Ben Vereen

Ben Vereen joins Questlove Supreme with his daughter Kabara. What begins as a conversation about a legendary, award-winning career in theater, film, and television organically goes someplace much deeper. Ben Vereen shares discoveries about his identity and traces his knowledge of self while speaking about Roots, Sweet Charity, and his unforgettable appearance on The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air. This QLS episode is a powder keg of emotions, realizations, and timely calls for history and truth from one of our great elders, who is finishing his memoir.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to Quest Love Supreme. Quest Love
your host. We are here with the fam like, yeah, hello,
where you right now? You're in La?

Speaker 3 (00:18):
I'm in sun La.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yes, yes, your your wall situation is so unique.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Every episode I see a new part of your house
I never knew existed before.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
That's hilarious.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Unpaid bill, Yes, sir, it was good to see you.
Everything about you. I complain drinking coffee for QLs, which
is a new I vibe, but I'm.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Super into it right exactly new vibes. I'm drinking applesire
lemonade or the opposite of is.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
But that's that thing that's good if you drink first
in the morning, that's good of mer.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Exactly exactly, Sugar Steve, what's that brother? Good morning everybody?
How's it going? Very well? Thank you? That's good to hear.
Good to hear. What can I say?

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Ladies and gentlemen, we you know we're about checking off
our bucket list, dream interviews and our guest today is
a legend of the big screen, the big stage, and
of the recording studio. Depending on your generation or your taste,
certain if my mom were here, she'd go nuts over

(01:19):
the fact that, you know, let's start Pippin or Sweet
Charity or Hair or all that jazz is with us.
Our guest today is one of the first actors that
my parents approved of me watching. If you're you know,
I've mentioned many times that television really wasn't looked upon

(01:42):
unless it was like Sesame Street or music. But Roots
was required watching, and I watched all that show even
at the age of five. So the fact that the
character Chicken George is here in front of me like
is mind blowing. Of course, if you're eighties baby, I'm sure, Layah.

(02:03):
Are you an eighties baby or nineties.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
Baby today, I'll be eighties, I'll be eighties all right.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Of course we remember him in Webster. Yeah, even for
gen Z society that lives for memes. Of course we
know hims Will's dad or the fresh Prince of Bill.
There we are in the company of greatness right now,
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Tony Award winning Ben

(02:29):
Veren and also not to mention his daughter at Kabara,
who also helped organize this for us, Welcome to the
Quest of Supreme Hello, how y'all doing.

Speaker 4 (02:39):
Oh, thank you so to be here waiting for this
quite a long time, sir. You had my friends on
and help me on.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
We're gonna have you on right now. Where are you
talking to us from? What part of the world are
you in?

Speaker 4 (02:55):
I'm in New York City at the dance fit of
Hall Author Mitchell's of Harlem, and I'm honored to be
I'm working with my daughter on her new piece that
she's doing called The Resurrection of ot Cyrus. It's going
to be at the met on January seventeenth. I'm directing it,
and so we're in rehearsal right now. And I'm honored

(03:15):
to be here in Arthur Mitchell's because I remember, I
remember you, Tah. I had a conversation with Glenn Turman,
my good friends, and we went to the High School
of Performing Arts together, and there's one photo that encouraged
me on the wall there and it was Arthur Mitchell.
He was in his beautiful dance post on the wall
and I said wow. And I later became a good

(03:37):
friend for them, and now I'm in his studio. So
thank you, author.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
So you went to school with Glynn Turman at a performing.

Speaker 4 (03:44):
Arts school was performing our school.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yeah, what time period was this, If you don't mind
me asking.

Speaker 4 (03:50):
In nineteen oh four days, good old day.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
I'm only asking that because because you know, when I
was in first grade in the mid seventies, my parents
made a big deal of you know, you're going to
a new type of school where you're going to do
like acting, art, music, dancing, like all those things. And
I was led to believe that schools of that caliber

(04:22):
were unique to the seventies. Like I was part of
the first generation of performing art schools. So you're telling
me that they were performing art.

Speaker 4 (04:29):
Schools before there's the fifties. I started in the fifties,
I believe late fifties. I got there in the sixties,
and I believe it just began to take on form.
It was called the High School for the Performing Arts.
Later it's now called Laguadia. They moved up on Tenth Avenue,
but we were the first. There was music and art

(04:50):
and performing arts. And we had a rival, you know,
we said, oh, music and art ain't nothing. You got
to go to performing arts, you know.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah, So in the fifties, you went to a performing
arts high school in New York that we still know
as the Fame School. Right, you're blowing my mind that
there was even the idea of black and white students
going to school together studying the arts.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
So what was that experience like for you?

Speaker 4 (05:20):
You understand something. The arts is the one thread that
keeps civilization going. We are all creative aspects of the
creator that created us. So the arts is the one
thing that's going to propel us into whatever experiences we're
going to have in this lifetime. So they can't hold
back the arts. Well, so wonderful about that time because

(05:40):
you know in sixties that's when Neil Martin, Luther King
and it's from Malcolm Macks. That's streets, you know, the
hippies and the whole movement. So that was all happening then.
So performing Arts I got lucky because they needed boys
for the dance apartment. Now Glenn Book's coming up from acting.
I knew nothing about the arts. I'm from the I

(06:00):
sang with Sensational Twilights of Brooklyn. You know, brooking was
my home. And when I went to the High School
of Performing Arts, it was a whole new world. Man.
The arts became a new word in my vocabulary. I
saw a dancing sort of first time I saw a
serious musician sort of person, I saw serious actors. You

(06:21):
talk about Beneth Caroll, you know, yes, Beth Carroll was there.
It was integrated, as we call in those days.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
So there was a lot of stigma on me as
an elementary school student concerning the arts. It was already like, oh,
you're one of those weirdo kids at least, like you know,
coming to my neighborhood to go to performing arts school
automatically made me kind of like a social outcast.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
Now here's the thing. Music was always my thing.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
But for the first year and a half of me
going to that school, the school was like, before you
get on that drum set, you got according your rhythm.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
And so they brought a pair of tat.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Dance hs and they're like, you're going to have to
learn how to dance first before we let you on
that drum set.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Of course, be in the seventies what the seventies were,
there was a lot of sigma. You say, you dancing,
you're dancing?

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Was the idea of dance expression a stigma for you
in the fifties as it was for me in the seventies.

Speaker 4 (07:27):
The sixties sixties. Okay, okay, I'm proud of people. Ask
me how old that them? I said, you remember Moses.
But here's the thing about I also went through that
stigma because I ran with gangs. You know, I ran
with the Crossair Lords and you know the bishops and

(07:47):
the Chaplains and all those guys in Brooklyn. So there
I was going all of a sudden. I remember my
mother getting a list of things required for me to
go into the dance department. I knew nothing about the
drama department. I probably woul of the acting department. I
probably would love to try it out for that. But
the wonderful thing I had a guy named David Wood
to talk about the importance of telling you story through dancing,

(08:10):
through movement. But the point is that in my neighborhood,
if I came home, now, I gotta get a dance bag,
I gotta get tights, I gotta get a dance spell.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
I didn't wear a jump suit.

