Questlove Supreme: Dawnn Lewis

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quests Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 3 (00:06):
Suprema Son Supremo role called Suprema Son Supremo. Roll call
Suprema So some supremo role called Suprema Son Sun Supremo roll.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Call MS Love Supreme. Yeah. The podcast Champ Yeah here
with Don Lewis.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, I'm not asking about Cramps.

Speaker 4 (00:31):
Supremo role called Supreme So Supreme.

Speaker 5 (00:37):
Role call.

Speaker 6 (00:37):
My name is Sugar, Yeah, sweet as a muffin. Yeah,
but I ain't puffing around. Grandma is stuffing.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
Suprema Supremo, roll Supreme Supremo.

Speaker 7 (00:52):
Roll call, My name is Boss Bill, Yeah, keep keeping on. Yeah,
in the words such word is keeping there is in
this song.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Supreme So Supreme, So Supreme.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
Roll call.

Speaker 5 (01:09):
My name is Don. Yeah. You can call me Jalisa, Yeah,
you can call me Zelma. Yeah, just call me health there.

Speaker 4 (01:16):
Right now, Supremo, Supreme, Supreme, Subpreme.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Supreme.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Wow.

Speaker 7 (01:35):
And I'm flying your background vocals into every role called
we can you you out did Charlie Wilson Q TIP
trying to go rogue on the ladies and gentlemen. Welcome
to another soon to be classic episode of q LS.
I'm your host quest Love with Me today is the

(01:55):
legendary Sugar Steve.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Wow, Sugar, Hey, I upgraded you to legend appreciate that.

Speaker 6 (02:01):
Yeah, I Figu're gonna update my resume right now my
bio and yeah, put legendary at the time.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
You're the legendary Sugar Steve.

Speaker 5 (02:08):
You know the songs for everything Sugar.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Already? Wait, do we have to pay for the archies?

Speaker 5 (02:17):
Yeah? I don't know. Okay, anyway, they're all gone.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
We got the boss the bosses, Boss Bill, that's me.

Speaker 5 (02:22):
Yeah, it's a song for that too, William Marry Big.
I'm only kidding, don't you know?

Speaker 2 (02:31):
All right, So, do we have a theme for two
negligend fathers who walk out on their kids going out
for cigarettes for a Yeah, unpaid and fante out in
the world smoking cigarettes. They promised they'd be back, but
you know, I don't know. If it's quiet again. Uh,

(02:52):
if it's rather quiet around here, it's because Layah has
also taken up smoking cigarettes, and she went out and
said she'll be back momentarily, so we'll trust that she'll
be back next episode. Ladies and Gentlemen, Today, as I
said earlier, should be a rather amazing episode.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Our guest is a renaissance woman.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
You know, some we always hear the term like a
renaissance man or whatever, but I'd rarely hear women described
in the same sort of superlatives. If you will, I
will say she's multifaceted, multi talented, pretty much as a singer, songwriter,
as an actress, be it whatever medium of stage, television, movies.

(03:40):
With a gazillion impressive credit to boot, I will personally
say that she's probably part of the most life changing
ensemble for me personally. I'm speaking of her work on
a different world as Jalisa Vincent, which I could say
single handedly inspired me not even to go to college,

(04:04):
but to be more intelligent, Like that's how I can
you know That's and I'm saying in the most non
eloquent way possible because Steve is looking at me, like,
who are you right now? Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome
to Questlo Supreme Don Lewis, Hey, everybody.

Speaker 5 (04:26):
Wow, I'm truly humbled. What a beautiful thing to say.
Thank you so much.

Speaker 8 (04:30):
I wasn't looking at your funny I'm I'm taking it
in usually, no, you give me this.

Speaker 6 (04:36):
I'm wondering how you know the last name of the
character on the show, like usually you remember the first.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Game Lisa Vincent Taylor.

Speaker 5 (04:46):
Oh say there you go.

Speaker 8 (04:47):
Yeah, that's okay. How many names did you have?

Speaker 4 (04:51):
You know?

Speaker 2 (04:52):
What you have to understand is, I know it's it's
weird that having binged it in probably a ten day
period the entire series.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Wow, I can't. Yeah, I have time on my hands.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
When I'll know, you know, I want to get my
hair braided, traveling whatnot in the jacuzzi.

Speaker 5 (05:15):
Yes, yes, it's conscious image.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
At the local wire, not in my house because I
can't afford one yet. I will say that, Yeah, the
show was definitely way ahead of its time as far
as like subject matter and things that are still relevant
today and whatnot. But most importantly, I think that when
it first came on, I mean I don't think I

(05:43):
had aspirations or even new I was college material or
that sort of thing. So seeing that on television for
me probably more life changing than seeing The Cosby Show.
So and now I know that you guys don't get
enough praise for that.

Speaker 5 (06:00):
Appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
That's my fan worship for the hour, So thank you
so much.

Speaker 6 (06:05):
I did watch Different World, but in reading up on it,
it seems like that shows created almost specifically to talk
about issues that weren't being talked about on The Cosby Show.
More so than just like a vehicle for Lisa Bonet
or spin off.

Speaker 4 (06:20):
It was.

Speaker 5 (06:21):
It was not so much comparatively to The Cosby Show,
but just what wasn't being talked about today and what
particularly young people were dealing with and faced with. You know,
when you go from the shelter of your parents' home
out into the real world, all of a sudden, so
many things start smacking you in the face that nobody
necessarily taught you how to deal with. Yet it's there

(06:41):
and in your life, in your relationships, all of it.
And they wanted to keep it authentic to what we
were dealing with at the time. And like you, I
went to college and had just graduated just a couple
of years before. But it wasn't until I started doing
a Different World World that it clicked for me what

(07:02):
an HBCU was Because we had those commercials of mind
is a terrible thing to waste with a person of color,
and you think, well, that makes sense, everybody should get
into ed education. I didn't put two and two together
that that was talking about a specific grouping of schools
of higher learning for people of color, for af African Americans,
So even those of us who were in the show

(07:22):
were learning lessons while we were doing the show. And
my name, I had never heard the name Jalisa before,
but I was actually named after the wife of one
of mister Cosby's best friends, Jalisa Hazard. And my last name, Vincent,
was the last name of one of our stage managers,
Chuck Vincent.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
I always wondered about that.

Speaker 5 (07:43):
Yeah, Chuck, Chuck Vincent's. He was naming people after every everybody.
Sindbad was named after Walt Hazzard coach Walter Oaks. Yeah,
oh okay, we were all named after somebody after.

Speaker 7 (07:53):
And there there's an episode where Ron mentions that month
for by name and he was like a producer on
the sho or something.

Speaker 5 (07:58):
That was one of our executive producers first season, and
that was one of the first the pioneers of writing
for traditionally white shows when he wrote on Mash. He
wrote for several different shows and was executive producer. So
we missed him, miss him Dealer. Yeah, Dad was a trailblazer.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
So where were you? Where were you?

Speaker 9 (08:18):
Born.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Are you Let's Dyet.

Speaker 5 (08:22):
Corner raised Bedstye. We moved six times, but always in Brooklyn.
So I went from Bedstide to Park Slope, back to
Bedstide to Crown Heights and ultimately Flat Push, about five
blocks from Brooklyn College.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
What was your Brooklyn experience? I always ask whenever Brooklyn
mights come on the show, and I ask, are they
you know, surprised at how it's transformed since then?

