September 4, 2024 • 63 mins
Billy Porter joins Questlove Supreme for a spirited two-part interview. In Part 1, Billy recalls his Pittsburgh upbringing around the stage and some of his earliest musical memories. The Emmy, Tony, and Grammy Award-winning artist also explains why he has fought so hard to be respected across mediums and asserts why his new EP, Black Mona Lisa: The Cookout Sessions, commands a new lane for himself — with an exclamation point.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Post Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of port Love Supreme.
I'm your host, Questlove. We have the family with us
right now. Sugar Steve, the fastest man in the universe.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I am fast.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I'm here.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
I'm so very excited about this.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yes, wow, wait, that's what device was that?
Speaker 5 (00:28):
Hey? Bill?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
This is my very fancy whiskey glass. Thank you for asking.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
It's not a device.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
It's advice, Billy. Our guest has a good trick too. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (00:39):
No, I'm having giant sun kiss FDA.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Apple.
Speaker 7 (00:48):
Only a shot a mirror, only a shot?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Layah? How are you with your uh your fan? You good?
Speaker 5 (00:54):
Yes, shout us to all the perimenopause the ladies. Yes
it is here, and yes we are.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Too if we're talking about.
Speaker 7 (01:01):
It, Yes we are. Don't you love it?
Speaker 6 (01:03):
I love it?
Speaker 7 (01:03):
Hey, Hallie, thank you Hallie Berry.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Well, ladies and gentlemen, First, don't succeed.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
You try, and you try, and you try again, and
we will say that the wis this is the third
or fourth time?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Is the charm? It's finally happening. Our guest is a
multi hyphened powerhouse of a talent and a human being.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
You know, I understand the term that they want to say,
but I don't believe in egot. I believe in ghetto.
So right now you're a get okay, I'll take it. Yeah,
because I'm trying to go for ghetto. I'm not trying
to go for egott. You are a Grammy Award winner and.
Speaker 7 (01:41):
You don't want to want to go back to the ghetto.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yes, and a multiple Tony Award winner, a musician, an
actor and activist, an author, humanitarian, a Time Magazine one
hundred Most Influential Person recipient.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
You know, there's nothing the scoff at.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Uh. We are currently ahead of our guest brand new project,
which is called The Black Mona Lisa Volume two cookout Sessions.
Most importantly, you are from Pittsburgh?
Speaker 7 (02:13):
Are you at a title?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I was about to say my mom's from Pittsburgh, but
I do not know the proper way to address agains YenS.
Speaker 8 (02:25):
Is just you, you all, y'all?
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Whatever, it is, just put.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
How you doing?
Speaker 6 (02:33):
Hey?
Speaker 5 (02:33):
What?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Talk him out? Please? Welcome to Quest lof Subrie. Finally,
Billy Porter.
Speaker 5 (02:38):
Yeah that's not at a title. He's also a joy
Bringer He's a joy bringer.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So wait, what is the proper way to use Yen's
Because I feel like I'm an honorary Pittsburgh and pittsburghen you're.
Speaker 6 (02:55):
Dealing with multiple people and you're talking to multiple people's plural.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
It's like, yeah, it's like y'all, it's a Southern y'all,
it's a Pittsburgh and y'all.
Speaker 6 (03:06):
You all y'all ying.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
See, I didn't know that it was plural because I
see a singular person.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I'm just like Yen's.
Speaker 6 (03:18):
OKAYLORA, It's the only way to use it.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
It's floral.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Jacob is awesome from Pittsburgh just informed me that the
term fuckings is a term for.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Ye.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
I don't know that many people say that, but.
Speaker 6 (03:40):
That's proper. You will be using it correctly in a sentence.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
What part of Pittsburgh are you from? So?
Speaker 6 (03:50):
I grew up in the East Liberty slash Homewood area,
like right on the cuff in the hood hood.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I've heard my mom mention this place often, so okay, yeah,
East Liberty, Okay, that is what's says liberty.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Just combine it sliberty.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
How long have you lived there?
Speaker 6 (04:09):
I lived there until I essentially graduated from college. I
went to Cardigial Metain And.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
What's your major drama?
Speaker 7 (04:17):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Okay, I was in the drama department. Honey, your whole life, no.
Speaker 6 (04:23):
Classical theater calledge Daddy is trained. It's not a mistake.
It's not by accident.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
What I want to know is because one of the
last conversations I had with you was I was watching
everyone on the show knows my obsession with Soul Train
and owning all thousands of episodes, and I remember your
careers as far as back as I think you were
(04:53):
on the show.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
I believe in ninety four, ninety five.
Speaker 6 (04:56):
I believe, yes, I would say ninety five or ninety
six because the Untitled came out and on and the
records that was my first album in ninety six, and
I was on with ll clo J. Was on the
same episode as.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
Me Marmore Soul Drain Yeah, yeah, okay posted Soul Train.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yeah. So that's when I first became aware of you.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Like, for some reason, I didn't connect that as you,
even though I remember that episode well because I religiously
record that show. So I'll start off, like I ask everyone,
what is your first musical memory in life.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Then I stumped you.
Speaker 6 (05:38):
Well, it's not just one, and so it's hard to
like because there are many different.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
When you thing of your childhood. Yeah, what's the first
moment of music? Church?
Speaker 6 (05:51):
Okay, singing in church, singing that friendship Baptist church, being
five years old, singing a solo, being the adult choir
because I could sing so good, so they let me
in the adult choir till I was out of concert.
It was a it was a mass choir, conor clert.
I was marching up. I was in the front in
the soprano section because I was a gospel soprano until
(06:16):
I was thirty. It's recorded, so you can go and
listen to it and see that I'm not lying or
here that I'm not lying. But yeah, that's the first memory.
And I was marching up and this really really mean
lady snatched me out of the line because she decided
that I was out of place and I shouldn't have
(06:39):
been there because I was a little child.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
But did she have the authority to do that or
was she the really no, she did not.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
It's in my book. It was very traumatizing.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
How old were you?
Speaker 4 (06:54):
I was like seven, or eight.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Maybe you were that powerful of a singer.
Speaker 6 (06:59):
You know the Clark sisters, right obviously of course, so
you know Maddie Bos's Clark essimply was the female James
cleavey okay, right. She was in the KOJC Church, the
Church of God in Christ. He was Baptist. He was
the Baptist Convention of whatever. And he would go around
(07:19):
the different cities and get singers from all the different churches,
put them together and make those albums.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
So she did the same thing in the Pentecostal church.
Speaker 6 (07:29):
And so I was such a good singer that somebody
took me down there to Mill Street Church of God
in Christ to be in the choir. And you weren't
allowed to be in the choir.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
And unless she was sixteen, Well what if your voice
was excellent? What if you were the Aretha frames I'm.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
About to say.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Okay, So I.
Speaker 6 (07:49):
Get there and they're like, he can't be here, and
they were like, just listen to him sing, and I said,
and she was like sit out. She said, come on,
she said, sit right here in front row. So you know,
so I sat in the front row and worked with
Mattign's Clark.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
I haven't really.
Speaker 6 (08:08):
Retold that story in a long time, and I thank
you for making me think about it because I would
say those are the two that's a major, major musical
milestone for me.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Okay, like the beginning, the first time that I really knew.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
All Right, I want you to explain something to me
because oftentimes, you know, and we've had gospel lessons on
the shows, and of course you know, for any black
singer I know, I'll say that eighty five to ninety
percent of their entry into music is coming through the church. Yeah,
(08:47):
can you please explain to me, is there a difference
between a Baptist church a Pentecostal church?
Speaker 6 (08:53):
So I would say, we're not a monolis right, So
like back in the day, the difference between Baptists and
Pentecostal was the charismatic.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
Part, okay, shouting, the speaking in.
Speaker 6 (09:09):
Tongues and all of that was reserved for the Pentecostal people.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
The Baptist people at that time.
Speaker 6 (09:17):
Were still pulled up, okay, and they were still closer
to ame, which was African American Episcopals. So if you've
been to African American Episcopal you were probably singing classical music.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
You were probably.
Speaker 6 (09:32):
Singing you know your choir was singing hymns that were traditional.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
You probably had like you know, Leonting Price.
Speaker 6 (09:43):
Was your soloist, okay, at the Ame church, Lanting Price
was your soloist. At the Baptist Church, Mahela Jackson was
your soloist. And I do it with music. If you
think of Mehelia Jackson balls to the walls belting. Okay,
Pentecostal and I'm breaking it down through music was all
(10:05):
about the coloring and the riffing and all of that.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So if I were drumming, I would probably be at
home drumming in a Pentecostal church.
Speaker 6 (10:14):
Yes, it was freer at the time. Now Baptists and
Pentecostal are the same.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Well, I'm a seventies church person, so I think the
last time I really really played in church was like
eighty seven. And of course, you know, as a teenager
and listening to hip hop or whatever, I would try
to sneak in songs that were like Breakbeats or play
Top Billing by Audio two or Peter Piper by run DMC,
and the older people would look at me and start
(10:41):
scowling like m M, don't play any like was it
looked down upon in terms of contemporary music.
Speaker 6 (10:50):
Or in the Baptist Church at the time, it was expanding. Okay,
you could play, you could push it, but not too far, like,
for instance, the Clark sisters were everywhere, but when you
brought the sunshine happened and it crossed over into the clubs,
(11:12):
it was a problem.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Just like the.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Hawkins family and Oh happy Day, you know.
Speaker 6 (11:18):
But those people were like, but we're over here preaching
to the choir. They were pioneers because they were like, well,
we're over here preaching to the choir, and you're mad
at us because we've broken through to essentially centers secular secular, right,
So isn't that the point the Bible says, go out
into the world and preach my gospel. That's what the
(11:41):
Bible says. So I was in that era where it
was becoming more and more accepted. I mean now essentially,
you know, I mean and and R and B and
soul and gospel. They've always borrowed from each other, you know.
And nowadays gospel artists are a hip hop artists. You know,
(12:04):
Mary Mary is a hip hop artist. They came out
they were hip hop artists, you know what I mean,
Like there's a whole generation of folk now. You know,
you listen to Jake Marsh, she may as well be.
It's like you know, King Keith heard when she first
came out, Like they're very contemporary and they're borrowing heavily
(12:25):
right from the hip hop tradition.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
Now his house, we were just talking to bb Winings
about the work that he's been doing with Louis Vega,
and it's yeah, and you and you with Freda, right,
like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, what's motivational music in that way?
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, Belly.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Do you consider yourself a church singer still to this day?
Speaker 4 (12:45):
Yeah, I'm a gospel singer.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
That's how you defined yourself.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
I'm a gospel singer. Anywhere I go, I'm a gospel singer.
You know my mom, you know, I left the church
when I was sixteen because I'm a big old queen
and I wasn't out, and so I left and I
was like, I'm not changing, I'm God made me who
I am. I'm leaving.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
And my mom had a problem with it, and she
came around and whatever.
Speaker 6 (13:08):
Before she passed, she passed it every word, but before
she passed, every time every time she would come.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
And hear me or see me do something. She was
so sweet.
Speaker 6 (13:18):
She would be like, I know you left the church,
and you left it for good reason, But every time
you open up your book, nothing but.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Nothing but Jesus nothing, Jesus nothing.
Speaker 6 (13:38):
And it's true. It's like when I listen to myself,
I got you can't take the gospel.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
How do you feel when someone writes a song for you,
because I know that this happens with you and it
doesn't necessarily sound like you. What is your thought process
in that?
Speaker 6 (13:53):
Well, people who are writing music for me are generally
writing it because they want me to sing it. So
for me coming from a church background where it's about
the spirit, it's about sharing your gifts with the congregation
(14:14):
and the message and the ministry, and then moving that
into training as a classical actor and learning how to
tell the story because the story is most important. So
in the secular world it's the same thing. The ministry
and telling the story is the same. They fold into one, right.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
Bill, didn't you guys do this in a way. I
know you did Sesame Street at some point.
Speaker 9 (14:40):
So I was like, Billy was on Sesame Street and
he sang an Emmy winning song called Friends with the Penguin,
and it was one of the one of the I
will say, in the fifteen years i've been there in
one of my top five moments was this moment. And
my girlfriend, who was a producer of the show, was like,
it was one of the greatest moments you ever had
on the show. Was you and that outfit sing a
song and it was fucking magical, and so like, I
(15:03):
just want to say thank you very much because.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
It was.
Speaker 6 (15:07):
Recognize your name. I'm like, I'm not a name, but
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
We have a lot of friends we have.
Speaker 9 (15:13):
We have James Sampleiner, I'm talking to the stark Sands
over here, who's like, ask them about this, Like it's
a whole Yeah, we have a lot of the same
Literally just got off the phone with James Sampliner.
Speaker 7 (15:21):
Y'all like cousins, theatre cousins, right, like theatre cousins. Yeah, yeah,
the small world.