Speaker 4 (08:25):
Yeah, ballet slippers, Yeah, you kidding me. I was walking
about Brogans and you know Garrison. I was, you know,
a tough kid, and I gotta wear ballet slippers. I
wouldn't tell anybody where I was going up for school,
and so they said, man's that bad man, wasn't it
bag man? And nothing? It is my school stuff. Let's
see no not run. Yeah, it was tough. There was

(08:50):
something which you came across that bridge and you got
in that dance studio, a whole new world opened up.
Imagine it's beautiful.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
Was it cathartic for you?

Speaker 4 (09:02):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (09:04):
That relationship with the neighborhood is so fascinating because we
were talking before you got on, of course the kind
of beautiful and there's a lot of alignment between some
quest love supreme guests in yourself. We talked about Glenn Turman,
but when you told that story about being the ballet
Slippers and being in the neighborhood, it made me think
about Prodigy in that way.

Speaker 3 (09:22):
In the picture of him, who you know is little Albert.

Speaker 5 (09:25):
I'm sorry, I know his rap name is Prodigy, but
you knew him as little Albert at Kabar.

Speaker 3 (09:30):
What was the dan studio.

Speaker 6 (09:32):
Bernie Johnson, who is a very famous dance.

Speaker 5 (09:36):
Yeah, I imagine he had the same issues as a
little boy coming up with being in a dance school
to his grandmother had built. So I was just wondering
if you guys, if you remember that as he was
a little boy, and that that common thread with you
guys in that way, that's interesting.

Speaker 4 (09:50):
Yeah, we you know which we were together. The world
didn't matter. It's about us and doing what we did.
We had fun. We loved the dance. We love you know,
the expression of telling our story through dance. And I'd
go into a studio and just take a record player
and just hours just dance. You know, do all sorts

(10:12):
of makeup stories, make up stories for myself through dance.

Speaker 5 (10:15):
Did you look at someone on TV? Was there a
dancer like that you used to watch that you admired.
I'm curious who you look to in that way?

Speaker 4 (10:22):
Well, there wasn't many dancers to look to it And
I didn't. I wasn't into the concert world, into you
going to see barthack Graham or going to see George
balance sheet. Matter of fact, when I came to the
studio to the school that day, and I'll never forget this,
I ok, I wore. You know, they say not to
make up a dance said, real dance with Quincy Jones
is killer. Joe. I walked here with muter shorts, us

(10:46):
kids sneakers, a T shirt, my father's skinny brim hat.
I'm sitting outside waiting to go on, and I'm watching
all these other kids dancing the balance sheet, rashing to
chowpad and you know, all these deep cats of a wow.
And I got me to my dance. There was white
people sitting at the table. I don't know where they were. Said,
I got on my did my little cool d D.

(11:09):
I thought I was pretty cool. I sat down and
the Citus in story there was a lady named doctor
Rachel Yoker, and she came over me. She said, how
did you do? She said you like the school? I
said yes, I she said it is I. I said yes.
I said you mean all right? I said yes. I
says what's her name? Was? Said? Vision said what? I said, Benjamin?

(11:33):
She said you mean ben Jammin. I said yeah, Benjamin,
what's wrong with you? She said, well, do you like
the school?

Speaker 7 (11:40):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (11:40):
I she said okay, And then she said, you know
these people at the table? I said no, this white people?
To me? Said you don't know George Balance. She nah
Martha Graham, Na Jerone Robbins, na who they next time school?
I had no idea of these people who had would

(12:03):
carve the importance of dance into our culture. But I
later found out about Catherine Dunham, later found out about
Juth Jamison, Jameson, Yeah, oh man, and to be able
to save that and have the experience of meeting them

(12:24):
and walking the same path with them and having them
call me friend.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
Because you know, you dip your hand or your tail
into so many creative waters. Normally I asked what was
your first musical memory? But I would like to know
from you, what's the first thing that you created?

Speaker 2 (12:42):
What was your first.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
Moment that you realize I'm a creative I know that
you were born in North Carolina. I don't know when
you moved to Brooklyn, But at what point do you
realize that you're artistic? Like, what was your first creative
project in life?

Speaker 4 (12:58):
I wasn't born North Carolina. My biological mother was Launberg,
North Carolina. I was born in Florida, Dade County, Florida.
You see, the art is it's tricky and it's wonderful.
I'm writing my book now, my memoirs, and I remember
playing in the streets and remember having little dance parties.

(13:20):
You know, we you know, after school, we do these
little dances and as white children was coming down the
street one day on Fulton Street, and it was right
in the fifties, and they were solicening for your young boys,
young kids to put into the art school, dance school,
because it's right around the time when the you know,
the civil rights are starting out, and so they wanted
to show their windows weren't broken. Say, have some a

(13:43):
few black kids in school. And that's how I got
into the Star Time Dance studio. But I never thought
about the fact that my creative aspect that was just
part of me. There was natural. I loved to sing,
I loved the dance at parties. I didn't have a
form to it. I didn't call it modern dance. I
didn't call it ballet. I didn't call it tap and

(14:03):
an interesting thing, I lived right across the street from
a shoe shine Parlow called tip, tap and toe. These
are brothers who in vaudeville. And I wondered why these
guys on Sundays Because in those days they had the
Blue Law in Brooklyn that means bondy liquor. So every
Sunday you see a lion wrapped around the block getting
the deacons, getting their shoes shine because brothers are being there.

(14:30):
They get online and standing and get this shoe shine.
You know, so these guys are going to tip tap
and toe. We get the rag snapping. You have jazz
music playing, and these brothers sit back there and he'd
be singing then through a you know, shovel back then
snap the rack and then they have a hand a

(14:51):
little Dixie cups a whiskey. So the lions are around
the corner, the brothers before they go to church. They
had to have their little.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
Shine, all right.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
That makes sense because even today, you know, like you're
always seeing these terror cart businesses, these random terror card businesses,
and you know you'll see them in a lank city
or New York or like any cosmopolitan city. And I
always wondered, for the life of me, how are these
businesses thriving like a woman or anyone reading your future.

(15:22):
I just found out that those are basically people that
have sort of in place owner or renter's law. In
other words, that place used to be a residency, but
then once a business district is established, you're not supposed
to live in a business district. So basically it's sort
of an underhanded way of the city saying you can

(15:43):
still live here, but you have to be a business.
So thus anytime you see a terror card reading or
let me read your future, it's just a residence.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
But they have to have a storefront that's like a
business and a wink.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
So that now that makes sense that shoe shine people
really had a side business of moonshine speakeasies while you.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Get your shoes shine. That makes sense. Now, that makes
total sense.

Speaker 4 (16:14):
They didn't sell liquor on Sundays.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
Pennsylvania. So wait, New York was a blue law state
as well.

Speaker 4 (16:24):
I had a blue law in New York City.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
I never knew that.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
But the thing is is that like I have, my
toes also dipped in various waters. But like for me,
drumming is always my passion. If you just had one
thing to say, that's what I'm known for for you,
because again you're known for your singing, your acting, everything,
you're direct. What is the one medium in the arts

(16:51):
that you say is your north star employment.

Speaker 3 (16:54):
Preach, that's you come on now mayor at this point,
that's you do.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah yeah, but if it's all taken away from me,
leave a drum set.