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Like?

Speaker 5 (08:47):
Oh yeah, when I was coming up in Brooklyn, the
neighbors I had now are not the neighbors I had then.
Let's still that way. No. Right now, while I'm here working,
I'm up in Harlem and Harlem and what it used
to be either I went to high school and home
I went. That was when music and art was up
on one hundred and thirty fifth Street in Convent, So

(09:09):
that was where I went went to high school, from
the last stop the junction in Brooklyn, right all the
way to one hundred and thirty fifth Street in Harlem.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
How many hours was that?

Speaker 5 (09:18):
That's about an hour and twenty minutes for me to
get to school every day.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
What time did you wake up?

Speaker 5 (09:23):
I don't even remember. I don't know if I was
awake when I woke up, I just knew. I got
on the train.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
No school busing, No.

Speaker 5 (09:29):
No, I got on the number. Okay, they switched the
numbers cause the three and the four used to go
to Flatbush and the two and the five used to
go to New Lots and Utica. So it took me
like fourteen fifteen years to even be willing to ride
the subway again. Once I moved to California and I knew,
I knew where I was going, Childo's trains took me
in all kind of wrong directions. I was like, what

(09:51):
is happening right now? When did the two start going
to Flatbush? When did that happen? But no, so yeah,
by an hour twenty minutes every day to get up
to high school. So that was when music and art
and performing arts were in two separate, separate buildings. Music
and art was where you did vocal music, progressive instrumentals
like the jazz band. Photographic and portrait arts, you know,

(10:14):
visual arts and performing arts was down in Times Square,
and that was where you had traditional dance training. It
was on a thing around forty sixth Street or some
something like that. So is this the fable LaGuardia School
or LaGuardia School, a fame fame. So about two years
after my graduation, class was when they put everybody in
one building. And now that's the building that's in Lincoln Center. Okay,

(10:36):
so Brooklyn was very different, humble, honest, grounded, you know, challenging.
I was bullied a lot when I was a kid,
but I was also popular. Was I was bullied because
I was popular, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
So you never had the I'm gonna get my brother
to fuck you.

Speaker 5 (10:54):
Oh yeah I did, and I have I'm the only girl,
and I have three brothers, and yeah, they they could
torment me all they wanted, but no one could mess
with their little little sis sister. So everybody, no, I'm third,
I'm third, two older and one younger who thinks he's older.

Speaker 8 (11:12):
I'm sorry. I called your grandma mixed.

Speaker 5 (11:14):
I'm not sorry, You're not sorry, You're not sorry.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
So was it a creative household a musical house?

Speaker 5 (11:22):
I'm the only one. I'm the only one. One of
my older brothers ultimately got into music, and then he
started a family. So he got a regular nine to
five job. He was a paralegal. Now he's in it
and now he recently retired, so now he plays bass
in a in a trio whenever they feel like it
on week weekends and clubs and stuff. But my oldest

(11:44):
brother grew to be a fireman, so he was a firefighter.
Now he works as a fire marshal and head security
for a building on Park Avenue. And my younger brother
went into loss. He has his own law firm. And
then there's me singing and dancing and stuff.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Okay, was it was it encouraged or.

Speaker 5 (12:03):
Was it just it was encouraged because again, like I
like I said, I had three brothers and my family
is from South America, so very different traditional values of
what is appropriate for a young girl to do and
for a young boy to do. But at the same time,
I wasn't allowed to do anything unless my brothers took me.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
Were you first generation born.

Speaker 5 (12:21):
First generation American citizen? Yes, and your parents are Guyany
South South America, Guyana. So they came up and my
mom one day, I was seven, very tall, athletic because
I was playing handball. That's what you did in Brooklyn.
You played handball, stickball, skellies in the in the skelly Yes,

(12:42):
in the street. Kelly's is a street it's street pool,
but you play it with with bottle tops and you
pluck it.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
And the amount of times I got in trouble for
stealing milk capsm's milk.

Speaker 8 (13:00):
Throw a ball at or something, try and flip it.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
Well, no, you would take the milk caps.

Speaker 5 (13:03):
And then or a quarter to give us some more weight.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yes, yeah, I would go on the street first. I
would take her spoons, which is a no no. Go
out in the street, find a grease spot and then
dig for tar of the street and put it inside
the caps. And then we scrubbed the cap on sidewalks
and go smooth. Freeze it at night and you just dream.
You put in a freezer and then you dream. So

(13:28):
think of a milk cap with tar.

Speaker 5 (13:30):
It's like a hockey puck.

Speaker 8 (13:33):
This is why there's no black hockey players. They're all playing.

Speaker 5 (13:36):
So what you do is you draw this big board
and there are numbers strategically placed around the board, and
you shoot your cap from number to number and sequential order. Okay,
you wait, this is a very cultural different. Marbles go
Marbles and Brooklyn. They kill small children, they swallow them
and die.

Speaker 10 (13:57):
Okay, shot fire shots fire. Yes, you're right, I couldn't
afford mom, So you shoot.

Speaker 5 (14:08):
Them around the board. And the thing was when it rained,
that's when parents got really pissed because we had parque
floors in our house. So we took that same chalk
and would draw Skelly's boards indoors, indoors and on my
mom's parquet floors. We would draw Skelly boards and well,
I'm here, Wow, I ran, I'm faster than my mama.

(14:30):
She caught.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
Can I tell you it is my dream.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
Man, just between nineteen seventy eight and like nineteen eighty one,
Like I mean, me and my cousin would dream at night,
like your ways to.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
Get the Sean Riley family like to knock there.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
They had the best caps ever, it like, and you
couldn't get the milk tops with the stickers on them
because then that would not give you tracks.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yes, yo, man, it was an art to play.

Speaker 5 (15:05):
It was fantastic, dude, it was fantastic.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
Between were speaking of South America. There's there's a you
know there's a tag tournament in South America. Yes, like
for real, like think of those like what are those shows?
Were like Ultimate Warrior like that sort of thing Warrior. Yeah,
but they have it for tag.

Speaker 5 (15:25):
For tag, they're pretty.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
So imagine like a playground where literally like a guy's
chasing you and you gotta like jump over a monkey
bar and you know there's like obstacles there, like you
might get your head knocked off.

Speaker 7 (15:37):
But so coming home from fifth grade, Okay, I want
that right running home in fifth grade.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
I want that for Skelly, like you just played. All right,
So we played stickball. That's where you shave half.

Speaker 4 (15:52):
The ball.

Speaker 5 (15:53):
Is where you take your room and you use it
as a bat. And remember the pink spalding balls the balls.
That was the ball that you would use and you
would pop it or punch ball, because if you couldn't
afford a stick, you would take the ball it. You
would take the ball and punch it and you would

(16:14):
run run the bases. All right, So we were very
creative children, thank you.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
We would take that.

Speaker 5 (16:20):
We didn't need expensive things like marble.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
So you would play with the pink pol See. We
would take a razor and then yeah, gets.

Speaker 5 (16:31):
See little children in my neighborhood weren't allowed to play
with razors.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
Well, we would have make it. We would cut it
in half. Uh, huh.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
In Philadelphia, you played stickball with half I guess so
you wouldn't ring a window.