Speaker 6 (15:32):
I'm always trying to tell the story and because my
voice was so high and it was so different and
it didn't fit into anything or anywhere, you know, Like
my voice was so high that regular tenor roles in
theater had to be transposed up a third or a
fourth for me. So like I would go into auditions
(15:55):
singing a regular tenor song like let's say Anthem from Chess,
a song that everybody in that era say, right, and
I would go in and I would have to sing
it a fourth higher from where it was written. So
I would take the music in and put it in
(16:17):
front of a piano player, and it was like Mitton's McCluskey,
because they're so used to playing it in a you
know that they couldn't even like. So I had to
start taking my own piano player with me to auditions
because people wouldn't be able to even looking at it.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
They wouldn't be able to understand this transla.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
When I deal with singers normally, it's like you got
to lower it a few notches usually win in concert.
They want to go lower, yeah, but you want to
raise it higher at that time.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Oh okay, I feel like I've heard you sing Luther
before and I have.
Speaker 6 (16:58):
Time. But I was very good with female altos with extension.
I could sing those songs in the regular keys. I
could sing I have nothing in the original key, Like
I could sing that for real, with no like effort,
no screeching note, like my top note. If you go
(17:20):
and you google oh Holy Night on the Rose O'donald
Christmas Special.
Speaker 5 (17:26):
Yes, I guess I thought that video you was seeing Google.
Speaker 6 (17:29):
Oh Holy Night, that's that's Billy Porter prime at that time.
Listen to Love Is on the Way from the First
Wives Club, that's Billy Porter like at my highest prime.
I mean the high note that I hit at the
end of Holy Night was a high. I think it
was F above or f a G above that high
(17:52):
soprano see beltic.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Who are the three singers that you pattered in yourself after?
Speaker 6 (17:57):
Like?
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Who were the singers that? Who your north star? Who's
your top three? Okay, Karen Clark.
Speaker 7 (18:04):
Here and Aretha Okay, Trinnedy Trinity.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I would imagine that you know, those are the three
that are everyone's choice. Is there a singer that's sort
of out of that circle that people will be surprised
that you gravitate towards?
Speaker 4 (18:24):
I don't think it would be a surprise.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Okay, Well, men, I like Tom Waits, and Tom Waits
has a horrible voice.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
I love that you love Tom Waits.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
God, you're making me atlantis.
Speaker 7 (18:37):
Martha that was random? Does love her?
Speaker 6 (18:45):
Love that that okay, and I'm sure there are more.
You know, you put me on the spot. Now I
can't take it.
Speaker 5 (18:55):
Nobody to step on your toes, B But I was like,
why are you thinking I'm curious about the first secular
show that you experienced, because that's a part of your
musical moment too.
Speaker 7 (19:06):
I know you mentioned church for real, for real, but
what was the first.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Your first concert or this will be a surprise. Wait
before we get to that. Did you live in a
no secular music household?
Speaker 4 (19:18):
Or was that allowed no secular music at all? Uh?
Speaker 1 (19:22):
All right, so who would you sneak and listen to nobody? Oh?
You followed the rules.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
Well until a certain age, right, it was only secular music.
And the music that I heard was on the radio
or at somebody else's house. Okay, and it was always
in passing. That's where you do all your bad shit
at somebody else's house.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
So it was somebody else's house.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
You know.
Speaker 6 (19:45):
I loved Michael Jackson, I loved Shaka, I loved you know, Prince.
Speaker 7 (19:50):
Was a little oho much.
Speaker 6 (19:53):
I liked it, but it was like I felt like
my mom could hear me listening to it.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
I got on punishment for prince.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
So I understand all that, and it was a little nasty,
so had a night, you know.
Speaker 6 (20:06):
But what's interesting about my journey is that it was gospel, gospel, gospel, gospel.
And then in the sixth grade, I was bussed to
Risingstein Middle School during the second sort of desegregation moment,
and I was introduced to theater. I was introduced to
musical theater, and I got bit by the bug. And
(20:29):
so then it became I went right from gospel music
to theater. And theater for some reason was okay with
my mother.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
He didn't really understand it.
Speaker 6 (20:43):
And so I was going to the Carnegie Library and
taking out ten albums a week and.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Listening to it while I was doing my homework.
Speaker 6 (20:51):
But I have to say it wasn't until I was
about fifteen when I got a job working at Kenny
Wood Park Kadywood Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which is the
amusement park.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
It's still there, Okay, it's still privately owned.
Speaker 6 (21:09):
It's one of the last privately owned amusement parks that's
still owned by the family that.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Started it in the country. Okay, yeah, because a lot
of them have been bought up by like six flags
flag and so I was by myself.
Speaker 6 (21:26):
I was living with the grown ups, and by grown
ups I mean the college kids in the motel out
by the park. Because my mother was now going to
drive me out to that park every day and come
and pick me up. She trusted me enough to do that.
She signed off on me having a job. I did
six shows a day, six days a week. Four of
(21:49):
them were different.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
How old were you fifteen?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
So were you emancipated?
Speaker 3 (21:55):
I was.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
None. I wasn't answer.
Speaker 7 (22:00):
She gave you permission to me permission I had.
Speaker 6 (22:03):
To have written permission from her and take it downtown
to whoever it was, or she had to go with
me or something to give me permission to work.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
And we were ports. So like I wanted Georgiana ask James.
Speaker 6 (22:16):
I wanted to.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
And myself if you shot Damn.
Speaker 6 (22:22):
I forgot about Jumber. I'm fifty five and September. I
needed my Sergyovalente. I needed my stuff. And she said,
you know, she looked at me at one point and
she's like, you have champagne taste on the beer budget.
And so I came home one day with the job
(22:45):
and she said what And I'm like yeah, and I
get to perform, and I get to do you know what,
I'm doing this and that and that. She was like, oh,
and then she met the people. She went and she
met the people who hired me because I went on
a flute to the audition.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
I went with somebody else, okay, to.
Speaker 6 (23:01):
Accompany somebody else who had done it the year before.
Curtis Clark, he had done it the year before. He's like,
you need to come an audition because you get this job.
And I did. And six shows a day, six days
a week. Four of the shows were different and we had.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Costume spontaneous or no with So there were two groups.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
There were two groups, and they were like ten shows
a day or something or seven shows a day at
the same place. So there was Rasmatas, which was a band,
a live band with three singers, three female singers. They
had their four shows a day, eighty five.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
They've been out since seventy nine, weren't they?
Speaker 4 (23:50):
They were there and seventy nine and this group was there.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I know, Oh my god, you've seen it. I wasn't heard.
I've heard of Ramatas like no, I did hard time
in Pittsburgh. I know this name good.
Speaker 6 (24:05):
And we and we were Flashed and Flash did our
shows to track, and all the shows were themed, you know,
so like there was a TV show, there was a
Broadway show, there was a dance show, there was a
you know, and so ours had three male dancers and
three female dancers. And so we did two different shows
(24:25):
a day. Razmatast did two different shows a day, alternating.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
That was during the daytime. Then in the evening, both
casts would come together.
Speaker 6 (24:36):
And we would do a show at seven which was
one thing, and then a show at like nine thirty
which was a whole different show, combined casts. As your
first audition, that was my first professional audition, and I
worked my ass off for three seasons.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
I did it for three seasons.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
What point did you realize I have a dream to
chase and it's not where I am now?
Speaker 1 (24:59):
What was your goal? Like at thirteen.
Speaker 6 (25:02):
The summer of eight after I did my first musical,
which was What which was Babes and Arms, and I
played Gus Fielding And there were so many people that
I auditioned for it that every role was double cast.
And they told us at the beginning, every single part
will be double cast.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
The cast lists spent up.
Speaker 6 (25:24):
Every part was double cast but mine, And I'm like,
what does that mean? You know, because I was bullied
so relentlessly for not being able to play sports and
being a book person, that all of a sudden, I'm
looking at this extracurricular thing and if I'm not double cast,
that means I'm doing something right.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
So I was bit by the bug.
Speaker 6 (25:47):
And then that summer was dream Girls was on the
Tonys and I just happened to be washing my dishes
in the kitchen the Tony Awards came on.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
I didn't even know what it was.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
You never heard of dream Girl.
Speaker 6 (26:00):
I had never heard of dream Girls. I had never
heard of the Tony Boards. I didn't know what was happening.
But all I knew I was eleven. But all I
knew was that I was watching black people on a stage,
the same kind of stage that I had been on,
doing the same kind of thing that I had just done. Right,
(26:21):
But it was black people who weren't poor. They were
they were in gowns, they were And so I was intrigued.
And they did that fight section into and I'm telling you,
and then Jennifer Holliday gets up and starts singing like
I sing in church. I did babes and arms. I
(26:42):
didn't think that was a possibility to sleepless.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
Nice to daily fine.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Yes, of course.
Speaker 6 (26:53):
In elementary school theater. You know, it's middle school theater.
So there was nothing black about it. There was nothing
current or urban about right, So I didn't make the
connection A that this was something that people did for
a living and B that I could actually have a
(27:14):
place in it inside of my authentic self. So I
knew that wherever those people are is where I have
to go. And they're in New York and they're on Broadway,
so that's where I'm going. And I made that decision
at eleven.
Speaker 7 (27:31):
Was your first time seeing theater in New York?
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Or did you?
Speaker 6 (27:34):
After you watched the Chonnes, were you like, I need
to go to a show. I need to see this.
I started seeing theater in Pittsburgh, and I started immersing
myself and finding places to train and putting myself in
the right But I didn't see my first Broadway show
until I went to audition for colleges when I was seventeen.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
I didn't have any.
Speaker 6 (27:53):
Way to get there. Really, I didn't know how to
get there. I didn't know, you know, there was no Internet.
There was no like you have to this is nineteen
eighty five, Like, there was no I didn't understand how
to get there, So I had to figure out how
to get there in Pittsburgh. And it was through the
theater that it happened because there's no music industry in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Question.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
So my relationship with I'm telling You I'm Not Going is,
you know, due to the numerous times that song gets
chosen as showtime at the Apollo. So you know, I
found out about dream Girls long after. You know, they're
on the cover of Ebony and Jet and it's already
(28:39):
like five years after the fact. So like I knew
Jerdan Viladay when she got her record deal, like I
Am Love and all that stuff. Yeah, and then eventually
learned about it. So I've never as a watcher of
award shows as a kid.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
I didn't see that performance, but I do know it
was a game changer. So is that.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Moment a seminal moment for black actors and whatnot in
terms of the importance of I'm telling You I'm Not Going.
Was that really the flag planning moment for Black Broadway
to establish itself that we don't have to sing in
jazz hands, like proper Broadway style, like we're allowed to.
Speaker 6 (29:22):
It didn't happen often, but it had happened before.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Well, I knew about like Stephanie Mills, I saw the
ways when I was a kid.
Speaker 6 (29:29):
And all of that, but like full out balls to
the walls gospel like that and authentic had really only
happened prior to that. With Your Arms she Short the
Box of God, which was Carol, which was also Jennifer Howick. Okay,
she was also in that. She was okay, yeah, but
(29:50):
that was like the last and don't bother me. I
can't cope. Had some gospel and it, you know, but
like I actually have written a gospel musical with Kirk Carr.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
But I'm trying to.
Speaker 6 (30:01):
Get going because the last time there was an authentic
gospel musical on Broadway with authentic gospel music sung by
the people was Your Arms She Short The Box of God,
which was in the mid seventies. You know, dream Girls
is not a gospel musical. She's a gospel singer, but
it was not a gospel musical.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
There have been gospel.
Speaker 6 (30:24):
Singers in musicals, including myself in Greece.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Lily is White and everything she's.
Speaker 6 (30:30):
Ever done, you know, like we have been in those spaces.
Speaker 7 (30:34):
But fascinating, but not our stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
So when Melbourne Moore won heard, I've never seen Pearly,
so I don't know what roles he played. But when
she won, that was that she was the leading Okay,
but does she have a moment.
Speaker 6 (30:51):
Yeah, she sang I Got loved. Okay, she sang a
few things, but she sang I Got loved. And that
was real gospel singing. But it also wasn't really a
gospel musical.
Speaker 5 (31:00):
Mm hmm, right, give me consistent gospel music in the musical.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Yes, it wasn't. There was gospel.
Speaker 6 (31:08):
There was gospel in it, and she was an art
she was more of a traditional.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Black belting singer.
Speaker 6 (31:18):
It was you could say it was gospel, you know,
it is gospel, but it was it wasn't like Jennifer.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Jennifer was just so you're saying that Jennifer was allowed
to go zero to five hundred and really.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
Okay, and Melbournemore did too, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 6 (31:36):
Melbourneore did too, and Stephanie Mills did too. However, the
music that they were.
Speaker 7 (31:42):
Singing, it's gospel. It wasn't gospel.