Speaker 4 (17:12):
Yeah yeah, for me, it's leave me my voice. Let
me tell my story. Tell my story through song, through dance,
you know, tell my story. Let me give it to
the young people, let me pass it on. I've lived
such a life that it's nice to be able to say,
here's yours. Now go.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
Take me through your life as a creative. What was
your first step into a profession.

Speaker 4 (17:42):
I just graduated from high school for the performing arts.
There's a woman there named Vanette Carroll, and she was
doing a sell called The Prodigal Son off Broadway at
the Greenwich News Theater. I'm talking about about a professional show, right.
I never knew anything my Broadway or the theater. I
had never been on a Broadway stage until Bob Fosse.

(18:06):
But I go to the show. It was in a
graduate Greensbroo theater. It was downstairs, a little theater, and
that was my first production. And one night I'm coming
out of the theater, I was in my first Son
of Bonn and I was lay getting to the theater.
I had to spend time with my first wife and
got back to the theater and the dance captain had

(18:29):
taken my role and gave it to his love. And
I wasn't going to have that because it was my role.
So I went on stage anyway. So it stage where
I said, they can't do that. I said, no, they can't.
So I went on stage. Guy, I got dressed, went
on stage, and we're fighting doing the show on stage.
I'm he's in my place. I'm hitting him. He's hitting

(18:49):
me this org and people must say, they're going, wow,
this show is so real. I died. So I come
off stage. I'm angry. I'm leaving the theater. I'm going
to Glenn's house, you know that, getting myself cooled off.
And it's a little guy sitting outside of the door
and he says, he says, excuse me, Yeah, what do
you want? He says, I'm looking for Benjamin Verena. I'm

(19:11):
bench Maine. What do you want? He said, you look
like you could use the dinner. My name is Langston,
used I.

Speaker 3 (19:17):
Wrote this, whoa, Well, you can't just you just drop that.

Speaker 4 (19:22):
You did that? Yeah, took me to dinner, he said,
you looked like everybody did it. He took me a
little to a little Italian joy in the village and
we sat and talked, and he told me about himself
and told me a guy he's written the play and
invited me up the Harlem for the first time. So

(19:45):
that was my first professional job. Uh, and the time
would buy. And the next time I got a job
was uh you'll read about in the book. Was on
the subway. I jumped and turnstile. I went to New
York City. I was standing on the corner by my school.
I was really depressed. I went by performing arts. I
looked at the school and going, where am I going?

(20:06):
What's going to happen? And I walked down to the
news stand and I opened up a newspaper. Backstage in
his audition for that day for a show called Sweet
Charity going to a place called Las Vegas, starring Woman
and Juliette Prowse, directed by Bob Fosse. And that was
the first time I was sept on Broadway Sturge at
the Palace Theater. I went to the audition. It was

(20:28):
like the opening of all that jazz. Yes, and I
went that was one of those kids on the stage
stand there washing this cool guy walked down the middle
of the aisle smoking a cigarette. He gets up on stage,
he does the demonstration for us to do and the
ashes never fall.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
I said, this guy, he just smoked to the end
and the ashes just grew and.

Speaker 4 (20:49):
Grew hung there, but he did the combination turns and
boom and steps and step boom, and he stopped and
going you take me, okay, do the steps. We couldn't
do this stuff because you too busy watching the asses
see if they didn't fall.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
Okay, So my mother is, you know, probably the show's
biggest fan, and she will scream on me.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
You drop so many names that she'll scream on me
if I don't go in the further detail. And my
mom's from Pittsburgh. Okay, I'm gonna ask about Bob Fosse.
But you mentioned the legendary Martha Graham. You study under it.
What was what was it like studying under Martha Graham.

Speaker 4 (21:33):
Well, I didn't actually have a class about the Graham.
I studied with one of her dancers named David Woods. Okay,
it was one of the teachers there. It was amazing,
you know for me getting into the middle. The first
day of school, they have you line up and then
they have you change and you get dressed for your class.

(21:54):
You go to your classes, and my first day in school,
I wore my suit that wore. Would sat twice to Brooklyn.
My mother bought me in the tash share case. I
stole like my tash Shay case. And then they said,
go get dressed. All the guys went and put on
their dance clothes. I put on my dance clothes, put
my suit back oncu that's what it was raised, you know,

(22:15):
don't just walk around your underwear. So I get back
out there in my suit on. She said, excuse me,
doctor was saying, you're taking class of that. I said, yes,
said well, where's your dance clothes? I said, my suit.
You can't dance that way. Get in there, put on
your dance clothes. And that was the beginning of whoa wonderment. Yeah.

(22:37):
But David Woods who was really the foundation of my
actings as well, because he would tell us, he say,
you can't just dance. It's gotta tell a story. So
find the story that you want to tell through your movement.
And that's why dance is so personal to me. You know,
in Mardern dance you must tell a story. It isn't

(22:58):
about just steps out emotion. It's about the story that
you're telling. Although it may not be the choreographer may
not is telling you his story. But you got to
find your story within the movement. What makes you move
this way, what makes you sing this way, what makes
you tell your story through drama, through the word this way?

(23:21):
You have to create it, at least for me. You
have to relate to something within you that connects to
that emotion. And that's how we dance. That's how I
danced for a.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
Lot of us, at least for my generation. This conversation
is really transformational as far as like my mind state,
because I think every person thinks that their era in
the world is the kind of you know, black and white,
the color Wizard of Oz thing, like everyone thinks like, oh,
when I was born, then suddenly modern times began. But

(23:53):
you know, I would assume that until Roots came along,
that a lot of African Americans weren't even thinking in
terms of their history going back to Africa, unless you know,
they were of the generation that watched Tarzan as a
kid in the fifties and sixties.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
The Marcus Garvey movement, and he was down with that, right.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
So what I'm asking you is when you're told to
tell your story and the vocabulary of our African history
really wasn't super enforced unless you were part of specialized
movements in your mind. When you are expressing yourself and
reaching inside for your emotions and through dance, what is

(24:38):
it that drove you creatively?

Speaker 4 (24:39):
Like?

Speaker 2 (24:39):
What are you thinking of when they're telling you tell
your story?

Speaker 4 (24:45):
Well, I'm thinking of my emotional feelings and what I
feel in that moment of that story makes sense, all right?
If I have safe For example, if I tell a
story of my this is he keeps him? Were going
to performing us? What did that make you feel? Like?
How did you feel the first day you stepped on

(25:05):
that stage when you stepped into that studio? What was
it feeling to you and feeling? What's that story that
you want to tell right there? And then that creates
a whole movement, yes for us coming up, And I
was as far as we're talking about ancestry now, when
we talk about black history in my school coming up,
in my era, it was one paragraph your slave and

(25:28):
Lincoln freed you, you know, and we know that's not true.
And long comes a wonderful man named Alex Haley who says,
I'm going to watch that because it's not true. And
he goes back to Gambia and he finds his roots,
and he writes a wonderful book called Roots, and we
all now say, and now the world is going WHOA

(25:48):
wait a minute, waking up. There was more to it
than this what's in our history books. There's more to
my story, you see. It's so interesting. When Roots came out,
it was just the book and I heard about it,
and like a lot of us did, and I just
knew I wanted to be a part of that movie,
that TV series that was And I went to my

(26:09):
agent and I said to him, listen, there's this book.
I think ABC is gonna make a movie out of
it called Roots Cinder. I really i'd like to be
to try out what he says to me, Ben, you're
a song and dance man. They're looking for actors, he said,
So listen, there's a there's this group that starting out.