Speaker 5 (16:44):
Oh we didn't care.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
Wow, so you would have to you would throw half
of a tennis ball or half of a one of
those pink bouncy.

Speaker 5 (16:54):
Yeah huh, and then play stickball that way.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah damn, we just make it a street. We ain't
even getting the nineteen eighty seven.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
Talk about the street. You ever play kingball?

Speaker 6 (17:07):
No?

Speaker 5 (17:07):
What's king kingball?

Speaker 2 (17:09):
Kingball is like all right, if you have a sidewalk,
it's it's sort of like, uh, you need four people
to play it, and each person gets a designated square
of a sidewalk. Think of like tennis with a basketball,
So the goal is not to hit the boundary of

(17:31):
the sidewalk.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
It's a long exploit.

Speaker 5 (17:35):
It sounds like it.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
I feel like I need to be eight years old
to understand what it is. It's a Philly thing.

Speaker 5 (17:40):
Okay, wait, okay. Two more favorite games as a kid
high Water low Water? Did you play high water low Water?

Speaker 1 (17:45):
I remember this.

Speaker 5 (17:48):
You use a rope and you lay it on the
ground and you take your turn stepping over. Then still,
after everybody goes, you raise it a little high and
then and then you start then it becomes like the
high jump, and then one concrete not safe, and then the.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
Other version of this.

Speaker 8 (18:03):
Well, I was just that just sounds like the reverse
of limbo.

Speaker 5 (18:05):
Limbo limbo exactly exactly because your caribbean hr catch a.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
Girl, freaking girl. Anyone know.

Speaker 5 (18:17):
Something else that's a child molestation? Now, all right, one
more game. How about hot peas and butter.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
I've heard this referred to in every rap song, but
never knew what butter is.

Speaker 5 (18:30):
You would take a belt and you would hide it somewhere, okay,
and you were the person who was it in control
of hiding it. Then everyone else had to go and
try to find the belt. And so if people were
anywhere near where you hit, you go hot, hot hot,
if they went away cold cold, cold, So you would
yell after the belt was hit, Hot Peas and butter,

(18:51):
come and get yourself, and the people would go looking
for it, and here yesterday, come and get yourself. And
then people would go and looking for the belt. And
whoever found the belt, you tried to keep it hidden
and you would run and hit everybody with Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
I wasn't playing that. I was not playing that game.

Speaker 5 (19:12):
And then you had to run and not get hit
with them.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
That don't sound fun. It sounds like my child is
the worst way possible. It was hilarious, like me trying
to hide a belt from somebody.

Speaker 5 (19:27):
I do that.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
Three weeks before every report. So what do you all right?

Speaker 5 (19:37):
So what do you do play anymore?

Speaker 2 (19:41):
You're so multi faceted with your talent. What do you
consider yourself is at least at fourteen fifteen when you're
developing your talent?

Speaker 1 (19:51):
Are you a singer? Are you a poet? Are you
an actress? Are you dancer?

Speaker 5 (19:55):
Like? I was all of it? Quite frankly, I was.
I was singing. I started singing at four, I was
lead singer in a band at fourteen. I had my
about four or five poems published in a compilation book
of young writers. By the time I was fifteen, I
was dancing on the stage at Carnegie Hall and Brooklyn

(20:16):
Academy and music by the time I was nine.

Speaker 8 (20:18):
So I was.

Speaker 5 (20:20):
I was all of that. So I never considered that
I had to choose. What I believed in, what the
environment I was raised in was that you had to
maximize everything. It was called being a trip triple threat.
You had to sing, dance, and act in order to
be viable in the business. And you asked me, was
it encouraged? You know, going back to how we got

(20:41):
into childhood game was my mother looked at me. I
was seven years old, really tall, really fit, playing all
these games with all these boys and everybody in the street.
She realized, you know what, I have to get my
child out of the middle of all of these boys
and give her something that she can do on her own.
And my mom had a really great friend, missus Green,

(21:01):
who had a daughter who was about five six years
older than I was, who was dancing. So she took
me to a dance recital at the Academy of Music.
I said, ma, I want to do that. She said,
are you sure? I said yes. So she enrolled me
in dance class. And I was riding the bus from
my house which was in on mid Where were we
at that time. We were on Midwood Street in Crown

(21:24):
Heights at that time, and I had to walk three
blocks over to the bus on New York Avenue get
on the bus at a certain time so I could
ride to the next stop where this young lady would
get on the bus with me and we would ride
down to Pacific Street and Saratoga to Miss Elaine Christian's
dance studio, And I did that once a week until

(21:46):
I was fifteen years old.

Speaker 1 (21:48):
Where's e Lane Christian's dance studio.

Speaker 5 (21:50):
It was on Pacific right near Saratoga, So at that
young age, I was on the city bus going to
and from dance classes. So that was kind of how
that started for me was my mom wanted to encourage
me to have my own thing. That took me out
of the middle of being around all those boys all
of the time.

Speaker 6 (22:08):
Do you find, sorry, Marin, do you find that that
whole way of thought is sort of gone? Where the
triple threat thing? Because it seems like so many of
our of the people in the past who have who
were in entertainment were triple threats.

Speaker 8 (22:25):
Yes, and it's that. Is that still a prevalent way
of looking at things?

Speaker 5 (22:30):
You know? I don't know that it's a prevalent way
of looking at things. What I have learned is that
the way the business continues to evolve, the powers that be,
the them or the they are more comfortable putting you
into a box. So I know a lot of people
who you see starring on television as actors are really
incredible singers or dancers, and you you you learned when

(22:54):
they get the opportunity that they have all these other gifts.
But because of the way the industry is now, they
kind of say, well, if we want a dramatic lead,
we need to hire this person. If we want to comedically,
we need to hire this person. So you don't necessarily
get to know what other pe people do. But no,
I don't think it's a requirement like it used to be.
I don't think so. Oh you googling stuff.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
No, only because your story is very similar to prodigy
mom deeps. I was trying to figure out if whether
or not that was his grandmother's dance studio.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
Oh, okay, but it wasn't. Ok it wasn't. Well wait,
I still don't know, because now I almost feel like
it is the stories to.

Speaker 5 (23:38):
Who used to be a big dancer at the Cotton Club.
She danced with Bill rob Robinson, bo Jangles and you
know all of that. So that was her legacy and
she passed it on us. And we were there all
day on Saturday doing jazz, tap, ballet, African dance, and
on Saturday mornings you could always count on at least

(23:59):
two thirds of the students running into the kitchen where
the TV was to watch Soul Train.

Speaker 8 (24:06):
So that's the dance part. So how'd you start with
the singing and the actor the singing?

Speaker 5 (24:13):
I started at four. I just sang what I used
to love, musical movies. I still do music. And there
were music There were movies that would come on every year,
like The Wizard of Oz, March of the Wooden Soldiers,
there was a you know, Stormy Weather. There were different
movies that would come on. You could count on it
at certain times of the year. So I would sing along.
I knew all the songs, I knew all the dances.

(24:34):
I knew all of it. There in my living room,
and my mom used to teach. She was a subsubstitute
teacher at an elementary school not far from from the house.
So after kindergarten, I would go and sit at the
school in a way for my mom to be done
before I could go home. And they were doing their
their spring concert pageant, and I asked if I could
be in it, and all the teachers knew I could sing.