Speaker 6 (31:45):
It was not gospel. And I'm telling you was actually
written to be a gospel you know, to be in
that space musically, if that makes sense, just like Home
was not?
Speaker 10 (31:55):
Right?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Is the off Broadway lane with a slew of gospel plays?
Speaker 3 (32:06):
There?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Is it that that lane had to be created because
mainstream Broadway.
Speaker 7 (32:13):
Won't allow, won't open the door that level of gospel.
Speaker 6 (32:17):
And I think you're probably talking about the gospel plaic.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Bro had I created, because I mean, I'm asking you,
is that the reason why that lane exists?
Speaker 6 (32:29):
Well, it's always existed, you know. It's an extension of
what the Chipman circuit was.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
Okay, you know, so it's in that space.
Speaker 6 (32:39):
And I'm and I say that with reverence and not
as it disc you know, it's like, yeah, necessity is
the mother of invention. Yeah, if you wanted to go
see people in a in a narrative singing gospel music,
you went to a.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
Tyler Perry play mm hmm, or.
Speaker 6 (33:00):
Or yeah, David Talbert or whatever they were before he
came into the picture, before those giants of that space
came into the picture. Right. You know, it's difficult because
Broadway is very secular Broadways very white.
Speaker 7 (33:20):
The Great White Way, and Jesus It's correct.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Okay, no, but that's very funny. It works.
Speaker 6 (33:31):
But Jez Great Superstar worked because it's written by white
people from a white perspective. You know, everything that has
anything to do with something biblical were written by white,
secular artists, white men, whether it's Andrew Lloyd Weber, The
(33:52):
Amazing Technically Dream Coade and or Jesus Christ Superstar. They're
good stories. Mm hmmm. They chose a good story, you know,
the Prince of Egypt. It's a good story. These people
are looking for stories to tell, you know, Biblical stories
are stories that very often have wide ranging audiences.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
That's why they're doing them.
Speaker 6 (34:17):
But if you listen to those those musicals, they're not
gospel music unless you rearrange it and make the gospel,
which then you get into the rights issues and you
got to get permission and all of that.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Your accolades and your legacy, and I don't mean do
you have it in you to with stand the abuse
that it will take to establish or to get your
production on Broadway. But with the claim that you have
and the proof of your acting, how easy is it
(35:01):
for you to uh manifest the gospel play that you
would like to see on Broadway, stories that you want
to be told.
Speaker 6 (35:13):
It's still it's still like Sisyphis.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
It doesn't matter. It's still like.
Speaker 7 (35:19):
Thanks Bill, It's still like sorry.
Speaker 6 (35:22):
To tell you. I was just having this conversation with
my with the head of my production company, and all
of the passes that I've gotten on my film and
television projects for the last you know, two years, they
passed on you know, seven different people have passed on
a documentary about me. I have three Tonys and Emmy
(35:44):
and a Grammy, and I'm still getting passed on.
Speaker 5 (35:47):
Yeah, well you still got more material. Maybe it's not
time for that yet because you still do.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
What I'm saying. What I'm saying is what I'm saying.
Speaker 7 (35:53):
Is it doesn't matter who.
Speaker 4 (35:57):
It's different. It's not any easier thout.
Speaker 6 (36:03):
The hill is still it's still a mountain that must
be scaled for everything. It's all good, But as we
all know, it's.
Speaker 5 (36:13):
Like, you're at a point that I think that you
would be the one person as far as this gospel situation.
And it's probably and actually we're probably speaking it too power.
This is just a process. But you're going to be
that one person to bring all this together and put
it on a stage.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Let me ask you then, because I know so.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
My my question to you is how fucking exhausting is
it to constantly have to push through life being resisted
from childhood on? And how do you not self sabotage
(36:52):
your journey?
Speaker 1 (36:55):
How do you not give up?
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I have friends who literally have given and aren't here
with us now, Like, how do you just not just
throw your hands up in the air, and like, like.
Speaker 6 (37:09):
I throw my hands up at least three or four
times a week.
Speaker 7 (37:13):
Okay, I was put on this earth.
Speaker 6 (37:17):
To do exactly what I'm doing. M. I have been
given a gift. It is my purpose, it is my ministry,
it is my calling. I know that this much for sure. M.
That's the only thing that I can return to in
(37:38):
the moments where I feel like giving up, And when
I tell you today was a dad where I said
I can't do this anymore.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Do you mind sharing us specifically what happened today? Are
you allowed to?
Speaker 3 (37:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:51):
It was?
Speaker 6 (37:52):
It was the last three people who I pitched from
my music documentary who said, no, that's literally about can
one become a pop star in their fifties.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
Can that happen.
Speaker 6 (38:09):
If it can.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
Happen, it would be me.
Speaker 6 (38:12):
And that is the journey of this documentary that my
whole life and the thing is is that I'm a
black fagot in America and I use that word sagot
because that's how I'm treated.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
It's a violent word.
Speaker 6 (38:30):
And everybody should hear it, right, just like grab her
by the pussy, right, everybody got on the news and
change the word.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
Don't change the word.
Speaker 6 (38:44):
Bleep it out so people can remember.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
What the fuck he said.
Speaker 6 (38:48):
Yeah, the reason why he has ascended to the heights
that he's ascended is because every person has given them
a pass.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
I don't get passes like that, you know.
Speaker 6 (38:58):
And and so for me it's like I was never
supposed to be here to begin with. I was never
supposed to be this person ever ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,
ever ever ever, KICKI Boots wasn't supposed to happen. And
then when KICKI Boots happened, he was like, well, yeah,
(39:19):
he's playing a drag ring. Yeah we can see that,
but that's it. That's where the capital is.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
Gonna be in me movies, you know, Like, you know.
Speaker 6 (39:31):
My biggest dream at fifteen years old, when I was
finally able to buy my own music go hearkening back
to that, you know, I went and started. I mean,
by the time I was eighteen years old, I had
like seven hundred CDs because I was like just trying
to you know, just like who is that and what
is this? And why don't I know that? And you know,
(39:51):
like you know, just educating myself about bodies, about black
music outside of the church. You know, my biggest dream
was to be the male Whitney Houston, you know, and
then all of this and then here I am.
Speaker 7 (40:06):
So that's why this documentary is going to be dope.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
And can I tell you, Billy, when you watch that
Rosie old Donald clip that you were on back in
the day. In my mind, because I follow your career heavily,
as not too many things that I haven't watched that
you have been in in my mind, I think he
wants that so bad.
Speaker 7 (40:23):
And like, so now that I know that Mona.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
Lisa is the story of you becoming this pop star,
it's got to be gut wrenching. And also people must
have all kinds of misunderstandings as to why you don't
totally feel fulfilled even with.
Speaker 7 (40:35):
All of those awards, with all that stuff, you go back.
Speaker 5 (40:37):
To that Rosie ol Donald video, you go back to
when you were signed as a solo artist, and it
seems like that piece right there is one of the
lone pieces that's missing for you is the gift, right, yeah.
Speaker 6 (40:48):
Man, and the thing is the gift. For the first
twenty five years of my career, I couldn't break through
in the acting world because the gatekeepers of that world, well,
he's just a singer.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
So then I scale that mountain.
Speaker 6 (41:04):
I went Emmy's for Best Lead and Emmy for Best
Lead after in a Drama.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
Series as a said yes for the first time in history.
Speaker 6 (41:14):
And now it's like, oh, I didn't.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
Know brace Out is sing.
Speaker 7 (41:18):
That's true. That's true. They were surprised when you started
singing in polls.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
See, I didn't know you acted. I knew you could sing.
I didn't know you acted.
Speaker 7 (41:25):
Oh my god, well yeah yeah, no, no, no, no, no again,
I know you.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
You knew I knew ninety six like I didn't know.
Speaker 4 (41:32):
Yeah, But people got on the Billy Porter train. People
because my career is.
Speaker 6 (41:36):
Over thirty years now, right and black on cracking, I
don't look like what I've been through. People have gotten
on the Billy Porter train at different stops.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
True, right, So let me tell you this story. So
do you remember Sandy Gallen.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah, the man used to work with Michael Jackson.
Speaker 6 (41:55):
Michael Jackson Janney Barb saying Neil Diamond like so Rosie o'donald.
He represented ros O Donald. When I was in the
Revival of Greece. This is nineteen ninety four, I sang
beautiful dropout. I did the arrangement. Go listen to that too.
It's a gospel arrangement of you. Ooh, I did the
(42:15):
arrangement nine minutes long. They destroyed it for me because
they made me a coon.
Speaker 4 (42:21):
Essentially.
Speaker 6 (42:22):
They dressed me in a white space suit, put me
in fourteen inches of orange rubber hair. Just don't watch it.
You also have to read the memoir. You understand all
of it. But I meet with Sandy Gallan. He asks
me what I want to do, and all of the
things and multi hyphenates that I'm doing right now is
what I said.
Speaker 4 (42:43):
And he said to me, you can't do everything.
Speaker 6 (42:46):
You have to choose one thing because the audiences can't.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
They can't receive more than one thing.
Speaker 6 (42:52):
And I said at twenty four years old, and I
don't know how I had the presidence of mind to
do this, but I said, with all due respect, mister Gallan,
once again, I'm a black saggot in America. If I
choose one thing and it doesn't work out, I am
asked out. All these years later, I've proven him wrong
(43:14):
in every single way.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
Exactly the music.
Speaker 7 (43:18):
The music. That's what I felt from the.
Speaker 6 (43:20):
Music is the gift. What are y'all talking about?
Speaker 5 (43:24):
It's but you know what, sometimes here's the songs to
Sometimes have you realized the song part of the music,
Like you know, your voice is fucking stupendous.
Speaker 7 (43:35):
I mean, explain its more intellectually than I am.
Speaker 6 (43:37):
But sometimes they've been saying that for years black MoMA
lise I has the song.
Speaker 7 (43:42):
No you got it? But no more excuses now now, no.
Speaker 6 (43:47):
More excuses about that Black MoMA lise I has the songs.
Speaker 4 (43:52):
I was there.
Speaker 6 (43:53):
I'm there with the top writers in the business, Andrew
and Martin.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
Three months before she died.
Speaker 6 (44:00):
Mmm, justin trantl who's the number one pop writer in
the business. Another thing that I wanted to talk about
in the documentary is that because I'm theater based.
Speaker 7 (44:14):
I'm corny. So that is a thing.
Speaker 6 (44:17):
Bill, I'm theater based, and because I come from the theater,
I'm corny. Theater is corny until these motherfuckers want an ego.
Speaker 7 (44:26):
Yeah, how they want to go to a show?
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Yes, so they want to take their wife to a
show or whoever the fuck it is?
Speaker 6 (44:32):
Yeah, all of a sudden, no shame right, everybody has
dreams and should you know.
Speaker 5 (44:40):
But it's an interesting thing, nobility, because who are the
successful theater after singers who have translated.
Speaker 7 (44:46):
It's like Bett Mitler.
Speaker 8 (44:47):
The doors are bolt headed shut for us does nothing
but open our arms to everybody, and the gatekeepers of
the music industry keep the those doors bolted shut.
Speaker 4 (45:01):
It's not just me anymore. It's me.
Speaker 6 (45:04):
It's Leslie Oldham Junior. It's Cynthia Arinbo. It's so short
to bean, you see, so short of being now because
you need her to play your mother's.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
This is the weird thing because ah, man, I'm frozen
only because I'm realizing how close our stories are parallel.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Because so the thing is is.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
That I don't know, like if you were born in
a musical fan, I don't know what your childhood journey was.
Speaker 4 (45:35):
Like do you think of Jayson family?
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Yes, you know, if I were a betting man, you know,
I would have thought that I'm going to make it
with the first love of my life, which is music. Now, okay,
I'm also insatiable by nature, so of course, like you know,
you got you gotta get outside of yourself to to
to see it. But this kind of tortoise and hair
(45:57):
journey I've been on with music has been so slow
that even despite despite the accolades, I still feel like
I've not made it. Of course, other people have really
sit on the sidelines get angry when I say that,
because it's like, dude, we would.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Chop our left bum. Yeah you as a person, well yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
But my whole point is that when my third chapter
started happening, i e.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Directing movies, it's.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Like, all right, good news, bad news of mere everything
you ever dreamed for your life to happen is going
to happen. And I'm like, what's the bad news? It's
not going to be music that gets you there? Correct,
And despite me getting to a place where I don't
feel like a cealist artist or whatever, there's this itching,
(46:51):
this longing I have to just if I can just
get what I have now, but it's were my music
because it's like, dude, when you grow up with five
thousand records in the house, when you play radio city
music Hall at at twelve, when you everything I've done
with music, it's like, ah, cannot just can I just
(47:14):
have this one thing?
Speaker 1 (47:15):
God? Like can you?
Speaker 6 (47:16):
And there are people on this planet that don't even
know I say, I sang on the show?
Speaker 4 (47:20):
Did you watch the show?