(26:30):
You got a big hit called your Family's Sister Sledge.
He says, they're going to open for you in Chicago,
So why don't you go do that? And you have
another gig for you guys down in Savannah. So I
said yeah, But Kenny said, Ben, they're looking for actors.
So I get on. I get on the plane and
go to Chicago, Sister Sledge. They opened to me a
wonderful these little girls, little girls, and we get to Sabana, Georgia.

(26:53):
He used to do a character called Bert Williams about
my ancestry. About the performer. There was a time in
American history where black people in the theater were not
allowed on stage unless we wore a blackface, and he
went through that. So I told that story, and coming
at the show that afternoon in Savannah, Georgia, there was

(27:15):
a guy came backstage and they would staying Margolis and
he said, I want you to read my Chicken George
And I said, I said, I said, what's the chicken George?
He said, we'll shoe it down here shooting the show
called Roots, he said, And I said, I don't care. Man,
if Chicken George's guy and the boat going, let me
yut of here, let me yat here, please please, I'll

(27:37):
be there. And that's how I got the bar. But
I had no idea how deep it was going to
go and what I mean. It opened up a whole
avenue for me and for all of us to look
back and honor our ancestry, which we must continue to do,
to stay forward because our ancestry of the reason why

(27:57):
we're here today, their struggle, their fight, their determination to
go through slavery. Imagine coming across the water, having being
stolen from your family. You're on and you're put on chains,
change what was a chain, and you're being put on

(28:18):
a boat on it and you put to an island
and you're gone away with a bunch of people you've
never seen, the white and you see a bunch of
other people your color were not the same languages, and
we're all chained inside this boat. And someone jumping off
the side as they refused to go to They don't
know what's gonna happen, they don't want to be a

(28:39):
part of it. But the bravery of those people went
through that passage and stood on that on that slave
block and watch their families being torn apart, which which
I think, in my mind, destroyed our cultural togetherness, that strength,
and to tell their stories to be forgotten. No, no,

(29:02):
not on my watch.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
How long did they give you to prepare that role?

Speaker 1 (29:08):
Take us through the process of preparing, executing and then
leaving that character.

Speaker 4 (29:14):
I never looked their character.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
Boar all right, ta good joys.

Speaker 4 (29:22):
Well, for me, it was all because I understand my family.
We never sat around and talked about then because we
were surviving in the now. My family was the educators
or the the you know, they were not of that ilk,
you know, if they were field workers, you know, survivors,

(29:44):
and so we never sat around talked about education, about government,
about what's going on day to day survival. So when
I got this, I knew there was a deeper story.
When I got the opportunity to tell my story, it
was like, how do I find my research? So I
called my elders, you know, can you tell me about

(30:06):
what it was like during this time that time? And
you know, and a lot of it came from imagination
once again, what it must have felt like. And Chicken George,
he's so beautiful. You know. The one thing I do
is that when I get to a character, especially someone
like Chicken George, I asked permission to enter into that
realm of consciousness. What's like for you? Educate me, teach me.

(30:33):
And he took me on his journey. And I tell
you the respect and the admiration that the cast and
the crew had doing that, it was amazing. It was amazing.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
Did it feel safe?

Speaker 5 (30:46):
Did they provide like a cause you know in twenty
twenty if you guys made this in twenty twenty four
or twenty five, there would be all kind of counseling
on set, and you know when you when you broke
out a character, there'd be somebody to make sure are
you okay?

Speaker 3 (30:59):
Like, how did y'all handle that?

Speaker 6 (31:02):
Not in twenty twenty four, sorry to jump in now
go please cabar. That will come later.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
Oh not in twenty twenty four, My bad? Okay four.

Speaker 4 (31:12):
During that time, it was self nurturing. And that's why
I say the cat the crew, even the crew was
aware that we were touching upon something that was in
other words, I hate to use this word but taboo.
But the respect and the reverence that the crew had
and would like to see that one scene I never

(31:33):
forget the scene where Richard Rowntree was dating my mother
time Leslie other one was playing kissing and there's a
scene where she had talked him into taking her to
find her father and they go back and they're late
coming back to the plantation and his masa at the
time was supposed to tastise him and Richard Rowntree was

(31:59):
supposed to bage for him, not to beat him, and
I'll never get this. Richard said, you want me to
grobble to a white man?

Speaker 2 (32:08):
Do you know why?

Speaker 3 (32:09):
I am mm hmm.

Speaker 4 (32:12):
I don't grabble for no white man. And the direct
said said, Richard, we need this just for the next scene.
He said no, he said, he said you can do this.
He says, I ain't grabbling no white man. It's like that.
And he said, well, he said, just one time, he said.

(32:32):
He looked around and looked at them, at Kissey and
my mother Leslie, looked at the castle and the crew.
You went, you got one shot and he gets down.
He does that scene where he says, please bost some morsel,
don't beat me. And we just finished the direction that gun. Okay,
that was a good friend. Anybody go home. The one said, okay,
thank you, frank you very much. Because it was like,

(32:55):
I mean, all of a sudden, we had to reflect
on the fact that what it must have been like
to have the wobble to white people for our survival.
That the big you know, I think about my oof,
don't get me started. I think about what people went

(33:17):
through as slaves, kings, inventors, doctors, leaders being stripped. We
built empires and civilizations and now we are at the
bottom of the chain. They gave us slop and we
made it a proisine. We made it a proisine.

Speaker 5 (33:40):
I can't even get to that extent of thought. It
makes me think of also the artists who have had
to play these roles. And it's funny because as you said,
as you said, this was a taboo thing and now
it's not. Now we've had several movies that have followed,
and it makes me think about all the black actors
who have had to tackle these roles, like from chiwayitel
E Joe for to Jamie Fox, to Lapita and Jongo.

(34:03):
And I'm curious if anybody ever reached back to you
and went, how did you do this?

Speaker 3 (34:08):
How did you do this thing?

Speaker 4 (34:10):
Because we who were there at the first beginning a
waiting to say this is how we did it? Because
what what? What annoysment? I loved my brother LaVar Burden,
love him, yet he felt that maybe I let me
take it this way, but he never allowed us to
talk to the cast, they say, what did you go through?

(34:33):
How did you get there this point? Oh?

Speaker 3 (34:35):
With the newer roots, are you talking about the new roots,
the newer roots.

Speaker 4 (34:39):
I said, Okay, they did a good job, but as
far as they could do, but we could have given
them another layer that's much deeper, because we were there.

Speaker 3 (34:49):
We were I was curious about Thank you for answering
that question.

Speaker 4 (34:53):
We cried and wept and what to do, but we
knew we had to do it for the art and
all the truth story, as far as Hollywood would allow
us to tell the truth stories. You understand, Ruth just
scrounged upon the surface really went down, But what really
went down, You get into those wounds, you go deeper.