(24:55):
I was young, I was cute. It was four going
on five, and they said, yes, you can be in
the concert, and I worked on the song getting to
Know You from the King, and I with hand gesture exactly,
you sang it better than I did. But then we

(25:17):
got to the concert and I was amazing. I have
to admit. I was phenomenal in the rehearsals. And I
got on stage and saw other people instill on stage
air froze. It's like there are people here watching me.
And I got the first few words out and I
stood there and the teacher was below me trying to
remind me to move my I painfully got through it,
and then they said okay, all right, great, and then

(25:39):
I sat down and then I started crying and said
I can do it better. Please look, just sit down,
little girl, Just sit sit down. And so I taught
myself to never be that frightened again. That was the
first and last time I'd ever scared myself so much
that I couldn't do what I was really desiring to do.
And their photos.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
This is highly unusual because normally there's I guess the
good word is uh light encouragement. The bad word is
sort of like Joe Jackson esque, like there's always a
drill sergeant no, but this is this is a highly
unusual to hear that confidence coming from someone under the

(26:19):
age of ten.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, that it isn't enforced from.

Speaker 5 (26:23):
No my mom. That was not my mom. My mom
was like, just stay out of trouble. Okay, I gotta
go to work. Stay out of trouble. I gotta go
to work. And uh my brothers were like, yeah, you're
real cute, but we need to need her now to
play handball doing We need you to run the fourth
leg in the relafe. So I was like, don okay,
that's great, get off your toeto shoes and come on

(26:44):
over here and run this race because this boy don't
believe you. You can beat him. And I got five
dollars on you. That's pretty fast.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, I ran track to So you graduated high school?
What what age? What year?

Speaker 5 (27:00):
I was sixteen when I graduated from high school.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
You got skipped.

Speaker 5 (27:03):
I got skipped twice. I was in the first grade
for about six months and went right to second grade,
and then I never went to eighth grade. I went
from seventh grade to ninth grade.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
She's like the best of every artist we ever had, Lewis.

Speaker 5 (27:21):
So. Yeah, So I graduated high school at sixteen, like
I said, going to school up in Harlem, and had
already been singing in bands and clubs and such, and
you know, young and cute. But I knew I wanted
to do this as a career, and I also knew
I wanted to get out of New York. My mom
and I had a really contententious relationship at the time.

(27:41):
You know, she's from a different country with different values
and understanding of how things are supposed to be done.
And again, like I said, there were beliefs of what
was appropriate for a girl and what was appropriate for
a boy, and boys rule in those South American cultures,
and so.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
In her eyes, you should have been getting ready for
her husband and a housewife.

Speaker 5 (27:59):
You know, I never got that speech. I never got religious. Yeah,
very very My family is said seven day adventist.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
Yikes. Yeah, wait a minute's not adding up.

Speaker 5 (28:10):
Well, there you go. So there's more to the story.
There's more to this, I am.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
There you go.

Speaker 5 (28:17):
No, Well, we had devotions at home every day. My
mom had us read the Bible, read scripture, Yeah, seeing
hymns when when we could. Because okay, see you get
into a whole other part of the story. The reality
is my going to dance class every Saturday was a
real issue for the family. It caused real problems. My mom,

(28:38):
like I said, saw it as a way to help
save and encourage and empower me. My family would tell
my mom and tell me even when I was small,
they're going to the extended family, not not my brother's not.
You know, the truth is is that you are sending
this child straight to hell by not having her in church, etcetera, etcetera,

(29:00):
and sending her into the demon's pit. This entertainment stuff
is where the devil lives, etcetera, et cetera. How do
you tell that to a seven year old child? But
they managed along the way. Like I said, my mom
really reinforced in us that we have what we have
by the grace of God, and that it is a blessing,
it is not a curse. I wouldn't be able to
do what I do if it wasn't a gift from God.

(29:22):
So look at it that way and please shut out
the other noise. And ultimately, as we grew, the family
stopped saying certain things. But you know, you couldn't ignore
or forget really the rift that was the cause and
the pain that that was caused. But you know, everybody grows,
you learn, you love, you forgive, and you realize that

(29:43):
there were good things that come out of whatever, as
long as that's what your intent is.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
I was going to say not even the harp on it,
but I was just like, that's why I was so amazed.
I was like, wait a minute, I've never heard of
a situation in which, especially with a black household, in
which like religion or some sort of obstacle is sort
of thrown in your path of you finding your talent.

Speaker 5 (30:10):
There were a few, okay, okay, so the guys in
Take six, who we ultimately became really great friends, we
used to be able to share those kinds of stories
because they're adventist. Also, what you didn't know that, Yes,
the guys in Take six were.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
Advant discipline with their.

Speaker 5 (30:28):
You know, so we were able to talk about that
because our upbringing stories were very, very similar. But you know,
but now that we are where we are, we use
our platform to inspire, empower to be a blessing at
least you hope so to others. You know, in a
way that I may not have been received had I
not taken this journey. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (30:50):
To be so young as a graduate of high school,
how hard was it to adjust to adult life?

Speaker 5 (30:57):
Do you know what? I got thrown into the deep
end because I left New York and went to school
down at the University of Miami in Miami at sixteen,
and the university almost did not accept me because I
was so young. Yeah, but I had a grandmother who
helped raise us. Actually we lived with my grandmother for
almost two years when we were younger. That's a whole

(31:17):
other story how we ended up there. But to go
to college, my mom couldn't afford to send me. My
dad would have been able to help, but he chose
not to. He's like, you're too young, You're going to
go get pregnant and do all of that. And I
was like, but you know, you haven't lived in our
house since I was seven.

Speaker 8 (31:37):
Man.

Speaker 5 (31:38):
Whatever. So I got another aunt to co sign for
a student loan for me, and I packed my stuff
and I left and they turned around and go, wait,
she really left. I said, yeah, I told you I
was leaving. I'm going. So I went to college. So
between student loans, college work study was how I paid
for school. And so I got there and now I'm
responsible to pay back a loan. I'm responsible to pay

(32:01):
for my tuition, my room and board, as well as
you know, get through my classes. And as a performance major.
I went as a voicemade major, so in music and art,
I was singing opera, so I was classically trained for
many years. I played cello for almost seven years. You
didn't have that on.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Good Yeah, what did you miss?

Speaker 5 (32:23):
I played cello for about seven years and sang opera.
So when I went to u of M. When they
advised you for your major, that was back in the
day when you had cards, and they would write and
you have to take this classes, and you get a
signature from your departpartment head to authorize you to go
and register for these classes. They wrote a bunch of
classes I had already taken in high school, like music
theory and sight singing and all those kinds of things.

(32:45):
So I refused to take them again. So when I
left her, don't judge me. Why no, man, Look, this
is money. College is expensive colleges. But this is this
is what I did. When I left her office, I
said thank you very much. And it wasn't my fault.

(33:05):
She wrote it in pencil. I just happened to have
an racer in my bag. So because I'm a good student,
I came to school prepared. So I took my ras.
She prepared, no, So I rased half of what she
gave me, like music theory one oh one in sight ransom,
not taking that. I'm not taking that. And I wrote
in dance classes, I wrote in acting classes. And I

(33:26):
made my own curriculum.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
I brought my pencil.