Speaker 6 (47:22):
But it doesn't register when you're and it goes the
opposite way. For musicians. It's like when you are considered
an actor and you sing on a show, audiences do
not receive you as a singer or a recording.
Speaker 4 (47:37):
They receive you as a character who is singing on
a show.
Speaker 6 (47:40):
When recording artists come and try to act, there's a
little bit of the same resistance.
Speaker 7 (47:45):
Oh yeah, but.
Speaker 10 (47:48):
Not nearly as much as thee But like, what if
you look at it from opposite perspective, like if you
if you have those other things that they're working great,
it makes it makes the music thing a mirror Like
you've been saving on music for your whole life, and
those other successes make you want to get to that
level of success with your music, like you want to
win the Oscar of Documentary as a musician, but you
(48:09):
haven't gotten to yet.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
And I feel like that's is that a bad thing?
I know, if it's a bad thing, that's how I
look at it.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
The thing is, during the pandemic, I learned a lot
about myself, and I learned there was one week, I
think all of July, you know, like it was hard
to walk outside and want a mask. So I had
a car and that was the one place where I
could just take my mask off and be out in
the world and not have to you know.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
And I'm living out in the country, so sometimes.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
I would do these four hour drives, you know, Upstate
New York to go to you know. And I decided
the entire month of July, I'm gonna listen to the
entire roots discography and have a long conversation with myself,
like what is it about these sixteen records that isn't
fulfilling the dream of like I made it and some
(49:03):
of these records are actually you know, someone platinum, someone awards,
But what is it about? So this is my conclusion,
and a lot of it happened because again you know,
I DJ'ed a lot, you know, during the pandemic, I
was DJing online, and because I wasn't doing my club set,
(49:23):
I was actually playing music I liked. So essentially all
of twenty twenty I spent nine ten months, damn near
three to five hours every day playing every type of music,
which is somehow I started to say, wow, I don't
think I know how to write a song, and then
(49:46):
I realized, oh shit, every Root.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Song came from soundcheck, came from da da da da.
We don't know what a melody is.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
So suddenly I'm realizing I have to write learn how
to write songs.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
So in the last five years, I've.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Gotten a crash course on what a melody is. So
similar to you. With this Mona Lisa project, I'm literally
putting the farm on this next Roots album into because
it just now I'm embarrassed.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
I'm like, how do I have seventeen records and people
are like, oh, you guys are the earth win and
Fire of hip hop. No, no, no, no, the grateful dead
of hip hop. And it's like, we're still struggling to
get to.
Speaker 4 (50:32):
The place we should be, right, So was that the goal.
Speaker 7 (50:36):
Though, Yeah, that's an interesting with the goal to write singles.
Speaker 9 (50:40):
I feel like the goal is is like, you're the
greatest live hip hop and in the history of hip.
Speaker 7 (50:45):
Hop with one of the greatest ympsees of all time.
Speaker 3 (50:48):
End of story, Like does it matter if you have
any singles?
Speaker 4 (50:51):
Is that what you're about?
Speaker 5 (50:52):
Can I just shout out to Rich Nichols and Dice
Raw who actually did make some really help make some
great roots albums, like are you serious?
Speaker 1 (50:59):
Like yeah, but come on, dog eat Layah.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
You're the first person to plant it in the seed
when things fall a fart came out you fua, You
asked me, Hey, how come the big single that is
breaking you guys out?
Speaker 1 (51:12):
Why is that buried at the end of side too?
Speaker 2 (51:16):
Yes, I did say that because my logic was, Okay,
in this hour fifteen minute record, I'm going to place
the bait towards the end to make you guys listen
to that.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
And you kind of eye.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
Rolled, But come on, liya, you understand that we live
in a single society now and not to hijack this
interview because I'm gonna get back.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
To you, billy.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
But my point was the goal for me and people
all diden say that like, oh, you guys don't care
like you're the roots either. People often I care because
it's like the thing is, that's the thing like with
this pedigree of knowledge of music, like the level of commitment.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
I have more commitments to music than I.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Do to besides my relationship with Tarik, I don't think
I've committed to anything as long as I've committed to music.
And to not like to be able to tell people
stories and to study people and to write their books,
but not to do it for myself is almost rather jarring.
And then yes, I know it's the subjective opinion, but
(52:20):
when you watch people significantly less talented than you are,
it just it burns me inside.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
And so but here's the thing though, and this is
why I went through that whole field.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
To ask you, because sometimes I ask myself, Okay, was
it ever meant in the cards for music to be
my path? Because now I believe in listening to the universe. Yeah,
And I know I'm stubborn. I know I'm stubborn as fuck,
(52:58):
and I want to control every thing and I want
my version of how I want my life to go
to be gospel.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Now I'm just learning like, all right, what do y'all
want me to do? And it's like my world is
opening up everywhere by music.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
So I'm asking you, are you willing to walk away
from music knowing that other avenues have opened for you?
Speaker 6 (53:25):
I wouldn't call it walking away because I've already done it.
The reason why I've been able to have such an
expansion in my life, you know, there are a few reasons,
but the biggest one was nine to eleven, nine to twelve,
two thousand and one. I lost my voice to severe
(53:46):
acid reflux for about five to seven years, and I.
Speaker 4 (53:52):
Had been asking the universe.
Speaker 6 (53:54):
I've been asking God, whatever it is that you know,
I'm more than my voice. I'm more than my voice.
I'm more than my voice. Lord, Please help me understand
and help the world understand that I'm more than my voice.
Speaker 2 (54:09):
Were you in New Yorker? Like what was the I
was all over? I was in LA I was psychological or.
Speaker 4 (54:15):
It was totally psychological.
Speaker 6 (54:17):
And so when I lost my voice, I literally knew why,
and I was like, okay, Lord, you know because my voice,
my singing voice, was my identity, My singing voice was
my savior, My singing voice was what got me out
like the basketball players, like the sports people. It got
(54:39):
me out of my circumstance. It allowed for me to
be in spaces where I could learn how to dream
beyond my circumstance. So my entire identity was wrapped up
in that. And I had and the universe, God whatever
knew that if I could keep singing and just get
them jobs and the jobs that I didn't mark, then
(55:02):
I would just keep doing that because I wouldn't have
the courage to do anything else.
Speaker 4 (55:05):
It was in that five.
Speaker 6 (55:07):
To seven year period where my mind was able to expand.
It's like I've been given more than just one gift.
I can act, I can direct, I can write. I
went to screenwriting school, you know. I was like, wait,
I don't have to wait for somebody else.
Speaker 4 (55:27):
And George C.
Speaker 6 (55:28):
Will's my one of my mentors, said, you can't wait
for anybody to ever give you permission to practice your art.
You have to be doing it all the time, even
when no one's listening, and most of the time no
one will be listening. That's why I have five albums.
This is not my second album, it's my six catch
up people. I'm doing it whether y'all listen or not.
(55:49):
I'm doing it whether you're watching or not. And all
of the albums are fierce, so y'all can catch up
when it's time. But for me, it's like most of
the time, I can feel like that. Most the time,
I can harness the power of just being present and
letting the universe take me where I'm supposed to go.
(56:12):
I have ascended to heights that I never dreamed.
Speaker 4 (56:15):
I have a star on the Hollywood Walk and saying.
Speaker 6 (56:18):
That wasn't a dream. I didn't even think anything, you know, like,
it's like it's been magical and simultaneously my question. I
start to ask myself the question today, when is it enough?
Speaker 10 (56:36):
No?
Speaker 4 (56:37):
When is it enough?
Speaker 6 (56:39):
I am enough? Just as I am, I am enough.
Speaker 4 (56:46):
I have to say it to myself multiple times a day.
Speaker 7 (56:49):
Is this just COVID Billy? Do you feel?
Speaker 5 (56:51):
Because I remember some of your posts you were making
during these COVID times and I really appreciated your truth
and telling where life really is. You see what you
see and what you don't see. So how you feel today?
Speaker 7 (57:03):
Is that post?
Speaker 5 (57:04):
That feeling now that you've hit with people you know
from perception, people might say a little bottom in that way.
Speaker 6 (57:10):
Yeah, I mean I was always headed in this direction
because of my spirituality, because you know, I choose joy,
I choose to be positive.
Speaker 4 (57:20):
These are choices that you have to make. They're active.
Speaker 6 (57:23):
I choose love. Love is active. I choose all of
these things for myself so that I could just stay sane,
because because this world will drive you insane if you
let it. So, I mean, so for me, it's about
always landing on You're enough, Philly, because everything on the
(57:47):
planet will tell you the opposite of that.
Speaker 4 (57:49):
Many things will tell you the opposite of that.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
What year did your last album come out?
Speaker 4 (57:55):
What year did my not Black Mona Lisa Volume one?
Speaker 3 (57:58):
Yes, Volume one.
Speaker 4 (58:00):
Black Mona Lisa came out last November?
Speaker 1 (58:02):
Theyab before that, beyond before that.
Speaker 4 (58:04):
The album before that was Billy Porter Presents the Soul of.
Speaker 6 (58:07):
Richard Rogers okay and twenty seventeen, and then before that
it was Billy's Back on Broadway twenty fourteen, and then
before that it was at the Corner of Broadway and
Soul Live from Joe's Bud.
Speaker 4 (58:23):
And then the first one was ninety four untitled on
A and m Okay. But this poet, you know this
So the.
Speaker 6 (58:32):
Cookout sessions have come about because instead of simply just
being mad, instead of you know, feeling sorry for myself
and what have you, you know, for me, it's like, well,
what's my plan? And how am I going to overcome this?
Because I just have to keep working. I just have
(58:54):
to keep pressing. I just have to keep pressing forward
and be the best version of whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (59:00):
So I hired a new manager, We.
Speaker 6 (59:05):
Hunkered down, We made a business plan.
Speaker 3 (59:07):
You know.
Speaker 6 (59:08):
The cookout session is about harnessing my message, making sure
that everybody knows who I am.
Speaker 4 (59:20):
You know.
Speaker 6 (59:20):
One of the things that I realized in trying to
figure this out is there is confusion. How do I
stop the confusion?
Speaker 4 (59:31):
Is he a singer? Is he you know?
Speaker 6 (59:34):
Like you know, Sandy Galla said, confused people get confused.
There will be no confusion, you know, because what I
landed on is, oh, as a recording artist, I need
a persona. I have to do what Donald Glover did.
I have to be my version of Talvis Schambino so
(59:55):
that people are it's like, oh, that's a different person,
that's a different the team.
Speaker 10 (01:00:01):
You know.
Speaker 4 (01:00:01):
I'm excited about that.
Speaker 6 (01:00:03):
So my documentary is Billy Porter is black Mona Lisa.
You're coming to see black Mona Lisa. That's a whole
different thing. So I Beyonce even did it with I
Am Sat Fears on her fourth album. I feel like
I have hit on something that has the possibility to
(01:00:23):
take me to the next level. Whatever that level, whatever
the level is. The dream is to be playing out stadiums,
but the reality is, I just want people to listen
to my music.
Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
So question, should you make it as black Mona Lisa.
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
We still have that itching, like, ah, okay, now i
want to do this as Billy.
Speaker 6 (01:00:46):
Porter because I'm still Billy Porter, okay, And I've already
established myself as Billy Porter, right So now when the
gigs come in and somebody wants me to go and
do a theater, when PBS calls, right it says like
they have and says, we want you to do Billy
(01:01:07):
Porter and Friends for New Year's Eve.
Speaker 4 (01:01:10):
Nice, I can do Billy Porter.
Speaker 6 (01:01:13):
In that space, black Mona Lisa is somebody else, So
then I could bring back Mona Lisa on inside of
my Billy Porter. So it really has to be that distinct.
I think, at least I'm gonna try to do it
like that. At least I'm trying to do it like
that now because I've tried all the other ways. So
you know, let's see who knows, you know, But I
(01:01:35):
think there's something in it. I'm really excited about it.
And with these summer tours and with you know, my
tour last year, and you know my imaging now you know,
and like when you look at my visuals, when you
look at that stuff, it now can make sense because
there's a separation. People who know Billy Porter from theater
(01:01:56):
are confused by this music because they know me as
a theater person. They know Kinky Boots, so they're confused,
you know. But you turn on Bonut saying and don't
have problems. So if I'm black Mona Lida, then you
can make the separation.
Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
Got it?
Speaker 4 (01:02:15):
See what I'm saying.
Speaker 7 (01:02:16):
Oh that's your soul my fears? Okay, yeah, what's your side?
Your fears?
Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
Hold up?
Speaker 5 (01:02:21):
This is where part one is, but you have to
come back next week or check out your podcast for
part two of that QLs with Billy Porter, because in
that episode, Billy is more real and more raw about
his activism for several causes and shout out to all
my Polls fans. This is a conversation about his character.
(01:02:42):
Pray tell that you have been waiting for. Also, don't forget.