(35:15):
They were knights. I come home and my wife Nancy,
she go you okay, I say yeah, And nights I
was just being tears and he was like okay, okay,
and let me get myself ready, Okay, let's go do
the scene. And although I was friend chicken George, who
was like a dandy, but there was that moment when
he finds out his father is white. It's gone through

(35:38):
and watching your fellow neighbor brothers, they whipped because they
didn't want to pick up something they didn't want to do,
so they said the same wrong thing because they were
field niggas, then the house niggas, because it was to
you a little better with the field niggao telling those stories.

(35:58):
And I think those stories have not been told enough.
As long as my Jewish brothers and sisters can tell
us about the Holocaust, we must talk about our Holocaust.
Excuse me.

Speaker 3 (36:10):
I agreed.

Speaker 4 (36:11):
Let's read so we know where we are going, otherwise
they will do it to us again.

Speaker 3 (36:23):
Did this journey at all make you want to go
back to your own roots and find out about who
you are? And can you talk about that a little bit?

Speaker 4 (36:32):
When I was with Sammy Davis Junior, I got I
was finishing a movie called Sweet Charity with Shortan mclaar, yep,
Davis Junior and Sammy and I was I was well,
I was feeling pissed to Sammy. Why well, sam went
on on TV television those names. He had three channels,

(36:53):
the fourth channel came out and he said, well, you know,
I know how hard it is for us in this business.
So there's any young black entertainer out there? I think no.
In those days were negroes in colored right. I want
to talk to me. I'm open to talking to him.

(37:13):
I mean, you know how much courage it took me
to get up the skids from Brooklyn and we open
Caesar's Palace. I'm there Caesar's Palace and I'm going into Casino,
which I'm hearing stories lean On Morn Hurlbelly had to
being trailers outside and walk through the slop before they
got on stage. Now I'm staying in a hole in
an apartment right across the street from the Caesars Palace,

(37:35):
and I'm coming in there and I'm standing there. I
see Joe Juis walking down and how tomorrow we giv
him money And I'm standing wilk that still gave me
money to gamble, and I mean, I'm like, wow, I'm
skipping from look at me. And then Sammy says he'll
talk to me. Yes. So I'm waiting one day for
sam to come to Negros Nook, which the lounge their

(37:55):
here there were people like Jack Machel hang out and
the Platters, and so he was coming and walking with
Fifty's closest friends. So I walk over and I go, mister,
mister Davis, I heard that he said, talk to my secretary.
I went, what, m hm really Okay? So then I

(38:17):
get the show. Sweet Charity I'm on tour with with
Cheter Rivera end up in catalog. I get a telegram
we want you. I'm doing Daddy blue Bank, a role
in the show. You know, I got to sing my
own solo. I was excited all let Bob Fosk and
trusted business role. Now I get this telegraph, we want
you to come to Hollywood to star in the movie

(38:40):
Sweet Charity. I went, wow, I'm going to do doing
the role, Oh, Daddy Brewbank. Then I get to the
movie and they said, no, Sammy Davids is gonna do
this role Saturday attitude. Chake my role too, man, I
have done do with you. He walks in and say
says Sam, he's too sick to do the role. I went, whoa,
I'm gonna put apart. Yeah. So I'm standing on line

(39:03):
and who should walk through the door in the wheelchair
Sammy Davis, Judy and everybody goes.

Speaker 7 (39:08):
Oh, Sam, oh Sam, Oh?

Speaker 4 (39:09):
Say I do I sit back? So saff notices I
have this attitude man. He goes, yeah, don't come on
the stories. I say, bride, everybody fight everybody over. We're
gonna have this much with everybody. Everybody goes, I stand downside.
So Sammy sends over on his henchmen. He says, uh,
mister Davis like to have dinner with you in Little

(39:31):
Santa Monica. I said, yeah, right, cool. I got so excited.
I'm gonna put brand new suit. I got the We
got to the hotel like an hour before, right, I
mean in the restaurant, I said, mister, my name is
Benjamin Veren, and miss Davids Many said wait, who wo
wo wo wo wo. Well not here, you know, let's

(39:53):
see if you're gonna listen listen Benjamin, Yeah, okay, come in.
So I go to this long table and I'm the
long table. As I got there, like at six thirty.
We want to be there at seven seven things there,
and I'm looking around the room. There's Joey Bishop, there's
you know, Dean Martin, there's Shaw Lucy O Ball, all

(40:13):
these celebrities sitting around. And I'm sitting this long table smoking,
waiting for Sammy. Nine thirty. No, Sammy, I'm sitting there,
said nine. I said, okay, say you guys, you're not coming.
So I got up. I started to leave. Who walks
in Sammy with the same fifty closest friends. He says,
so sit down, sit down, sener. He says, you know,

(40:35):
I did a show called Golden Boys several years ago
on Broadway and think about doing it again, taking it
to London. So from now it's a different time because
we have the Black Panthers. There's a black movement going on,
and we need somebody who's angry, who's the fire. And
his agent says, nudge, you will go asking for the role.

(40:57):
And what is asking for the role? I said, Missus Davidson,
you got the role. So he hires me to do
pull the Boy. Right. So we says, now we're going
to do the show, uh in Chicago. Then we're going
to London. And he says, we have a passport. I said, no,
I don't I have a passport. He said oh. He said, okay,

(41:18):
just right down to where you were you were born
and you'll send you your birth certification. We've got the
crassport and you're gone. I said, okay, so right down
to Florida, Miami. Fund I get this letter back saying
we do not have a Benjamin Augustus Varene born to
an Ssie Varine. However, we do have are born to
a Pauline Veren. However, we do have a Benjamin Augustus

(41:41):
Middleton born to an SSI middle East Middleton on that date.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
What wait, that's how you found your roots.

Speaker 4 (41:53):
So I called my mother. I said, Mom, you got
to call these people I've said, I mean, David, don't
take me to London. And I didn't need my passport,
I need you. And they they say, said I read
a letter, and she went it was quiet. I said, Mom,
whoa And she said, I was hoping you'd never know hm.

(42:21):
And that's how I had my journey, then my my daughter.
When I had my daughters, you know, they came to me,
babies came to me and said, Dad, all we have
is mom, and but we don't have any We're gonna
have children one day, and we didn't know who's in
our So I said, okay, So I started searching. I

(42:42):
was down in Mexico and ran to a friend named
uh La Fever Rocks and La Fever and this lady
and I got to talk and went to Mexico to
get vitamin drip because in those days, the states. So
I go down to meet her and we go to dinner,
and I stought, she starts telling me she's a genealogist.

(43:03):
So I said, oh yeah. I said, well, and I
start telling my story. She said, well, why don't we
go searching. So I go to an office in Washington
and she worked for the pearson. And that's when the
journey began and I found my family about what is it,
tabora sixteen years ago?

Speaker 6 (43:19):
Yeah, fifteen years ago around my family.

Speaker 4 (43:22):
And here's the ironic thing, he said, we all read
this in the book. The book is much better than
this interview.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
This interview is much better than your career retrospective. This
might be my favorite episode of the Quest of Supreme.
I did not know this was coming.