Speaker 5 (33:33):
Wow, and I made my own curriculum. And I was like,
that's more like it, because that was what I was
already accustomed to doing, going to dance class regular well,
well not entirely. About two and a half months into school,
I got called into the dean's office. Yeah, it was

(33:53):
like Clint Clinton like. I called into the dean's office
and she said, okay, we were concerned about admitting you
in the first place, and this is going to be
your one and only warning. I said, what said we're
about to say and send you home? I said, well why,
They said, because you're not going to classes. We can't
have that, young lady, Da da da da da. I said, well,
what of course, I'm going to my class, and I'm
going to my classes. I'm pulling a four point o gpa.

(34:14):
I don't understand the problem. Well, you haven't been to
this class, this class discussing this sid I'm not in
that class. I'm in this class, this classic class, and
this class. And say, well, who told you to do that?
So well, nobody told me to do it. It's my money.
I'm gonna take the class.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
I want my friend.

Speaker 5 (34:30):
You know, I've built empowered at sixteen years old. So
she made me.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
Sitting this hall.

Speaker 5 (34:38):
She is sure, so she may be sitting the hallway
for a minute, and then call me back in the
office and said, okay, young lady, you had no way
of knowing this, but the School of Music and the
School of Fine Arts had been in conversations for like
a couple of years about starting a new degree program
for people like you. So would you be interested in
being the guinea pig for this new degree program? And
I said, well, what would I have to do? She

(34:59):
said basically what you already doing?

Speaker 1 (35:03):
Like oh, they had to respect it.

Speaker 5 (35:05):
And I said, well, okay, then all right, so what
happens now? Can I go? She goes, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.
You need to prepare. You have four days to prepare
for an audition, I said, audition for what she said,
so we can officially start this degree program. So I
had to do a forty five minute jury for the
entire faculty of the School of Music and the School

(35:26):
of Fine Arts. I had to choreograph a dance. I
had to do a comedic and a dramatic monologue. I
had to do arias in French and Italian. I had
to do a Broadway show tune. I had to do
a jazz tune. There was one other thing. I can't
remember what I had to do. Yeah, took forty five minutes.
How many days one day? All of that I had

(35:48):
four days to prepare.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
Were they stacking just to be like, well, I don't know.

Speaker 5 (35:55):
But what ended up resulting out of that was after
the jury, they were now officially a to start this
degree program. So I'm the founder and first graduate of
the musical theater degree program at the university. They no, no,
even and after a few years they conveniently forget to
mention that I had anything to do with it. Man,

(36:17):
you something every now and then it comes up or
you know whatever. But uh, yeah, so that year that's
been going thirty plus years strong, through the School of Music.
They've graduated Tony Winners, Grammy Winners, Oscar winners, and in
the last four or five years they've transferred it from
the School of Music to the School of finn out

(36:37):
Fine Arts now has the degree pro program.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
I was going to ask in Brooklyn growing up?

Speaker 2 (36:49):
Yes, were there any other notable Brooklyn nights that we
would know now that you went to school with?

Speaker 5 (36:57):
Or like our next door neighbor Dwayne Well, we call
him Dwayne because his first name was Ralph ended up
being young Michael on Good Times Ralph Carter Carter.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
Wow, wow, l Carter. That's amazing. Yep. I saw him
three months ago. Yeah, yeah, three months ago.

Speaker 5 (37:19):
He was our next next tour neighbor. Other than that, no,
not not in my neighborhood, not not while I was there.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
So the neighborhood kids weren't even like, like mine died in't.

Speaker 5 (37:30):
We're playing stickball and skellyesdan't care. They didn't care. Oh,
but you know what I recently found out. A year
or two ago, I was doing This is Us, like
one of my favorite shows on television, And when I
got there, I was so excited to be I was
happy to be there, and the cast was like, oh
my god, Luk's on our show. Can you take preatures
with us? And I'm thinking, like, because I was going

(37:51):
to ask to take pictures with you guys. So we're
taking pictures and Susan Kleecki Watson, who plays the sister
the wife on the show Ramblers White, isn't she fantastic?
She hangs around because she was actually finished before I
was called in to work, so she hung around to
meet me. So we're taking selfies and we're exchanging numbers

(38:13):
so we can send each other the pictures that we
take and we're sitting on my trailer like talking for
half an hour. So she finally leaves. I get called
to the set and I call a couple of friends
of mine. They say, and I told them what the
day was like, and they said, Susan's my great friend,
and Da da da, and Doulay Hill was like, that's
my great friend, etcetera, etcetera. And so I called her
back and said, I didn't know you knew Dulay and

(38:34):
she says, yes, he's a great friend. And I said, okay, great.
She calls me back two minutes later she said, okay,
look I'm not trying to be weird or anything. But
I sent the picture that we took to my family,
and my brother text me back and said, you know
that's our cousin, right, What I said, I'm sorry what
she said? Yes, she said, do you have an aunt
so and so? I said, I don't know, I've never

(38:55):
heard that name before. She said, well, your aunt's so
and so married my uncle so and so and they
live Trinidad and this and that's what what that in
the world. So I called my mom, mad, we have
a lot of Yes, that's my first cousin. Shamarried a
mon from trinidashall, never call him back again. But this
is not this and not this and that. So I
call her back and said, oh my gosh, we're like
second cousins. First. It's hilarious, and we keep talking. Come

(39:18):
to find out that she's from Brooklyn, grew up within
a mile of where I grew up in Brooklyn, and
still has family in a place there.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
Now, yeah, that's crazy.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
And also, you just answered another question from me always
you know, you had a very convincing island accent that
you tried on a different world once.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
And now I was like, yo, she's really good. I
didn't realize that, okay, because that's where my family see
and I time.

Speaker 5 (39:51):
Yes. So, as I mentioned, I was first generation in America.
My mom was the oldest of eight, so one at
a time, she sponsored her siblings and her parents to
come up to this date. So now when all of
our cousins, when all of the cousins get to get together,
all of a sudden, all of us have accents.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Your accents.

Speaker 5 (40:06):
Oh man, all of a sudden, all of us have accents,
and we're talking like our parents and such. It's really
very very funny.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
I see.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
So by at least by twenty did you have like focus? Okay,
I want to be a singer.

Speaker 5 (40:23):
Yeah, I was already doing it.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
But I mean it's like you did everything at once.
I was.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
I'm trying to figure out what has the edge? What
has the fifty one to forty nine percent edge?

Speaker 4 (40:32):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (40:32):
Probably music, singing more than a singing and writing more
than anything, because that's what I was booking jobs. As.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
So, what was your first well you usually on the show,
I asked about your first Well, first of all, who
do you who's your hero, your idol, your your.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
When as far as your craft is concerned. Who do
you look up to?

Speaker 5 (40:54):
Wow? I actually had a few, Okay, actually had a few.
Judy Garland was one early on. It was amazing to
me the power and passion in her voice, and when
I would watch her movies. Again, Remember I used to
watch a lot of old movies like Take Me to
Saint Louis and The Wizard of Oz and all that
kind of stuff, and we weren't in a lot of

(41:14):
those movies. We often had little, small segments. So Lena
Horne was a big influence to me. The Nicholas brothers
were a huge influence to me as I got older.
It was people like Gladys Knight and Stevie Wonder, Elton John.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
You remember the first record you ever purchased?