Make sure you check out Billy's new EP, Black Mona
Lisa Volume two, The Cookout Sessions, which is out now
see you next time.
Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
How Much Love Supreme is the production of iHeart Radio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Post Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of port Love Supreme.
I'm your host, Questlove. We have the family with us
right now. Sugar Steve, the fastest man in the universe.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I am fast.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I'm here.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
I'm so very excited about this.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yes, wow, wait, that's what device was that?
Speaker 5 (00:28):
Hey? Bill?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
This is my very fancy whiskey glass. Thank you for asking.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
It's not a device.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
It's advice, Billy. Our guest has a good trick too. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (00:39):
No, I'm having giant sun kiss FDA.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Apple.
Speaker 7 (00:48):
Only a shot a mirror, only a shot?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Layah? How are you with your uh your fan? You good?
Speaker 5 (00:54):
Yes, shout us to all the perimenopause the ladies. Yes
it is here, and yes we are.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Too if we're talking about.
Speaker 7 (01:01):
It, Yes we are. Don't you love it?
Speaker 6 (01:03):
I love it?
Speaker 7 (01:03):
Hey, Hallie, thank you Hallie Berry.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Well, ladies and gentlemen, First, don't succeed.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
You try, and you try, and you try again, and
we will say that the wis this is the third
or fourth time?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Is the charm? It's finally happening. Our guest is a
multi hyphened powerhouse of a talent and a human being.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
You know, I understand the term that they want to say,
but I don't believe in egot. I believe in ghetto.
So right now you're a get okay, I'll take it. Yeah,
because I'm trying to go for ghetto. I'm not trying
to go for egott. You are a Grammy Award winner and.
Speaker 7 (01:41):
You don't want to want to go back to the ghetto.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yes, and a multiple Tony Award winner, a musician, an
actor and activist, an author, humanitarian, a Time Magazine one
hundred Most Influential Person recipient.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
You know, there's nothing the scoff at.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Uh. We are currently ahead of our guest brand new project,
which is called The Black Mona Lisa Volume two cookout Sessions.
Most importantly, you are from Pittsburgh?
Speaker 7 (02:13):
Are you at a title?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I was about to say my mom's from Pittsburgh, but
I do not know the proper way to address agains YenS.
Speaker 8 (02:25):
Is just you, you all, y'all?
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Whatever, it is, just put.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
How you doing?
Speaker 6 (02:33):
Hey?
Speaker 5 (02:33):
What?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Talk him out? Please? Welcome to Quest lof Subrie. Finally,
Billy Porter.
Speaker 5 (02:38):
Yeah that's not at a title. He's also a joy
Bringer He's a joy bringer.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So wait, what is the proper way to use Yen's
Because I feel like I'm an honorary Pittsburgh and pittsburghen you're.
Speaker 6 (02:55):
Dealing with multiple people and you're talking to multiple people's plural.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
It's like, yeah, it's like y'all, it's a Southern y'all,
it's a Pittsburgh and y'all.
Speaker 6 (03:06):
You all y'all ying.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
See, I didn't know that it was plural because I
see a singular person.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I'm just like Yen's.
Speaker 6 (03:18):
OKAYLORA, It's the only way to use it.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
It's floral.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Jacob is awesome from Pittsburgh just informed me that the
term fuckings is a term for.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Ye.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
I don't know that many people say that, but.
Speaker 6 (03:40):
That's proper. You will be using it correctly in a sentence.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
What part of Pittsburgh are you from? So?
Speaker 6 (03:50):
I grew up in the East Liberty slash Homewood area,
like right on the cuff in the hood hood.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I've heard my mom mention this place often, so okay, yeah,
East Liberty, Okay, that is what's says liberty.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Just combine it sliberty.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
How long have you lived there?
Speaker 6 (04:09):
I lived there until I essentially graduated from college. I
went to Cardigial Metain And.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
What's your major drama?
Speaker 7 (04:17):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Okay, I was in the drama department. Honey, your whole life, no.
Speaker 6 (04:23):
Classical theater calledge Daddy is trained. It's not a mistake.
It's not by accident.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
What I want to know is because one of the
last conversations I had with you was I was watching
everyone on the show knows my obsession with Soul Train
and owning all thousands of episodes, and I remember your
careers as far as back as I think you were
(04:53):
on the show.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
I believe in ninety four, ninety five.
Speaker 6 (04:56):
I believe, yes, I would say ninety five or ninety
six because the Untitled came out and on and the
records that was my first album in ninety six, and
I was on with ll clo J. Was on the
same episode as.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
Me Marmore Soul Drain Yeah, yeah, okay posted Soul Train.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yeah. So that's when I first became aware of you.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Like, for some reason, I didn't connect that as you,
even though I remember that episode well because I religiously
record that show. So I'll start off, like I ask everyone,
what is your first musical memory in life.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Then I stumped you.
Speaker 6 (05:38):
Well, it's not just one, and so it's hard to
like because there are many different.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
When you thing of your childhood. Yeah, what's the first
moment of music? Church?
Speaker 6 (05:51):
Okay, singing in church, singing that friendship Baptist church, being
five years old, singing a solo, being the adult choir
because I could sing so good, so they let me
in the adult choir till I was out of concert.
It was a it was a mass choir, conor clert.
I was marching up. I was in the front in
the soprano section because I was a gospel soprano until
(06:16):
I was thirty. It's recorded, so you can go and
listen to it and see that I'm not lying or
here that I'm not lying. But yeah, that's the first memory.
And I was marching up and this really really mean
lady snatched me out of the line because she decided
that I was out of place and I shouldn't have
(06:39):
been there because I was a little child.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
But did she have the authority to do that or
was she the really no, she did not.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
It's in my book. It was very traumatizing.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
How old were you?
Speaker 4 (06:54):
I was like seven, or eight.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Maybe you were that powerful of a singer.
Speaker 6 (06:59):
You know the Clark sisters, right obviously of course, so
you know Maddie Bos's Clark essimply was the female James
cleavey okay, right. She was in the KOJC Church, the
Church of God in Christ. He was Baptist. He was
the Baptist Convention of whatever. And he would go around
(07:19):
the different cities and get singers from all the different churches,
put them together and make those albums.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
So she did the same thing in the Pentecostal church.
Speaker 6 (07:29):
And so I was such a good singer that somebody
took me down there to Mill Street Church of God
in Christ to be in the choir. And you weren't
allowed to be in the choir.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
And unless she was sixteen, Well what if your voice
was excellent? What if you were the Aretha frames I'm.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
About to say.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Okay, So I.
Speaker 6 (07:49):
Get there and they're like, he can't be here, and
they were like, just listen to him sing, and I said,
and she was like sit out. She said, come on,
she said, sit right here in front row. So you know,
so I sat in the front row and worked with
Mattign's Clark.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
I haven't really.
Speaker 6 (08:08):
Retold that story in a long time, and I thank
you for making me think about it because I would
say those are the two that's a major, major musical
milestone for me.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Okay, like the beginning, the first time that I really knew.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
All Right, I want you to explain something to me
because oftentimes, you know, and we've had gospel lessons on
the shows, and of course you know, for any black
singer I know, I'll say that eighty five to ninety
percent of their entry into music is coming through the church. Yeah,
(08:47):
can you please explain to me, is there a difference
between a Baptist church a Pentecostal church?
Speaker 6 (08:53):
So I would say, we're not a monolis right, So
like back in the day, the difference between Baptists and
Pentecostal was the charismatic.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
Part, okay, shouting, the speaking in.
Speaker 6 (09:09):
Tongues and all of that was reserved for the Pentecostal people.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
The Baptist people at that time.
Speaker 6 (09:17):
Were still pulled up, okay, and they were still closer
to ame, which was African American Episcopals. So if you've
been to African American Episcopal you were probably singing classical music.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
You were probably.
Speaker 6 (09:32):
Singing you know your choir was singing hymns that were traditional.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
You probably had like you know, Leonting Price.
Speaker 6 (09:43):
Was your soloist, okay, at the Ame church, Lanting Price
was your soloist. At the Baptist Church, Mahela Jackson was
your soloist. And I do it with music. If you
think of Mehelia Jackson balls to the walls belting. Okay,
Pentecostal and I'm breaking it down through music was all
(10:05):
about the coloring and the riffing and all of that.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So if I were drumming, I would probably be at
home drumming in a Pentecostal church.
Speaker 6 (10:14):
Yes, it was freer at the time. Now Baptists and
Pentecostal are the same.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Well, I'm a seventies church person, so I think the
last time I really really played in church was like
eighty seven. And of course, you know, as a teenager
and listening to hip hop or whatever, I would try
to sneak in songs that were like Breakbeats or play
Top Billing by Audio two or Peter Piper by run DMC,
and the older people would look at me and start
(10:41):
scowling like m M, don't play any like was it
looked down upon in terms of contemporary music.
Speaker 6 (10:50):
Or in the Baptist Church at the time, it was expanding. Okay,
you could play, you could push it, but not too far, like,
for instance, the Clark sisters were everywhere, but when you
brought the sunshine happened and it crossed over into the clubs,
(11:12):
it was a problem.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Just like the.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Hawkins family and Oh happy Day, you know.
Speaker 6 (11:18):
But those people were like, but we're over here preaching
to the choir. They were pioneers because they were like, well,
we're over here preaching to the choir, and you're mad
at us because we've broken through to essentially centers secular secular, right,
So isn't that the point the Bible says, go out
into the world and preach my gospel. That's what the
(11:41):
Bible says. So I was in that era where it
was becoming more and more accepted. I mean now essentially,
you know, I mean and and R and B and
soul and gospel. They've always borrowed from each other, you know.
And nowadays gospel artists are a hip hop artists. You know,
(12:04):
Mary Mary is a hip hop artist. They came out
they were hip hop artists, you know what I mean,
Like there's a whole generation of folk now. You know,
you listen to Jake Marsh, she may as well be.
It's like you know, King Keith heard when she first
came out, Like they're very contemporary and they're borrowing heavily
(12:25):
right from the hip hop tradition.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
Now his house, we were just talking to bb Winings
about the work that he's been doing with Louis Vega,
and it's yeah, and you and you with Freda, right,
like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, what's motivational music in that way?
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, Belly.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Do you consider yourself a church singer still to this day?
Speaker 4 (12:45):
Yeah, I'm a gospel singer.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
That's how you defined yourself.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
I'm a gospel singer. Anywhere I go, I'm a gospel singer.
You know my mom, you know, I left the church
when I was sixteen because I'm a big old queen
and I wasn't out, and so I left and I
was like, I'm not changing, I'm God made me who
I am. I'm leaving.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
And my mom had a problem with it, and she
came around and whatever.
Speaker 6 (13:08):
Before she passed, she passed it every word, but before
she passed, every time every time she would come.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
And hear me or see me do something. She was
so sweet.
Speaker 6 (13:18):
She would be like, I know you left the church,
and you left it for good reason, But every time
you open up your book, nothing but.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Nothing but Jesus nothing, Jesus nothing.
Speaker 6 (13:38):
And it's true. It's like when I listen to myself,
I got you can't take the gospel.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
How do you feel when someone writes a song for you,
because I know that this happens with you and it
doesn't necessarily sound like you. What is your thought process
in that?
Speaker 6 (13:53):
Well, people who are writing music for me are generally
writing it because they want me to sing it. So
for me coming from a church background where it's about
the spirit, it's about sharing your gifts with the congregation
(14:14):
and the message and the ministry, and then moving that
into training as a classical actor and learning how to
tell the story because the story is most important. So
in the secular world it's the same thing. The ministry
and telling the story is the same. They fold into one, right.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
Bill, didn't you guys do this in a way. I
know you did Sesame Street at some point.
Speaker 9 (14:40):
So I was like, Billy was on Sesame Street and
he sang an Emmy winning song called Friends with the Penguin,
and it was one of the one of the I
will say, in the fifteen years i've been there in
one of my top five moments was this moment. And
my girlfriend, who was a producer of the show, was like,
it was one of the greatest moments you ever had
on the show. Was you and that outfit sing a
song and it was fucking magical, and so like, I
(15:03):
just want to say thank you very much because.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
It was.
Speaker 6 (15:07):
Recognize your name. I'm like, I'm not a name, but
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
We have a lot of friends we have.
Speaker 9 (15:13):
We have James Sampleiner, I'm talking to the stark Sands
over here, who's like, ask them about this, Like it's
a whole Yeah, we have a lot of the same
Literally just got off the phone with James Sampliner.
Speaker 7 (15:21):
Y'all like cousins, theatre cousins, right, like theatre cousins. Yeah, yeah,
the small world.
