video editor
is Tyler Rabinowitz and our sound editor is Just crimechicch
Our associate producer is Trent high Tower Special thanks to
our producer's assistant, Daniel Rabino Wiz.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
Our theme song is composed by Wazi Merritt.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Our show art is by Pablo Martinina Got You Next Week, Honey,
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