Speaker 4 (43:38):
So we started searching and we is a wonderful story.
When I got married at a very young age, it
was to the bishop's daughter of the Holiness Church. When
I find my family, come to find out my grandfather
was the originator of the Holiness churches in the South

(43:59):
piercons Now here's the thing. My first father in law,
we go to a place in Connecticut. We haveing Connecticut.
We had a thing called Complication. That's where you know,
all the black churches get together and we celebrate, you know.
And so when I found my family I called my

(44:20):
sister Gloria, and it was so weird, you know how
it is, you know, you find you just like it was,
what a conversation. I said hello, she said hi, I
said Gloria. She said yeah. I said, my name is Benjamin.
I'm your brother. She said, yeah, they're telling me he

(44:41):
told me that. So how she found out? She said,
there someone called and said you better sit down. He said,
well she got another brother. Said I don't know, I
got a brother. Said no, you better sit down.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
Yeah, so it's your oldest sister.

Speaker 4 (44:56):
Huh, oldest sister. You have a Yeah, his name is Benjamin,
said Benjamin. She said yeah, she said, I got my
Eugene I got She said, no, you have another brother.
His name is ben Vereen. You better sit down. So

(45:16):
I call her and I say who I am, introduced
myself and they said that year they were having me
my family. Part of the family was about the Pearsons.
And so in Connecticut. Now I lived an hour away
from my mother my entire life, and never never, And

(45:39):
here's the thing. We're sitting at the table at the
reunion and my wife there, my children, my grandchildren, and
we're sitting there celebrating there was only supposed to be
fifty p or sixty people showing up. If a hundred
or two hundred people showed up when they found out
I was part of the family, they all come to
Connecticut and we're sitting at the table and in walks

(45:59):
my wife's aunt and she looks at me. She said,
you are Essie's son. Oh God, yes, she said, ESSI
was my best friend. I could have been in church
with my first family, sitting next to my mother and
never knew it.

Speaker 6 (46:20):
And it's heartbreaking because she also really admired him as artist,
and she was a fan of his, and she would
when he was on television, she would shut off. She
would tell everybody to be quiet because she had to
have full attention on my father's performances. And but she
didn't know that was her son. It's so heartbreaking, he.

Speaker 4 (46:41):
Said, did not didn't know, And I.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
Yo, I'm messed up.

Speaker 4 (46:51):
She's gone when I found you gotta stand something. In
the black community in those days, they do things like that. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:57):
Yeah, it's like you just send somebody off or you you.

Speaker 4 (47:00):
Know, you know me. Look, the woman lived upstairs with
us on Herkim Street. She had fourteen kids, because the
document said you don't have to work, just have babies.
Said she'd have babies, you know. And there was a
lot of that going on in what they called the ghetto. Yeah,
and so my mother, my mother. The story I got
was my mother just came from New Orleans where she

(47:23):
got into the altercation and beautiful and she was working
as an orderly at the hospital in Miami. She was
coming home one night. She told me it was raining
and she was standing in the hall in the storeway,
and there was this woman standing beside us, pregnant, and
they got a conversation. Name was Essay. They got a
conversation going on, and she invited a woman home to

(47:43):
her home and she said a few days later she
had practice. I can't and she said she went to work,
came home and there was a noe beside me saying
I don't want to take it. And she said, okay,
no man, let's go to New York City. And it's

(48:06):
an interesting thing about that scenario because I told my sister,
I said, I'm sorry I wasn't here for you as
a brother. She looked at me, she said, don't be sorry.
She said, you came with us. You probably wouldn't be Benbury.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
I was going to ask you, how conflicted do you
feel because you had to go through your life in
order to get to this very place right now. But
I know there has to be a part of you
that wonders in an alternate reality where you're with your

(48:52):
actual family, that somehow you might serendipitously wind up in
this same position, like how.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
Did that make it?

Speaker 1 (49:02):
How long did it take you to process? And really
did it make you feel complete as a human?

Speaker 4 (49:07):
Did?

Speaker 2 (49:08):
It'll leave you more conflicted? About your history is still a.

Speaker 4 (49:13):
Question because my father I have yet to find that family,
the Middletons. All I know is he died in Philadelphia,
and so we don't know.

Speaker 6 (49:28):
We don't know if that's truly the father to that.
We're still trying to figure out the identity of the father, the.

Speaker 3 (49:34):
True How would you do that, Kamar? How do y'all
even get to Skip Gates?

Speaker 6 (49:38):
Well, yeah, we've been in touch with Skip Gates. Hopefully
we're going to be on next season, and but we've
been in that process for a while. But we'd love now.

Speaker 5 (49:50):
I would have assumed he would have been on Find
My Roots because it's Octus.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
You'd think, well, not many people were privy to the story,
and you're right even right now. I mean, I'm not
spoiler a learning because he wrote about in this book
Maurice White of Earth, Wind and Fire, same thing.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
He was five years old.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
His mom gave him to the next door neighbor and
she went off to Chicago, had a fit, you know,
got lucky, married a doctor, had seven children. Maurice joins
her at eighteen. But there's something inherently broken inside of
Maurice white soul that he was given away. That even

(50:32):
though he miraculously kind of wound up in a metaphysical
self love space at least musically and creatively to teach
us to love ourselves, you know, afrocentricity.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
And all that stuff, But.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
That I believe the emotional blockage that Maurice had with
really not coming to grips with I was so unlovable
and wanted me. I felt personally led to his Parkinson's disease.

Speaker 4 (51:09):
Oh there, but the scars still I'm dealing with. Accordingly,
it's take me some very strange persons you've read got
in the book.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
But what can I ask, did you go through any
sort of therapeutic process to sort of deal with that feeling,
that emotion so it doesn't live inside you.

Speaker 4 (51:31):
Well you know it's going to always live inside of
your says how to process your life through that. I've
been through many counselors of people like that and try
to try to help me, But it really comes down
to individual choice of what you choose to be today
and how you live each day in processing your life.

(51:54):
Acceptance is a big word, acceptance, and I'm grateful that
for my journey, would have done it differently had I known,
baby so, But I can't say that because I am
not the one who's controlling the spiritual aspect of my life.
I have my human aspect which is going on the

(52:16):
journey that the spirit wants to experience through me. But
had I known, I don't know. I can't say I
know what I know today, and I'm green the Quest
Love show.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
M Okay.

Speaker 1 (52:31):
I wasn't going to make a big rough high of
this only because you have such an expansive career.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
And I know where you're going that I didn't want
to reduce it to this question that I now feel
like I have to ask you yes, yo, man, I'm yo.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
Oh God, you remember the Matthew Knowles episode where hang on,
oh shit, I'm sorry, Harry's.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
Strong, what's going on?

Speaker 1 (53:02):
Look for the last year and a half in hearing
these stories slid Stone, earth Wind and fire, this this
really hits me in my heart only because and the
reason why I keep grappling with emotions is again, as
human beings were really not you know, we're taught to

(53:23):
suck it up, you know, man up, and really not
process our emotions. And I was wondering, like, how have
we dealt with this for five hundred years? And you
explained that through dance, through music, through me drumming. Perhaps
maybe that's how I get my rage out my you
know that sort of thing. But the reason why your

(53:47):
episode of The Fresh Princes of bell Air resonates so
much with my generation and millennials and gen z is
we all felt Will Smith's pain and we you know,
the whole fight.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
And I'm gonna be a man. I'm gonna be alright
like that whole Martin.

Speaker 1 (54:07):
I'm gonna be all right, like we're taught to sucking
the tears and not show like I won't let you
see me sweat or see me cry or any sort
of as a sign of defeat knowing what you knew
about your own family history. Were the creators of the
Fresh Prince of bel Air or Will Smith himself, were

(54:28):
any of them aware?