Speaker 6 (15:32):
I'm always trying to tell the story and because my
voice was so high and it was so different and
it didn't fit into anything or anywhere, you know, Like
my voice was so high that regular tenor roles in
theater had to be transposed up a third or a
fourth for me. So like I would go into auditions
(15:55):
singing a regular tenor song like let's say Anthem from Chess,
a song that everybody in that era say, right, and
I would go in and I would have to sing
it a fourth higher from where it was written. So
I would take the music in and put it in
(16:17):
front of a piano player, and it was like Mitton's McCluskey,
because they're so used to playing it in a you
know that they couldn't even like. So I had to
start taking my own piano player with me to auditions
because people wouldn't be able to even looking at it.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
They wouldn't be able to understand this transla.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
When I deal with singers normally, it's like you got
to lower it a few notches usually win in concert.
They want to go lower, yeah, but you want to
raise it higher at that time.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Oh okay, I feel like I've heard you sing Luther
before and I have.
Speaker 6 (16:58):
Time. But I was very good with female altos with extension.
I could sing those songs in the regular keys. I
could sing I have nothing in the original key, Like
I could sing that for real, with no like effort,
no screeching note, like my top note. If you go
(17:20):
and you google oh Holy Night on the Rose O'donald
Christmas Special.
Speaker 5 (17:26):
Yes, I guess I thought that video you was seeing Google.
Speaker 6 (17:29):
Oh Holy Night, that's that's Billy Porter prime at that time.
Listen to Love Is on the Way from the First
Wives Club, that's Billy Porter like at my highest prime.
I mean the high note that I hit at the
end of Holy Night was a high. I think it
was F above or f a G above that high
(17:52):
soprano see beltic.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Who are the three singers that you pattered in yourself after?
Speaker 6 (17:57):
Like?
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Who were the singers that? Who your north star? Who's
your top three? Okay, Karen Clark.
Speaker 7 (18:04):
Here and Aretha Okay, Trinnedy Trinity.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I would imagine that you know, those are the three
that are everyone's choice. Is there a singer that's sort
of out of that circle that people will be surprised
that you gravitate towards?
Speaker 4 (18:24):
I don't think it would be a surprise.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Okay, Well, men, I like Tom Waits, and Tom Waits
has a horrible voice.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
I love that you love Tom Waits.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
God, you're making me atlantis.
Speaker 7 (18:37):
Martha that was random? Does love her?
Speaker 6 (18:45):
Love that that okay, and I'm sure there are more.
You know, you put me on the spot. Now I
can't take it.
Speaker 5 (18:55):
Nobody to step on your toes, B But I was like,
why are you thinking I'm curious about the first secular
show that you experienced, because that's a part of your
musical moment too.
Speaker 7 (19:06):
I know you mentioned church for real, for real, but
what was the first.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Your first concert or this will be a surprise. Wait
before we get to that. Did you live in a
no secular music household?
Speaker 4 (19:18):
Or was that allowed no secular music at all? Uh?
Speaker 1 (19:22):
All right, so who would you sneak and listen to nobody? Oh?
You followed the rules.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
Well until a certain age, right, it was only secular music.
And the music that I heard was on the radio
or at somebody else's house. Okay, and it was always
in passing. That's where you do all your bad shit
at somebody else's house.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
So it was somebody else's house.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
You know.
Speaker 6 (19:45):
I loved Michael Jackson, I loved Shaka, I loved you know, Prince.
Speaker 7 (19:50):
Was a little oho much.
Speaker 6 (19:53):
I liked it, but it was like I felt like
my mom could hear me listening to it.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
I got on punishment for prince.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
So I understand all that, and it was a little nasty,
so had a night, you know.
Speaker 6 (20:06):
But what's interesting about my journey is that it was gospel, gospel, gospel, gospel.
And then in the sixth grade, I was bussed to
Risingstein Middle School during the second sort of desegregation moment,
and I was introduced to theater. I was introduced to
musical theater, and I got bit by the bug. And
(20:29):
so then it became I went right from gospel music
to theater. And theater for some reason was okay with
my mother.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
He didn't really understand it.
Speaker 6 (20:43):
And so I was going to the Carnegie Library and
taking out ten albums a week and.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Listening to it while I was doing my homework.
Speaker 6 (20:51):
But I have to say it wasn't until I was
about fifteen when I got a job working at Kenny
Wood Park Kadywood Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which is the
amusement park.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
It's still there, Okay, it's still privately owned.
Speaker 6 (21:09):
It's one of the last privately owned amusement parks that's
still owned by the family that.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Started it in the country. Okay, yeah, because a lot
of them have been bought up by like six flags
flag and so I was by myself.
Speaker 6 (21:26):
I was living with the grown ups, and by grown
ups I mean the college kids in the motel out
by the park. Because my mother was now going to
drive me out to that park every day and come
and pick me up. She trusted me enough to do that.
She signed off on me having a job. I did
six shows a day, six days a week. Four of
(21:49):
them were different.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
How old were you fifteen?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
So were you emancipated?
Speaker 3 (21:55):
I was.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
None. I wasn't answer.
Speaker 7 (22:00):
She gave you permission to me permission I had.
Speaker 6 (22:03):
To have written permission from her and take it downtown
to whoever it was, or she had to go with
me or something to give me permission to work.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
And we were ports. So like I wanted Georgiana ask James.
Speaker 6 (22:16):
I wanted to.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
And myself if you shot Damn.
Speaker 6 (22:22):
I forgot about Jumber. I'm fifty five and September. I
needed my Sergyovalente. I needed my stuff. And she said,
you know, she looked at me at one point and
she's like, you have champagne taste on the beer budget.
And so I came home one day with the job
(22:45):
and she said what And I'm like yeah, and I
get to perform, and I get to do you know what,
I'm doing this and that and that. She was like, oh,
and then she met the people. She went and she
met the people who hired me because I went on
a flute to the audition.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
I went with somebody else, okay, to.
Speaker 6 (23:01):
Accompany somebody else who had done it the year before.
Curtis Clark, he had done it the year before. He's like,
you need to come an audition because you get this job.
And I did. And six shows a day, six days
a week. Four of the shows were different and we had.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Costume spontaneous or no with So there were two groups.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
There were two groups, and they were like ten shows
a day or something or seven shows a day at
the same place. So there was Rasmatas, which was a band,
a live band with three singers, three female singers. They
had their four shows a day, eighty five.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
They've been out since seventy nine, weren't they?
Speaker 4 (23:50):
They were there and seventy nine and this group was there.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I know, Oh my god, you've seen it. I wasn't heard.
I've heard of Ramatas like no, I did hard time
in Pittsburgh. I know this name good.
Speaker 6 (24:05):
And we and we were Flashed and Flash did our
shows to track, and all the shows were themed, you know,
so like there was a TV show, there was a
Broadway show, there was a dance show, there was a
you know, and so ours had three male dancers and
three female dancers. And so we did two different shows
(24:25):
a day. Razmatast did two different shows a day, alternating.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
That was during the daytime. Then in the evening, both
casts would come together.
Speaker 6 (24:36):
And we would do a show at seven which was
one thing, and then a show at like nine thirty
which was a whole different show, combined casts. As your
first audition, that was my first professional audition, and I
worked my ass off for three seasons.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
I did it for three seasons.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
What point did you realize I have a dream to
chase and it's not where I am now?
Speaker 1 (24:59):
What was your goal? Like at thirteen.
Speaker 6 (25:02):
The summer of eight after I did my first musical,
which was What which was Babes and Arms, and I
played Gus Fielding And there were so many people that
I auditioned for it that every role was double cast.
And they told us at the beginning, every single part
will be double cast.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
The cast lists spent up.
Speaker 6 (25:24):
Every part was double cast but mine, And I'm like,
what does that mean? You know, because I was bullied
so relentlessly for not being able to play sports and
being a book person, that all of a sudden, I'm
looking at this extracurricular thing and if I'm not double cast,
that means I'm doing something right.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
So I was bit by the bug.
Speaker 6 (25:47):
And then that summer was dream Girls was on the
Tonys and I just happened to be washing my dishes
in the kitchen the Tony Awards came on.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
I didn't even know what it was.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
You never heard of dream Girl.
Speaker 6 (26:00):
I had never heard of dream Girls. I had never
heard of the Tony Boards. I didn't know what was happening.
But all I knew I was eleven. But all I
knew was that I was watching black people on a stage,
the same kind of stage that I had been on,
doing the same kind of thing that I had just done. Right,
(26:21):
But it was black people who weren't poor. They were
they were in gowns, they were And so I was intrigued.
And they did that fight section into and I'm telling you,
and then Jennifer Holliday gets up and starts singing like
I sing in church. I did babes and arms. I
(26:42):
didn't think that was a possibility to sleepless.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
Nice to daily fine.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Yes, of course.
Speaker 6 (26:53):
In elementary school theater. You know, it's middle school theater.
So there was nothing black about it. There was nothing
current or urban about right, So I didn't make the
connection A that this was something that people did for
a living and B that I could actually have a
(27:14):
place in it inside of my authentic self. So I
knew that wherever those people are is where I have
to go. And they're in New York and they're on Broadway,
so that's where I'm going. And I made that decision
at eleven.
Speaker 7 (27:31):
Was your first time seeing theater in New York?
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Or did you?
Speaker 6 (27:34):
After you watched the Chonnes, were you like, I need
to go to a show. I need to see this.
I started seeing theater in Pittsburgh, and I started immersing
myself and finding places to train and putting myself in
the right But I didn't see my first Broadway show
until I went to audition for colleges when I was seventeen.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
I didn't have any.
Speaker 6 (27:53):
Way to get there. Really, I didn't know how to
get there. I didn't know, you know, there was no Internet.
There was no like you have to this is nineteen
eighty five, Like, there was no I didn't understand how
to get there, So I had to figure out how
to get there in Pittsburgh. And it was through the
theater that it happened because there's no music industry in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Question.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
So my relationship with I'm telling You I'm Not Going is,
you know, due to the numerous times that song gets
chosen as showtime at the Apollo. So you know, I
found out about dream Girls long after. You know, they're
on the cover of Ebony and Jet and it's already
(28:39):
like five years after the fact. So like I knew
Jerdan Viladay when she got her record deal, like I
Am Love and all that stuff. Yeah, and then eventually
learned about it. So I've never as a watcher of
award shows as a kid.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
I didn't see that performance, but I do know it
was a game changer. So is that.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Moment a seminal moment for black actors and whatnot in
terms of the importance of I'm telling You I'm Not Going.
Was that really the flag planning moment for Black Broadway
to establish itself that we don't have to sing in
jazz hands, like proper Broadway style, like we're allowed to.
Speaker 6 (29:22):
It didn't happen often, but it had happened before.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Well, I knew about like Stephanie Mills, I saw the
ways when I was a kid.
Speaker 6 (29:29):
And all of that, but like full out balls to
the walls gospel like that and authentic had really only
happened prior to that. With Your Arms she Short the
Box of God, which was Carol, which was also Jennifer Howick. Okay,
she was also in that. She was okay, yeah, but
(29:50):
that was like the last and don't bother me. I
can't cope. Had some gospel and it, you know, but
like I actually have written a gospel musical with Kirk Carr.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
But I'm trying to.
Speaker 6 (30:01):
Get going because the last time there was an authentic
gospel musical on Broadway with authentic gospel music sung by
the people was Your Arms She Short The Box of God,
which was in the mid seventies. You know, dream Girls
is not a gospel musical. She's a gospel singer, but
it was not a gospel musical.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
There have been gospel.
Speaker 6 (30:24):
Singers in musicals, including myself in Greece.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Lily is White and everything she's.
Speaker 6 (30:30):
Ever done, you know, like we have been in those spaces.
Speaker 7 (30:34):
But fascinating, but not our stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
So when Melbourne Moore won heard, I've never seen Pearly,
so I don't know what roles he played. But when
she won, that was that she was the leading Okay,
but does she have a moment.
Speaker 6 (30:51):
Yeah, she sang I Got loved. Okay, she sang a
few things, but she sang I Got loved. And that
was real gospel singing. But it also wasn't really a
gospel musical.
Speaker 5 (31:00):
Mm hmm, right, give me consistent gospel music in the musical.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Yes, it wasn't. There was gospel.
Speaker 6 (31:08):
There was gospel in it, and she was an art
she was more of a traditional.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Black belting singer.
Speaker 6 (31:18):
It was you could say it was gospel, you know,
it is gospel, but it was it wasn't like Jennifer.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Jennifer was just so you're saying that Jennifer was allowed
to go zero to five hundred and really.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
Okay, and Melbournemore did too, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 6 (31:36):
Melbourneore did too, and Stephanie Mills did too. However, the
music that they were.
Speaker 7 (31:42):
Singing, it's gospel. It wasn't gospel.
Speaker 6 (31:45):
It was not gospel. And I'm telling you was actually
written to be a gospel you know, to be in
that space musically, if that makes sense, just like Home
was not?
Speaker 10 (31:55):
Right?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Is the off Broadway lane with a slew of gospel plays?