Speaker 5 (41:31):
No, I don't. I remember the first ones. One of
the first ones that my brothers purchased that I used
to like to play all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
they bought them. I just played them. It was The
Rolling Stones, and I remember it. Time is on my side,
Yes it is. I had no idea what they were saying,
but it was just a funky.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
Line to me that brothers were into the stones.

Speaker 5 (41:54):
They were into the stones and Smokey Robinson. I remember
those two being the first record that I would pla
a lot, and Smokey's record that they had was if
there's a smile on my face, it's only that trying
to fool the public. But when it comes down, the tears.

Speaker 4 (42:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (42:12):
So yeah, those those songs and songs like Raising in
the Grass is a blass baby. Can you did all
those kinds of things you never knew what they really could.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
Be?

Speaker 5 (42:25):
Your first concert, uh, the one that I watched, Yeah,
and uh no, no, no, thank you for reminding me that,
like a moment of I want to do that, like
your first content, very first concert. No. I remember my
very first Broadway show. It was The Whiz and it
was Stephanie Mills, and by the time she got to

(42:47):
be a lion, I was a puddle. She was absolutely phenomenal.
I couldn't believe all of this sound and all of
this talent as a dancer, as an actress was coming
out of this little, tiny person. And I look at
my grandmother and I was like, that's what I want
to do that. I want to do that. And to
quite frankly, you know, over the years, some of your
idols become your friends and your colleagues, which to me

(43:10):
just kind of really blows my mind. The fact that
when I met Gladys Knight and Lina Horne, they knew
my name, right, you know, Lena. I just stood there crying,
and people there's pictures.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
Like she was she on the show, when you were
on the show. I remember when she was on the show.

Speaker 5 (43:25):
She did a guest spot, but I met her a
few years before she got to do it. It was
at the opening night of Fences, and everybody was crowding
her wanting to take her picture, wanting an autograph, and
I stood there like waiting my turn, like frozen. And
she looked and to everybody, wait, stop, excuse me, excuse me,
you come here. And I walked over to her and

(43:45):
she grabbed me by the face and said, baby, you
on that show, aren't you? I said, still show? And
she says that show. She says, y'all are doing such
a beautiful thing. Your name is Dawn, right, And tears
just started coming down my face and she said, you
keep doing what you were doing. I'm so proud of you.
And I could I really couldn't even speak, and uh,
fortunately somebody got a photo of us standing there with

(44:09):
this like huge grin on my face.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
And Yeah, that's crazy because you never think that they
know you're alive or anything.

Speaker 5 (44:17):
Why would she? Yeah, but it's like you people her,
People like her just inspired me to do what it
is I do now. And when you get to know
them and learn what they survived through and what they
over over overcame, and what mattered to them and how
they used their voice and they did it with grace
and with power and with determination. It really I could

(44:40):
not have asked for better examples like her and Gladys
who's like my auntie now, and Natalie Cole and Nancy
William Wilson and Stevie as well, and to teach you
how to do this thing with grace and with appreciation right,
because it could really take you in a whole other space.
If you're not careful, you start to think it's all
about you.

Speaker 8 (45:00):
Welcome back to the Sugar Steve Show.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
So, Steve, when you first met me, did you go
back to New York after you graduated? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (45:11):
You know, it was my habit that going back and going.
Like I said, I was bullied a lot in elementary
school and my teachers were just such blessings and encouragement
to me that when I graduated from elementary school and
I got to give a shout out to Barbara Ames
and Karen Fogler, to the most amazing teachers anyone could

(45:32):
ever have. They still come to everything I do today
to this day, since elementary school, since first grade, and
Barbara Ames was actually one of the teachers. Barbara and
Karen were teachers of Lynn Manuel Miranda as well, and
he credits both of them as well as depositing into
his life to inspire him to do what he does.

(45:52):
So all of you teachers out there, mad love, mad love,
mad love. I know you know situations are tense or
can be to some schools these days, but I so
appreciate you much love for all that you do for
inspiring and educating us and caring for us beyond beyond.
So anyway, so when I graduated and went to junior High,

(46:14):
I would come back to elementary school just to visit
them and say hi. I would do Christmas concerts in
the faculty lounge and then I would talk to the
kids and say I used to sit right there in
this class, and don't be a bully, and if anything
happens to you tell your tea teacher because they really
want to help, and they go, okay, okay, what's junior
high school? Like okay, great. Then I went to high
school and go back to my junior high in elementary school,

(46:35):
and this became my habit. When I went to college,
I came back. That was my habit. Then after college,
now I'm releasing records, I'm doing shows off and on Broadway.
Then I book a TV show. Now I'm in California.
So when I get an opportunity, I come back home,
and so is my habit. I went back to my school.
I went back to music and art. The difference was
I used to do it because it made me feel

(46:57):
good and stay connected and grounded. This time, I in
the lobby of the school. It's like, oh my god,
it's Julisa and kids came from everywhere and they swarmed
me in the lobby. They had to get security and
the police to escort me to the principal's office. Then
they made an announcement, we need you to please get
out of the hallways, go back to your class. Miss

(47:17):
Lewis will come and see you, but you need to
go back to your classes. So they had an extended
day of school that day, and I literally live to
every class and answer questions because in a place like
music and art, I'm living the dream that everybody in
that school has. So that's what made a mental shift
for me that I actually had something to offer, that

(47:41):
it wasn't just about me, but that I could hopefully
answer some questions and be a support or an encouragement
to somebody else.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
See, you've achieved something that I just recently got to
get a taste of. Because early in my career, like
they would have me come and speak to schools or whatever,
but I would get like questions, like.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
You over there, Yeah, so do you know like real
famous people. Do you know Andre three thousand? Yeah? Do
you know Eric Abat? Yeah? I produced her first record?

Speaker 4 (48:16):
You did what?

Speaker 1 (48:17):
And literally so it's like kids are so cool. I
hate it.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
I hate it until until my school. Well, first of all,
I had to raise money for them, Like I gave
him a whole grip. I raised money for them, and
then like they threw like me and Tarika, you know,
a roots day or whatever, and then I felt like
semi validated, like oh, welcome back.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
But it came at a price. But I always that
whole like go back to school and.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
Speech to this student, Yes they love you, and like
kids like nah, they just want to know if I
know Lil Wayne.

Speaker 1 (48:56):
All the questions are hilarious.

Speaker 5 (48:58):
Well, I just got re connected with a group of
U of M students recently, literally recent as yesterday on Monday,
the U of M. There's the seniors from the drama
department were up here doing a performance, a showcase you know,
for I guess casting directors and et cetera, cause they
were about to go into the world and want to
do this profession fessionally. So I got invited to go

(49:20):
to the showcase. So I went. And I've gone back
to the U a couple of times over the years
and done master classes and things like like that. So
I went and saw it. So I was asking while
they were in New York if they were gonna go
see any shows, and they said, well, you know, we're
gonna try. But I learned ultimately that the kids had
to buy their own tickets for whatever Broadway show they
wanted to see. And we all know these tickets are

(49:41):
not inexpensive. They are not. So I got together with
our company manager and since I got into this motivational
empowerment thing. I've been doing it now for what forty years.
When I learned it was called motivational speaking. But about
four years ago I started my own nonprofit organization, the
A New Day Foundation. Son, see toda, I see what

(50:07):
you did. I actually brought materials for you.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
Thank you. So that's motiva speaking.