Speaker 4 (54:30):
No?

Speaker 2 (54:32):
Did you? You didn't share with them?

Speaker 6 (54:35):
This information hasn't been really shared publicly.

Speaker 4 (54:39):
I'm just I.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Thank you for sharing that because it's it's it's it's
touched me.

Speaker 4 (54:47):
They knew nothing about this, hadn't been talking about this,
has kept it to myself. I'm just beginning to open
up about this. But they should choose me to tell
this story at that time in my life and here
we are talking about it. It was a very deep
subject for all of us.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
How was that to shoot?

Speaker 4 (55:07):
Was that?

Speaker 3 (55:08):
What did it make it in your head? Or were
you just the constantly professional and just you know.

Speaker 4 (55:14):
Tell that story, find the seed of that story and
sharing it and being that man who rejected his son
because of his background, his fear, his pain. You know
that moment when I'm silent, So I went through so
much in that silence as not being said when I'm
walking out the door. Was nobody saw that pain, but

(55:37):
I went through personally, So I had no words for him,
and the writers had no idea this was going down,
or why they were chose to write this particular show
for me, or why will say I want him to
do this part Oh, they didn't know, but the university,

(55:59):
and it was beginning of this conversation we're having right then.

Speaker 6 (56:02):
And as a daughter, it was a hard thing to
watch as well, because my father growing up was always
on the road, you know. And when everyone thinks, you know,
when you're this kid of a hate to use the
word celebrity, you have this privileged life and everything's great,
and you're these fabulous parties and your parents are ever present.

(56:27):
But no, I would tell people, when you see my
father on television, that's time that he's not with me.
He's not with my siblings. And especially when we were young,
you know, the only times you would see him is
during breaks for school and he was working because those
were prime times. And you know, people thought it was
cool because at one point he was hosting all the

(56:47):
Disney specials, you know, in the holidays, and yeah, great,
you get to cut the line at Disney. But I
still don't have my father.

Speaker 4 (56:56):
You know.

Speaker 6 (56:56):
My mother was amazing. She did everything that she could
within herself, but we also had to grapple and watching
that episode for me was because you know it, well,
it was an interesting time in my life period. But
I was probably in college around that time, and my

(57:18):
father and I had gone through a lot, like just emotionally.
We've always had this like kind of hard relationship because
even as a little kid, it was this whole thing
of Dad's coming home. Oh my god, Dad's home. And
I would kind of stand back because I was resentful
because I didn't have time with my dad. And then
it was always the limos here, Okay, the assistants are

(57:39):
here putting everything in the car, and he's off again,
you know, And I always was kind of the defiant one.
I remember this one instance. I don't know if you
remember this.

Speaker 4 (57:49):
Dad.

Speaker 6 (57:49):
We're living in Saddle River because my parents decided to
move us out of Hollywood. So it was about eight
at the time, and you know, spoiled had the Apple
computer and the television in my room and everything like that.
And I said something to you, Dad, and you were
getting ready to go somewhere because the limo was outside.
He was dressed up in his tucks and he said,

(58:11):
you said what to me? And I said whatever I said,
and he like was coming at me and I was
in my nightgown getting ready to go to bed. I
got up and iran across the property. We had huge property,
and I remember standing in this creek that we had
because I knew he didn't have time to come into
that creek after me, and we just looking at each other.

(58:36):
You better get out of that creek, You better get out,
You better come here and talk to me. As your
father said, huh. He's like, I'm taking everything out of
your room, and I was just like, okay, great, because
you're not going to be there when I get back,
you know. So that part when I you know, we
had this relationship for a very long time, and when

(58:57):
I did see the episode, I felt that pain on
the other side of it where he felt the pain
as the adult leaving the child, you know. So it
is very emotional, I think for all of the kids.

Speaker 4 (59:09):
So, you know, in tack of that character and the
character that I have had to be in my life
and I missed those moments now of being there for them.
It's an emptiness that I gobble with every day. You
did what Why wasn't I there? But I was raised

(59:29):
of a mindset of my mother was about providing and
so she would often say to me. You know, we'd
be sitting around our tenement building and you know we
have one of his little pop belly stove and she
say to me, Bunny because she couldn't pronounce Benjamin and
understood this. She couldn't pronounce Benjamin. I look at my father.

(59:53):
They always called me Joe, or she called me bunny,
Bunny if all we had was a donut, donut, oh wow.
So you know that was the way I was raised.
And so when this opportunity of show business fell upon me,
all I knew was to do is provide and got

(01:00:15):
caught up in a madness. This all you read about
all this in the book, But it's about that missing
part which I grobble.

Speaker 6 (01:00:24):
With as a daughter. I don't want him to feel
guilty about it because I'm very privileged. You know, I
don't have college loans. You know that was all paid
for it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
I was going to afford the work to the mental
work in the council end too.

Speaker 6 (01:00:38):
Yes. Yes, and my father and I have had this
tremendous journey and it's heavy on my heart that he
has this guilt.

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
But the bar the fact that j'all was sharing this
I just got to say.

Speaker 5 (01:00:50):
And I know Amirs feeling this too, like this is
the result of having a black boomer daddy. Like this
trauma is not you are not alone in this thing.
Understands trauma. And because the beautiful thing to me, as
I look at you guys and beautiful daughters, where we
are now, where you are with him, wherever he goes,

(01:01:13):
and how you take care of him is just along
with my sister k I'm.

Speaker 4 (01:01:17):
Sorry, I guess yeah, like she's out there somewhere.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
The way the girls take care of you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
How many children in total?

Speaker 4 (01:01:26):
I had four five children. I had an Najah whom
I lost an automobile accident, and my son. Okay, so
I have have three daughter, beautiful daughters, and I'm so
honored and privilege, honor. Honestly, I'm blessed. I'm truly blessed.

Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
Your daughters take care of you different right.

Speaker 4 (01:01:49):
The people who were handling me in my business. I mean,
I've had some messed up people in my life who
did not even think about my children. I was in
rehab in Utah place called Circuit, and I had had

(01:02:10):
my bow. I've had my bous and alcohol and drugs
and things, and I'd find my last cleanup and I'll
never forget ron. And my wife came up for counseling,
and this has never happened, and I never forget her
sitting there and saying, you do not like what it's
like being the wife of Ben Vereen. And she said

(01:02:35):
there were times that I have to go through his
pockets to find money to pay for my baby Steve.
I hit the ceiling. I had no idea the robbery
had been happening to my children, and I looked at it.
I said, never mind me my babies. Why didn't you

(01:02:57):
go up and say where excuse the expression of the
effing books. I want to see them books. Why are
my babies? And why didn't I have to go to
my husband's pockets to buy money? And I'm busting my
ass not spending time with my babies. Keep them yachts
and houses and things like that. That's another part of

(01:03:21):
this interview, but one another day.

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):
That's the whole book.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
When when is this book coming out?

Speaker 6 (01:03:28):
Opening next ten months?

Speaker 4 (01:03:32):
In the title thank you for the Journey, I say
that you know. Some people ask me you know, They
say you know? So we Oh God, you're such a legend.
I say thank you for receiving m both. For you,
I would not be here. I would not have this journey.