Speaker 3 (32:06):
There?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Is it that that lane had to be created because
mainstream Broadway.
Speaker 7 (32:13):
Won't allow, won't open the door that level of gospel.
Speaker 6 (32:17):
And I think you're probably talking about the gospel plaic.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Bro had I created, because I mean, I'm asking you,
is that the reason why that lane exists?
Speaker 6 (32:29):
Well, it's always existed, you know. It's an extension of
what the Chipman circuit was.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
Okay, you know, so it's in that space.
Speaker 6 (32:39):
And I'm and I say that with reverence and not
as it disc you know, it's like, yeah, necessity is
the mother of invention. Yeah, if you wanted to go
see people in a in a narrative singing gospel music,
you went to a.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
Tyler Perry play mm hmm, or.
Speaker 6 (33:00):
Or yeah, David Talbert or whatever they were before he
came into the picture, before those giants of that space
came into the picture. Right. You know, it's difficult because
Broadway is very secular Broadways very white.
Speaker 7 (33:20):
The Great White Way, and Jesus It's correct.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Okay, no, but that's very funny. It works.
Speaker 6 (33:31):
But Jez Great Superstar worked because it's written by white
people from a white perspective. You know, everything that has
anything to do with something biblical were written by white,
secular artists, white men, whether it's Andrew Lloyd Weber, The
(33:52):
Amazing Technically Dream Coade and or Jesus Christ Superstar. They're
good stories. Mm hmmm. They chose a good story, you know,
the Prince of Egypt. It's a good story. These people
are looking for stories to tell, you know, Biblical stories
are stories that very often have wide ranging audiences.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
That's why they're doing them.
Speaker 6 (34:17):
But if you listen to those those musicals, they're not
gospel music unless you rearrange it and make the gospel,
which then you get into the rights issues and you
got to get permission and all of that.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Your accolades and your legacy, and I don't mean do
you have it in you to with stand the abuse
that it will take to establish or to get your
production on Broadway. But with the claim that you have
and the proof of your acting, how easy is it
(35:01):
for you to uh manifest the gospel play that you
would like to see on Broadway, stories that you want
to be told.
Speaker 6 (35:13):
It's still it's still like Sisyphis.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
It doesn't matter. It's still like.
Speaker 7 (35:19):
Thanks Bill, It's still like sorry.
Speaker 6 (35:22):
To tell you. I was just having this conversation with
my with the head of my production company, and all
of the passes that I've gotten on my film and
television projects for the last you know, two years, they
passed on you know, seven different people have passed on
a documentary about me. I have three Tonys and Emmy
(35:44):
and a Grammy, and I'm still getting passed on.
Speaker 5 (35:47):
Yeah, well you still got more material. Maybe it's not
time for that yet because you still do.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
What I'm saying. What I'm saying is what I'm saying.
Speaker 7 (35:53):
Is it doesn't matter who.
Speaker 4 (35:57):
It's different. It's not any easier thout.
Speaker 6 (36:03):
The hill is still it's still a mountain that must
be scaled for everything. It's all good, But as we
all know, it's.
Speaker 5 (36:13):
Like, you're at a point that I think that you
would be the one person as far as this gospel situation.
And it's probably and actually we're probably speaking it too power.
This is just a process. But you're going to be
that one person to bring all this together and put
it on a stage.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Let me ask you then, because I know so.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
My my question to you is how fucking exhausting is
it to constantly have to push through life being resisted
from childhood on? And how do you not self sabotage
(36:52):
your journey?
Speaker 1 (36:55):
How do you not give up?
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I have friends who literally have given and aren't here
with us now, Like, how do you just not just
throw your hands up in the air, and like, like.
Speaker 6 (37:09):
I throw my hands up at least three or four
times a week.
Speaker 7 (37:13):
Okay, I was put on this earth.
Speaker 6 (37:17):
To do exactly what I'm doing. M. I have been
given a gift. It is my purpose, it is my ministry,
it is my calling. I know that this much for sure. M.
That's the only thing that I can return to in
(37:38):
the moments where I feel like giving up, And when
I tell you today was a dad where I said
I can't do this anymore.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Do you mind sharing us specifically what happened today? Are
you allowed to?
Speaker 3 (37:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:51):
It was?
Speaker 6 (37:52):
It was the last three people who I pitched from
my music documentary who said, no, that's literally about can
one become a pop star in their fifties.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
Can that happen.
Speaker 6 (38:09):
If it can.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
Happen, it would be me.
Speaker 6 (38:12):
And that is the journey of this documentary that my
whole life and the thing is is that I'm a
black fagot in America and I use that word sagot
because that's how I'm treated.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
It's a violent word.
Speaker 6 (38:30):
And everybody should hear it, right, just like grab her
by the pussy, right, everybody got on the news and
change the word.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
Don't change the word.
Speaker 6 (38:44):
Bleep it out so people can remember.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
What the fuck he said.
Speaker 6 (38:48):
Yeah, the reason why he has ascended to the heights
that he's ascended is because every person has given them
a pass.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
I don't get passes like that, you know.
Speaker 6 (38:58):
And and so for me it's like I was never
supposed to be here to begin with. I was never
supposed to be this person ever ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,
ever ever ever, KICKI Boots wasn't supposed to happen. And
then when KICKI Boots happened, he was like, well, yeah,
(39:19):
he's playing a drag ring. Yeah we can see that,
but that's it. That's where the capital is.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
Gonna be in me movies, you know, Like, you know.
Speaker 6 (39:31):
My biggest dream at fifteen years old, when I was
finally able to buy my own music go hearkening back
to that, you know, I went and started. I mean,
by the time I was eighteen years old, I had
like seven hundred CDs because I was like just trying
to you know, just like who is that and what
is this? And why don't I know that? And you know,
(39:51):
like you know, just educating myself about bodies, about black
music outside of the church. You know, my biggest dream
was to be the male Whitney Houston, you know, and
then all of this and then here I am.
Speaker 7 (40:06):
So that's why this documentary is going to be dope.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
And can I tell you, Billy, when you watch that
Rosie old Donald clip that you were on back in
the day. In my mind, because I follow your career heavily,
as not too many things that I haven't watched that
you have been in in my mind, I think he
wants that so bad.
Speaker 7 (40:23):
And like, so now that I know that Mona.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
Lisa is the story of you becoming this pop star,
it's got to be gut wrenching. And also people must
have all kinds of misunderstandings as to why you don't
totally feel fulfilled even with.
Speaker 7 (40:35):
All of those awards, with all that stuff, you go back.
Speaker 5 (40:37):
To that Rosie ol Donald video, you go back to
when you were signed as a solo artist, and it
seems like that piece right there is one of the
lone pieces that's missing for you is the gift, right, yeah.
Speaker 6 (40:48):
Man, and the thing is the gift. For the first
twenty five years of my career, I couldn't break through
in the acting world because the gatekeepers of that world, well,
he's just a singer.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
So then I scale that mountain.
Speaker 6 (41:04):
I went Emmy's for Best Lead and Emmy for Best
Lead after in a Drama.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
Series as a said yes for the first time in history.
Speaker 6 (41:14):
And now it's like, oh, I didn't.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
Know brace Out is sing.
Speaker 7 (41:18):
That's true. That's true. They were surprised when you started
singing in polls.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
See, I didn't know you acted. I knew you could sing.
I didn't know you acted.
Speaker 7 (41:25):
Oh my god, well yeah yeah, no, no, no, no, no again,
I know you.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
You knew I knew ninety six like I didn't know.
Speaker 4 (41:32):
Yeah, But people got on the Billy Porter train. People
because my career is.
Speaker 6 (41:36):
Over thirty years now, right and black on cracking, I
don't look like what I've been through. People have gotten
on the Billy Porter train at different stops.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
True, right, So let me tell you this story. So
do you remember Sandy Gallen.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah, the man used to work with Michael Jackson.
Speaker 6 (41:55):
Michael Jackson Janney Barb saying Neil Diamond like so Rosie o'donald.
He represented ros O Donald. When I was in the
Revival of Greece. This is nineteen ninety four, I sang
beautiful dropout. I did the arrangement. Go listen to that too.
It's a gospel arrangement of you. Ooh, I did the
(42:15):
arrangement nine minutes long. They destroyed it for me because
they made me a coon.
Speaker 4 (42:21):
Essentially.
Speaker 6 (42:22):
They dressed me in a white space suit, put me
in fourteen inches of orange rubber hair. Just don't watch it.
You also have to read the memoir. You understand all
of it. But I meet with Sandy Gallan. He asks
me what I want to do, and all of the
things and multi hyphenates that I'm doing right now is
what I said.
Speaker 4 (42:43):
And he said to me, you can't do everything.
Speaker 6 (42:46):
You have to choose one thing because the audiences can't.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
They can't receive more than one thing.
Speaker 6 (42:52):
And I said at twenty four years old, and I
don't know how I had the presidence of mind to
do this, but I said, with all due respect, mister Gallan,
once again, I'm a black saggot in America. If I
choose one thing and it doesn't work out, I am
asked out. All these years later, I've proven him wrong
(43:14):
in every single way.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
Exactly the music.
Speaker 7 (43:18):
The music. That's what I felt from the.
Speaker 6 (43:20):
Music is the gift. What are y'all talking about?
Speaker 5 (43:24):
It's but you know what, sometimes here's the songs to
Sometimes have you realized the song part of the music,
Like you know, your voice is fucking stupendous.
Speaker 7 (43:35):
I mean, explain its more intellectually than I am.
Speaker 6 (43:37):
But sometimes they've been saying that for years black MoMA
lise I has the song.
Speaker 7 (43:42):
No you got it? But no more excuses now now, no.
Speaker 6 (43:47):
More excuses about that Black MoMA lise I has the songs.
Speaker 4 (43:52):
I was there.
Speaker 6 (43:53):
I'm there with the top writers in the business, Andrew
and Martin.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
Three months before she died.
Speaker 6 (44:00):
Mmm, justin trantl who's the number one pop writer in
the business. Another thing that I wanted to talk about
in the documentary is that because I'm theater based.
Speaker 7 (44:14):
I'm corny. So that is a thing.
Speaker 6 (44:17):
Bill, I'm theater based, and because I come from the theater,
I'm corny. Theater is corny until these motherfuckers want an ego.
Speaker 7 (44:26):
Yeah, how they want to go to a show?
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Yes, so they want to take their wife to a
show or whoever the fuck it is?
Speaker 6 (44:32):
Yeah, all of a sudden, no shame right, everybody has
dreams and should you know.
Speaker 5 (44:40):
But it's an interesting thing, nobility, because who are the
successful theater after singers who have translated.
Speaker 7 (44:46):
It's like Bett Mitler.
Speaker 8 (44:47):
The doors are bolt headed shut for us does nothing
but open our arms to everybody, and the gatekeepers of
the music industry keep the those doors bolted shut.
Speaker 4 (45:01):
It's not just me anymore. It's me.
Speaker 6 (45:04):
It's Leslie Oldham Junior. It's Cynthia Arinbo. It's so short
to bean, you see, so short of being now because
you need her to play your mother's.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
This is the weird thing because ah, man, I'm frozen
only because I'm realizing how close our stories are parallel.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Because so the thing is is.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
That I don't know, like if you were born in
a musical fan, I don't know what your childhood journey was.
Speaker 4 (45:35):
Like do you think of Jayson family?
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Yes, you know, if I were a betting man, you know,
I would have thought that I'm going to make it
with the first love of my life, which is music. Now, okay,
I'm also insatiable by nature, so of course, like you know,
you got you gotta get outside of yourself to to
to see it. But this kind of tortoise and hair
(45:57):
journey I've been on with music has been so slow
that even despite despite the accolades, I still feel like
I've not made it. Of course, other people have really
sit on the sidelines get angry when I say that,
because it's like, dude, we would.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Chop our left bum. Yeah you as a person, well yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
But my whole point is that when my third chapter
started happening, i e.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Directing movies, it's.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Like, all right, good news, bad news of mere everything
you ever dreamed for your life to happen is going
to happen. And I'm like, what's the bad news? It's
not going to be music that gets you there? Correct,
And despite me getting to a place where I don't
feel like a cealist artist or whatever, there's this itching,
(46:51):
this longing I have to just if I can just
get what I have now, but it's were my music
because it's like, dude, when you grow up with five
thousand records in the house, when you play radio city
music Hall at at twelve, when you everything I've done
with music, it's like, ah, cannot just can I just
(47:14):
have this one thing?
Speaker 1 (47:15):
God? Like can you?
Speaker 6 (47:16):
And there are people on this planet that don't even
know I say, I sang on the show?
Speaker 4 (47:20):
Did you watch the show?
Speaker 6 (47:22):
But it doesn't register when you're and it goes the
opposite way. For musicians. It's like when you are considered
an actor and you sing on a show, audiences do
not receive you as a singer or a recording.