Speaker 5 (50:12):
There you go. So that's what our found foundation does.
We do programs all year round for teen boys teen girls.
Sometimes we do events with them together.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (50:22):
Annually we have a financial literacy and technology conference that's
about a whole day, seven hours long. We give out
scholarships and new computers. Well, what we did on behalf
of the foundation this time was we bought tickets for
all of the seniors to come and see Tina yesterday.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
Nice.

Speaker 5 (50:40):
So they came and saw Tina, and then after the
show I met with them and we had kind of
a talkback for about an hour and a half where
I was telling them about the journey and answering questions,
et cetera.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
That's so cool incident, by the way, that was probably
one of the best surprises I had. I mean, I
was taking my mother to see teena just for like Chris, Yes,
but I didn't bother to even like look at the
playblevel to see if there's anybody I knew what. And
you came out and it was such a slow like
wait a minute, like it was a great thing to

(51:14):
see you once day's doing that. Wow, man, I want
I want to get to your professional career. But I
know that you know, you've made music in New York
before you started acting, and I know that you've had
to interact it with.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
I want to know what eighties? What pounding the pavement already?

Speaker 8 (51:35):
She was there?

Speaker 1 (51:37):
No, no, no, no, I'm not asking about.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
This past her time, okay, but I'm saying that what
was pursuing a music career in the first half of
the eighties in New York?

Speaker 1 (51:53):
Like you know what it was?

Speaker 5 (51:54):
It was tricky. It was real tricky. You know we
have the me Too movement and all that stuffing on
now and you hear all kinds of things. Yeah, I know,
I'm so a fuwie. You found that, you bastard? Where
did you find it?

Speaker 1 (52:09):
I have I have my resources the government.

Speaker 5 (52:13):
What we are referring to is Bill has in his
hot little hands a copy of my very first single
and it's in LP and it was on Dalmatian Records,
an independent Right Record Late label, and the song was
called Funky Thing t n h n G.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
Did you name it or yeah?

Speaker 5 (52:32):
I wrote it?

Speaker 1 (52:33):
And no, no, no, I mean thing. I'm talking about
Dalmatian Records.

Speaker 5 (52:35):
No, that was the name of the Right Record Late label.
I was actually okay, oh gosh, So you gotta get
down on me to come on now.

Speaker 9 (52:52):
Y'all know nothing about this and first name basis just
just come on. D A w n N record w
w w n N two end.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
Come on. So who produced this?

Speaker 2 (53:16):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (53:17):
Two guys Kenny and Charlie, Charlie Ernst. Kenny Pollock and
Charlie Ernst Kenny I went to college with. And the
story behind this is that we were called in to
play for a jazz violinist. It was his session and
he was having trouble setting up his violin, equing it,

(53:37):
et cetera. So Kenny and Charlie just went into this
groove and they just started playing and I just started
singing all of that. Every single word was freestyle. It
was just me singing. We were just singing. I was
just singing, making up lyrics as I was flowing, and

(53:57):
there we went and when the when the violinist was
finally ready, the engineer said, before we start, I want
you all to come in here in the booth and
we're like, okay, so I want you to listen to something,
and he pushed play and that was what you heard
and we were like what we were in stud Yeah,
that's fly, that's funky. That's funky. And he signed me
right there. So we went back and then actually recorded.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Never happened.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
You're like the walking uhshonification of stepping out on face.

Speaker 5 (54:28):
It was well, Praisett, it was. It was great and
it was so much fun. It was I mean, I
was just saying I didn't know what I was saying.
We were just going the music that point. This was
eighty four, so I was what twenty twenty three.

Speaker 1 (54:42):
Yeah, so were you pursuing a recording?

Speaker 5 (54:46):
Oh yeah, yeah yeah. So I would do the rounds
with with my demo tapes and performing at different showcases
like for Capitol Records and CBS, et cetera. And charted
This song charted on Billboard at mister Nelson Nelson George
Billboard Magazine. We came in at twenty there was another
song that I did called from the Bottom Up, and

(55:08):
I was a little I was a little feisty young lady,
and you were not gonna find it because I tried
to find it my brother. My brother. My brother played
bass on it, and I was like, dude, do you
have a copy of that song? And he hasn't responded,
so I know I do it, but it's back on
my computer and in my dat collection, back in trust.

(55:34):
But from the Bottom Up I sang at the Apollo
for Amateur Night and one Amateur Night that weekend had
to come back the next week as a special special
guest for Amateur Night. And from the Bottom Up was
another song I sang when Shallamar was looking for someone
to replace Jody Wattley and they had a competition at Leviticus.

(55:57):
And I was an office temp in the World Trades
at the time, and I heard it on w b
LS that they were having a competition at Leviticus. So
I called my job. I said, you're gonna have to
get a temp for the temp because I ain't coming
to day. And they knew what I wanted to aspire to,
and they said, don go and go on and get
them go and do you do your best? So I

(56:17):
went and we were at Leviticus. I had my cassette,
my little track in my hand, played it from the
bottom up and I sang that and ultimately, long story short,
that was when I met Howard Hewett and Mickey Free
and we have been friends ever since. I won for
New York. It was like an early version of Star Search.
So women from all around the country, from La Chicago, Atlanta,

(56:39):
we all met in La at Circus Circus and we
had the competition there and we performed in Delisa Davies
was noted as the winner, and the audience went wild,
like no New York, New York, New York. So Dick Griffy,
Dick Griffy says, okay, no, no, calm down, come down,

(57:00):
We're going.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
To start again.

Speaker 5 (57:02):
Dick Grify, I'm sorry, why why wait?

Speaker 1 (57:06):
Where's my stories? I'm sorry. Anyway, the stories we've heard,
we could do a whole.

Speaker 5 (57:18):
And that was sold our records. So they said, no,
we're going to start a new girl group with the
girl from New York, the girl from Texas and the
girlfriend I want to say Chicago. And later we learned
so we's like that's all right, I got my own deal.
I don't have to be part of someone else's deal.
And we so we started calling the label crickets Crickets.
That's when you learned that it was just a publicity stuff.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
They were never going to do it.

Speaker 5 (57:39):
So yeah, no, that was what I wanted to do,
was be a recording artist or star on Broadway, all
of that. So TV was the one thing I was
not pursuing.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
During that time period. I know, this is the time
for like Leroy Burgess or Kashif or a friend.

Speaker 5 (57:57):
Yes, Kashiff is a friend. Luther I got, I got
to know. I knew everybody in his band. I wanted
to be a Luther girl so bad. Brenda White, who
would always sing the bottom, was taking a leave for
I forget what the reason was, but she's like, ding,
Luther loves you. They're having auditions. You should come an audition.
So it's me. Brenda was there, lethally so ficial, Paullette

(58:21):
was there, and Luther was there, and so we're singing
and I knew all the choreography. Stop, stop to Love,
don't go on the road. I was crushing it. And
then it was done. Luther came put his arm around me.
It's baby. You know I love you, right, I said, yeah,
he said, but I need a little more finesse and
a little less soul trained. I was like mortified, mortified,

(58:41):
And a month later I booked a different world. So
I was like, bye bye Luther Girl bye.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
And but no.