(01:03:53):
I wouldn't be here my daughter, I wouldn't be here
talking to the young quest Well, you see, thank you
for the journey.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
Usually when our listenership comes to this show, it's more
factual things than like a person's story. I want to
I want to no no no no no no no
no no no no no no. I apologize in advance. Look,
I have a lot of ten speed and brown shoe questions.

(01:04:23):
I wanted to know what it was like winning for Pippin,
what blob foss he was like all these things that
you've been through. But for me, this is a way
more important story the totality of your career achievements.

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
And yes, I do implore everyone to get this book. Man,
I'm just damn Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:04:46):
I wanted to ask about ol Perriman and Dan.

Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
You're right, I mean so many questions.

Speaker 3 (01:04:50):
Yeah, we can still ask them.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
Let's rapid fire question.

Speaker 5 (01:04:55):
Okay, Son, can you talk about because we talked about
black dance back in like the sixties and seventies, and
you talked about how you know it wasn't a thing
where you would see us on those stages on TV,
but there were so My father as well in New
Yorker of your age, and he too is an artist,
photographer and a drummer, and he took a lot of
photos of the black dancers of that time. And I
just wanted you to speak about like he spoke about

(01:05:17):
Al Perryman, and he spoke about just this black dan scene.
And I've seen these beautiful photos of the black dancers
going to the park where a Mere shot his documentary,
And so can you just talk about how and then
you kind of see it when you watch the Wiz
and you see all this black dance at the end,
you know, brand new day, and you see all these
dancers of that time.

Speaker 3 (01:05:36):
Can you just come on, George Face we had you know,
we had him on the show.

Speaker 4 (01:05:41):
George Face.

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
Yes, Michael Peters, come on, let's go.

Speaker 4 (01:05:45):
We'll talk about Michael Peters. Mike, you know, I see
he was saying, you know, this year I was I've
been watching what they call it not Instagram, you know,
young people in general, this stuff you work, we did,
But anyway, I'm watching all this and then now finally
the Reckoning that Michael Jackson is a product of Michael Peters.

Speaker 3 (01:06:06):
Beat it.

Speaker 4 (01:06:08):
I mean, I mean before, I mean he was doing
all that boatown stuff, but then he met Michael Peters
and broke out the whole New Moonwalking and all these thrillers.

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
Beat it was Lester Wilson also part of that.

Speaker 4 (01:06:26):
Wilson was the foundation for all of us. At Bernie's
Johnson's dance studio after school. We would go by Jerry Grimes,
Mister Emsley, Michael Peters, Lorraine Fields.

Speaker 3 (01:06:41):
Oh, Debbie Allen, I shout around too.

Speaker 4 (01:06:43):
Yeah, we all go to Bernie's Johnson and there was
Lester Wilson with Chief Bay Flynn Kunga, and we'd.

Speaker 7 (01:06:50):
Be dancing and he would he would give us. Oh
he was such a smooth, beautiful dancer. Bob Fossey loved
That's the Wilson. He talked about Lester Wilson, all of
his moves and how liquid and.

Speaker 4 (01:07:06):
Fluid he was. I looked at him like he was
so fluid, so beautiful. Oh, I mission Mester. I was sorry.
We died so angry. It's so foolish. But anyway, yeah,
Lester Wilson and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm glad he

(01:07:27):
had documented all of us. Thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:07:29):
Since you're telling a story about people, and I just
I don't want them to ever forget the power of
Judah Jamison. And since we recently lost her, what do
you what comes to mind when we say judiph jameson.

Speaker 4 (01:07:40):
Stature of beauty and fluided. She was the queen oh
Oo talking about cry. She cried for all of us.
Oh I love Judith. I'm glad she came through my life.

(01:08:00):
That's sitting in the studio, just watcher oof.

Speaker 1 (01:08:05):
So this journey in your life you are right now
and working on what is it that you want us
to know, especially in terms of you being in your
instructor phase, your your choreography phase, your your your director phase.

Speaker 4 (01:08:23):
What is it?

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
What is it that you want This particular generation, those
born in the nineties, him in the two.

Speaker 4 (01:08:31):
Thousands, attached to the rhetoric that you're human is listening
to always know there's a power within you greater than
that outside of you, and stay in touch with who
you've come to this planet to be. You'll get all
the rhetoric from education, edumacation, and you'll get all the

(01:08:53):
rhetoric from society. What they're going through. But you understand
that within you is a core of creation and whatever
you need to do to stay there, get there, get
there and breathe that in and breathe that out for
all of us. That's what I want you to do.

(01:09:17):
That's what I want you to know.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
Where you are, well, I'm good, I have a good day.

Speaker 5 (01:09:25):
It's such a it's such I just gotta say, it's
a blessing to be a child of My dad calls you, guys,
the last of the new children, this generation. You know,
I said to Kabara into Charlie, Melvinmore's daughter. I was like,
you guys are of a generation of creation that was
just broke all of these barriers for people and also
New Yorkers, and so the poet just the rhythm of

(01:09:47):
when you just talk is like unmatched and we can
never lose it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
Just a treasure. I just we honor you.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
Thank you. This is a great emotional episode of Question
Love Supreme Sorority.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
I thank you Cabar and Ben for really really being
open because oftentimes artists are taught to not overshare or
that stuff. But I think now, especially where we are, Yes,
it's about honesty about who we are and what we're
going through, and things aren't perfect. And I think you know,

(01:10:21):
I too thought I was alone. I am also a
son of a traveling musician father and mother that had
to go through the same thing. And you know, you
often think that you're isolated, but I really this is
not just lip service. This moment right now, me speaking
to you like I needed to have this conversation, and

(01:10:43):
I love you too for it, and thank you very
much for that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
It's an awesome episode, so.

Speaker 5 (01:10:49):
Net of a kabar in that way, I'm here too,
because Peers, You're right, you're not alone exactly.

Speaker 6 (01:10:54):
Yeah, I'm surprised we didn't run into each other up
on the borsch belt.

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):
You know what, it's weird.

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
I felt as though you and I have cross paths.
I know we have common like friends in common or whatnot.
This this is this is great to meet you this way,
and you know I appreciate it. On behalf of On Sugar,
Steve and and Unpaid Bill and Layah Kabara, Ben Veren.

Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
Thank you very much. This is quest Love Supreme and
we will see you on.

Speaker 3 (01:11:22):
The next go Thank you, hey, thank y'all for listening
to Quest Love Supreme.

Speaker 5 (01:11:29):
This podcast is hosted by an Afro amount, an engineer
and a man with too many jobs aka A mere
Quest Love Thompson, Why here, Saint Clair Douga, Steve.

Speaker 3 (01:11:37):
Mandell and unpaid Bill Sherman the executive producers. We'll get
paid the big bucks.

Speaker 5 (01:11:44):
A mere Quest Love Thompson, Sean g and Brian Calhoun
asked them for money. Produced by the people who do
all the real work Ritney Benjamin, Jake Payne and.

Speaker 3 (01:11:54):
Yes, why a you a Saint Cleta.

Speaker 5 (01:11:56):
Edited by another person who does the real work, Alex
Conroy and those who approved the real work.

Speaker 3 (01:12:01):
Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown.

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
West. Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (01:12:13):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.