Speaker 4 (47:37):
They receive you as a character who is singing on
a show.
Speaker 6 (47:40):
When recording artists come and try to act, there's a
little bit of the same resistance.
Speaker 7 (47:45):
Oh yeah, but.
Speaker 10 (47:48):
Not nearly as much as thee But like, what if
you look at it from opposite perspective, like if you
if you have those other things that they're working great,
it makes it makes the music thing a mirror Like
you've been saving on music for your whole life, and
those other successes make you want to get to that
level of success with your music, like you want to
win the Oscar of Documentary as a musician, but you
(48:09):
haven't gotten to yet.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
And I feel like that's is that a bad thing?
I know, if it's a bad thing, that's how I
look at it.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
The thing is, during the pandemic, I learned a lot
about myself, and I learned there was one week, I
think all of July, you know, like it was hard
to walk outside and want a mask. So I had
a car and that was the one place where I
could just take my mask off and be out in
the world and not have to you know.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
And I'm living out in the country, so sometimes.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
I would do these four hour drives, you know, Upstate
New York to go to you know. And I decided
the entire month of July, I'm gonna listen to the
entire roots discography and have a long conversation with myself,
like what is it about these sixteen records that isn't
fulfilling the dream of like I made it and some
(49:03):
of these records are actually you know, someone platinum, someone awards,
But what is it about? So this is my conclusion,
and a lot of it happened because again you know,
I DJ'ed a lot, you know, during the pandemic, I
was DJing online, and because I wasn't doing my club set,
(49:23):
I was actually playing music I liked. So essentially all
of twenty twenty I spent nine ten months, damn near
three to five hours every day playing every type of music,
which is somehow I started to say, wow, I don't
think I know how to write a song, and then
(49:46):
I realized, oh shit, every Root.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Song came from soundcheck, came from da da da da.
We don't know what a melody is.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
So suddenly I'm realizing I have to write learn how
to write songs.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
So in the last five years, I've.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Gotten a crash course on what a melody is. So
similar to you. With this Mona Lisa project, I'm literally
putting the farm on this next Roots album into because
it just now I'm embarrassed.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
I'm like, how do I have seventeen records and people
are like, oh, you guys are the earth win and
Fire of hip hop. No, no, no, no, the grateful dead
of hip hop. And it's like, we're still struggling to
get to.
Speaker 4 (50:32):
The place we should be, right, So was that the goal.
Speaker 7 (50:36):
Though, Yeah, that's an interesting with the goal to write singles.
Speaker 9 (50:40):
I feel like the goal is is like, you're the
greatest live hip hop and in the history of hip.
Speaker 7 (50:45):
Hop with one of the greatest ympsees of all time.
Speaker 3 (50:48):
End of story, Like does it matter if you have
any singles?
Speaker 4 (50:51):
Is that what you're about?
Speaker 5 (50:52):
Can I just shout out to Rich Nichols and Dice
Raw who actually did make some really help make some
great roots albums, like are you serious?
Speaker 1 (50:59):
Like yeah, but come on, dog eat Layah.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
You're the first person to plant it in the seed
when things fall a fart came out you fua, You
asked me, Hey, how come the big single that is
breaking you guys out?
Speaker 1 (51:12):
Why is that buried at the end of side too?
Speaker 2 (51:16):
Yes, I did say that because my logic was, Okay,
in this hour fifteen minute record, I'm going to place
the bait towards the end to make you guys listen
to that.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
And you kind of eye.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
Rolled, But come on, liya, you understand that we live
in a single society now and not to hijack this
interview because I'm gonna get back.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
To you, billy.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
But my point was the goal for me and people
all diden say that like, oh, you guys don't care
like you're the roots either. People often I care because
it's like the thing is, that's the thing like with
this pedigree of knowledge of music, like the level of commitment.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
I have more commitments to music than I.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Do to besides my relationship with Tarik, I don't think
I've committed to anything as long as I've committed to music.
And to not like to be able to tell people
stories and to study people and to write their books,
but not to do it for myself is almost rather jarring.
And then yes, I know it's the subjective opinion, but
(52:20):
when you watch people significantly less talented than you are,
it just it burns me inside.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
And so but here's the thing though, and this is
why I went through that whole field.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
To ask you, because sometimes I ask myself, Okay, was
it ever meant in the cards for music to be
my path? Because now I believe in listening to the universe. Yeah,
And I know I'm stubborn. I know I'm stubborn as fuck,
(52:58):
and I want to control every thing and I want
my version of how I want my life to go
to be gospel.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Now I'm just learning like, all right, what do y'all
want me to do? And it's like my world is
opening up everywhere by music.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
So I'm asking you, are you willing to walk away
from music knowing that other avenues have opened for you?
Speaker 6 (53:25):
I wouldn't call it walking away because I've already done it.
The reason why I've been able to have such an
expansion in my life, you know, there are a few reasons,
but the biggest one was nine to eleven, nine to twelve,
two thousand and one. I lost my voice to severe
(53:46):
acid reflux for about five to seven years, and I.
Speaker 4 (53:52):
Had been asking the universe.
Speaker 6 (53:54):
I've been asking God, whatever it is that you know,
I'm more than my voice. I'm more than my voice.
I'm more than my voice. Lord, Please help me understand
and help the world understand that I'm more than my voice.
Speaker 2 (54:09):
Were you in New Yorker? Like what was the I
was all over? I was in LA I was psychological or.
Speaker 4 (54:15):
It was totally psychological.
Speaker 6 (54:17):
And so when I lost my voice, I literally knew why,
and I was like, okay, Lord, you know because my voice,
my singing voice, was my identity, My singing voice was
my savior, My singing voice was what got me out
like the basketball players, like the sports people. It got
(54:39):
me out of my circumstance. It allowed for me to
be in spaces where I could learn how to dream
beyond my circumstance. So my entire identity was wrapped up
in that. And I had and the universe, God whatever
knew that if I could keep singing and just get
them jobs and the jobs that I didn't mark, then
(55:02):
I would just keep doing that because I wouldn't have
the courage to do anything else.
Speaker 4 (55:05):
It was in that five.
Speaker 6 (55:07):
To seven year period where my mind was able to expand.
It's like I've been given more than just one gift.
I can act, I can direct, I can write. I
went to screenwriting school, you know. I was like, wait,
I don't have to wait for somebody else.
Speaker 4 (55:27):
And George C.
Speaker 6 (55:28):
Will's my one of my mentors, said, you can't wait
for anybody to ever give you permission to practice your art.
You have to be doing it all the time, even
when no one's listening, and most of the time no
one will be listening. That's why I have five albums.
This is not my second album, it's my six catch
up people. I'm doing it whether y'all listen or not.
(55:49):
I'm doing it whether you're watching or not. And all
of the albums are fierce, so y'all can catch up
when it's time. But for me, it's like most of
the time, I can feel like that. Most the time,
I can harness the power of just being present and
letting the universe take me where I'm supposed to go.
(56:12):
I have ascended to heights that I never dreamed.
Speaker 4 (56:15):
I have a star on the Hollywood Walk and saying.
Speaker 6 (56:18):
That wasn't a dream. I didn't even think anything, you know, like,
it's like it's been magical and simultaneously my question. I
start to ask myself the question today, when is it enough?
Speaker 10 (56:36):
No?
Speaker 4 (56:37):
When is it enough?
Speaker 6 (56:39):
I am enough? Just as I am, I am enough.
Speaker 4 (56:46):
I have to say it to myself multiple times a day.
Speaker 7 (56:49):
Is this just COVID Billy? Do you feel?
Speaker 5 (56:51):
Because I remember some of your posts you were making
during these COVID times and I really appreciated your truth
and telling where life really is. You see what you
see and what you don't see. So how you feel today?
Speaker 7 (57:03):
Is that post?
Speaker 5 (57:04):
That feeling now that you've hit with people you know
from perception, people might say a little bottom in that way.
Speaker 6 (57:10):
Yeah, I mean I was always headed in this direction
because of my spirituality, because you know, I choose joy,
I choose to be positive.
Speaker 4 (57:20):
These are choices that you have to make. They're active.
Speaker 6 (57:23):
I choose love. Love is active. I choose all of
these things for myself so that I could just stay sane,
because because this world will drive you insane if you
let it. So, I mean, so for me, it's about
always landing on You're enough, Philly, because everything on the
(57:47):
planet will tell you the opposite of that.
Speaker 4 (57:49):
Many things will tell you the opposite of that.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
What year did your last album come out?
Speaker 4 (57:55):
What year did my not Black Mona Lisa Volume one?
Speaker 3 (57:58):
Yes, Volume one.
Speaker 4 (58:00):
Black Mona Lisa came out last November?
Speaker 1 (58:02):
Theyab before that, beyond before that.
Speaker 4 (58:04):
The album before that was Billy Porter Presents the Soul of.
Speaker 6 (58:07):
Richard Rogers okay and twenty seventeen, and then before that
it was Billy's Back on Broadway twenty fourteen, and then
before that it was at the Corner of Broadway and
Soul Live from Joe's Bud.
Speaker 4 (58:23):
And then the first one was ninety four untitled on
A and m Okay. But this poet, you know this
So the.
Speaker 6 (58:32):
Cookout sessions have come about because instead of simply just
being mad, instead of you know, feeling sorry for myself
and what have you, you know, for me, it's like, well,
what's my plan? And how am I going to overcome this?
Because I just have to keep working. I just have
(58:54):
to keep pressing. I just have to keep pressing forward
and be the best version of whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (59:00):
So I hired a new manager, We.
Speaker 6 (59:05):
Hunkered down, We made a business plan.
Speaker 3 (59:07):
You know.
Speaker 6 (59:08):
The cookout session is about harnessing my message, making sure
that everybody knows who I am.
Speaker 4 (59:20):
You know.
Speaker 6 (59:20):
One of the things that I realized in trying to
figure this out is there is confusion. How do I
stop the confusion?
Speaker 4 (59:31):
Is he a singer? Is he you know?
Speaker 6 (59:34):
Like you know, Sandy Galla said, confused people get confused.
There will be no confusion, you know, because what I
landed on is, oh, as a recording artist, I need
a persona. I have to do what Donald Glover did.
I have to be my version of Talvis Schambino so
(59:55):
that people are it's like, oh, that's a different person,
that's a different the team.
Speaker 10 (01:00:01):
You know.
Speaker 4 (01:00:01):
I'm excited about that.
Speaker 6 (01:00:03):
So my documentary is Billy Porter is black Mona Lisa.
You're coming to see black Mona Lisa. That's a whole
different thing. So I Beyonce even did it with I
Am Sat Fears on her fourth album. I feel like
I have hit on something that has the possibility to
(01:00:23):
take me to the next level. Whatever that level, whatever
the level is. The dream is to be playing out stadiums,
but the reality is, I just want people to listen
to my music.
Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
So question, should you make it as black Mona Lisa.
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
We still have that itching, like, ah, okay, now i
want to do this as Billy.
Speaker 6 (01:00:46):
Porter because I'm still Billy Porter, okay, And I've already
established myself as Billy Porter, right So now when the
gigs come in and somebody wants me to go and
do a theater, when PBS calls, right it says like
they have and says, we want you to do Billy
(01:01:07):
Porter and Friends for New Year's Eve.
Speaker 4 (01:01:10):
Nice, I can do Billy Porter.
Speaker 6 (01:01:13):
In that space, black Mona Lisa is somebody else, So
then I could bring back Mona Lisa on inside of
my Billy Porter. So it really has to be that distinct.
I think, at least I'm gonna try to do it
like that. At least I'm trying to do it like
that now because I've tried all the other ways. So
you know, let's see who knows, you know, But I
(01:01:35):
think there's something in it. I'm really excited about it.
And with these summer tours and with you know, my
tour last year, and you know my imaging now you know,
and like when you look at my visuals, when you
look at that stuff, it now can make sense because
there's a separation. People who know Billy Porter from theater
(01:01:56):
are confused by this music because they know me as
a theater person. They know Kinky Boots, so they're confused,
you know. But you turn on Bonut saying and don't
have problems. So if I'm black Mona Lida, then you
can make the separation.
Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
Got it?
Speaker 4 (01:02:15):
See what I'm saying.
Speaker 7 (01:02:16):
Oh that's your soul my fears? Okay, yeah, what's your side?
Your fears?
Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
Hold up?
Speaker 5 (01:02:21):
This is where part one is, but you have to
come back next week or check out your podcast for
part two of that QLs with Billy Porter, because in
that episode, Billy is more real and more raw about
his activism for several causes and shout out to all
my Polls fans. This is a conversation about his character.
(01:02:42):
Pray tell that you have been waiting for. Also, don't forget.
Make sure you check out Billy's new EP, Black Mona
Lisa Volume two, The Cookout Sessions, which is out now
see you next time.
Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
How Much Love Supreme is the production of iHeart Radio.
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