Speaker 5 (58:50):
But then once I booked the show, he says, you
know you're owe me money, right, I said what he said,
because if I had hired you wouldn't have been able
to do that show. So thank you very much, You're welcome.
So he's cool people.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
So a different world. How does this wind up in
your lap?

Speaker 5 (59:04):
I don't know that it wound up in my lap
or I chased it down.

Speaker 1 (59:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (59:09):
I was doing the national tour of a Broadway show
called The Tap Dance Kid with one of my idols,
Harold Nicholas of the Nicholas and Doulay Hill, who was
ten at the time, who has now grown to be
this incredible man and talented. Yes, he was our our kid. Well,
Alfonso was on Broadway. Sebon stayed in New York on Broadway.

(59:32):
Deulay came with us out on the road, so there
was a whole Doulas was an amazing amazing, amazing tap dancer.

Speaker 9 (59:43):
He really is.

Speaker 5 (59:43):
He's phenomenal tap cancer. So we were all tap and
sing and dancing. So I had a principal role in
that show. Well, the people who cast that show, it
was called Hughes Moss Casting also carry There You Go,
There You Go. They also cast The Cosby Show. So
while we were on the road, I heard they were
going to be doing a spin off of The Cosby Show.
So I started calling the office to ask if I

(01:00:04):
could audition, and they were like, no, we want everyone
to be Lisa's age. I said, well, everybody can't be
a freshman. Somebody's gotta be a sophomore or a junior.
And we're only just at like two three years apart
in age. So begging, begging, begging, Okay, the tour ends,
AM still begging and they say no, Dawn, No. So
I beg for like three months like okay, fine, And

(01:00:25):
now that we're off the road, I'm sending out my
headshot and resumes. I've been doing a Broadway show, this
show that I should be able to get an agent. Crickets.
No one returned a call, no nothing, nothing, nothing. Out
of the blue. One day Hughes Moss calls me back
and says, Okay, are you still interested in auditioning? Can
you come in tomorrow? It's like, yeah, absolutely. An hour

(01:00:45):
after they call me, the musical director for the Cosby Show,
Steve Gardner, he calls me and says, I got your
number off of this cassette. It was one of my
demo tapes of my singing and songwriting that a friend
of mine, Robin Downs, had given him like a year before.
So he says, would you be interested in working with
me on the theme song for this new show? And
I said, okay, yeah, sure, what is it? So he

(01:01:09):
told me this is what the content is, totally unconnected.
He said, this is this is the concept of the
show Lee, Lisa Bone is going off to college. We
want the song to say something along the lines of,
you know, experiencing life. The show was called Stepping Up
to Step Out. That was the original That was the
original title. Okay, and we're gonna this was on a
Wednesday and we're going to be in the studio on

(01:01:29):
Friday recording it. I said, okay, so do you want
to meet tomorrow, you know, to hear what I come
up and says no, if you're the person that wrote
these things. And if you you're singing, you can do
what I need done. So I'll see you Friday. Okay.
So now I thought people were messing with me.

Speaker 4 (01:01:44):
No I did.

Speaker 5 (01:01:45):
I thought my friends were messing with me at this point.
So I called Hughes Moss back and say did you
just call me? They said yes, is there a problem?
Can you? I say no, no, no, no, I'll be there,
And sure enough, a couple of hours later, a messenger
came to my door with a cassette of this is
the music that we're thinking of using. Go right. So

(01:02:05):
I was tripping, to say the least. So I'm thinking, okay,
this this is big. This is really big. And one
of the classes I had to take as a musical
theater degree major was this Business of Music. It was
that big, thick textbook. It was written by Bill Fimon
and Andy Kraslosophy. There you go, There you go. So
I'm like, okay, I need I need somebody to help

(01:02:27):
me with this. So again just out of college. So
I opened the book and noticed that they had an
office here in New York. So I got the Yellow Pages.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Yellow?

Speaker 5 (01:02:37):
What is that? I got the Yellow Pages?

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
Look them up.

Speaker 5 (01:02:42):
Yes, and they get delivered to the house, and you go,
why are you sending me this? So I look them up,
I call them and I say, Hi, you don't know me,
but I just got this amazing opportunity placed in my lap,
and I'm sure I'm supposed to be doing something that
I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Do you
have parallel legals? Do you have free legal service? Because

(01:03:02):
I don't have any money? And they said, well, please
come into our office tomorrow and we'll talk about it.
It's okay. So I went to my audition. They said,
thank you for coming, goodbye. Okay. So I leave and
I go to the lawyer's office and I explained to
them what happened. They said, okay, we would be happy
to help you. I said, okay, no, stop, you missed
the part right. I said, I don't have any money
I need. I can't afford you guys. They said, no,

(01:03:23):
we're very impressed that you want to do this and
do it the right way, so we are offering to
help you free of charge. All we want to see
is you be protected and when the opportunity comes, you
be willing to help somebody else. I sat in their
office and I cried, wow, I'm trying enough. So they
negotiated my whole contract. They negotiated that I get fifty

(01:03:44):
percent writers royalties, which was unheard of for me as
basically an unknown writer at the time. Fifty percent royalties
and screen credit. So when we were negotiating, when they
were negotiating with Carcy Warner, that's when we learned that, well,
mister Gardner has a deal with mister Cosby, that mister
Cosby gets fifty percent of whatever he does. And my

(01:04:05):
lawyers said that, well, that's fine, mister Kasay can have
fifty percent of mister Gardener's fifty percent. Dunts fifty percent
and this never happens, and they signed off for a
new thing, I can imagine. So I went in the
studio the next day. I record the song. The song
had a rap in the middle of it. I was flowing,
I was singing, I was doing all the background vocals,

(01:04:26):
et cetera.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
Oh it wasn't the back porch bluesy.

Speaker 5 (01:04:29):
No, that arrangement came later, But the song, the lyrics,
the melody, everything stayed.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
And the show was still called No Stepping Up.

Speaker 5 (01:04:38):
Up, Stepping Up to Step out was the original title, right.
So then I get a call on Monday. No, I
get a call on Friday while I'm in the studio
that they want me to have a callback for this
role on Monday. So I'm like, okay. I mean, they
were so dismissive in the audition. I wasn't expecting to

(01:04:58):
ever hear from them again. So I go in Monday,
and I kid you not, I'm the only person in
the room. I did not recognize Joi Lee was in
the room. People I've seen in magazines and people's size
two with light skin and green eyes and long hair,
and me and I'm looking around the room. Okay, I
know her her.

Speaker 4 (01:05:17):
Okay.

Speaker 5 (01:05:18):
So I was like, you know, and you count yourself
out mentally, but I say, well, I'm here and they
called me to come back. So I'm just going to
go and do my thing and wherever it falls, that's
where it falls. I went in, I did my thing again,
and they said, okay, thank you very much for coming back.
I said, no problem. So I left and went to
dance class and I danced out for like another five hours.

(01:05:39):
I came out of the dance studio. Someone screens my
name from across the street. We have been looking for
you all afternoon. Where's your agent? And I'm thinking, no
one ever called me back? I never, I don't have
an agent. You have to fly to La on Wednesday
to meet with the studio, etc. So okay, So I
called a friend who called a friend who has an

(01:06:00):
agent that said she would negotiate my contract. And all
I have to do is pay her salary. I just
pay her a salary. She doesn't get commissioned, she doesn't
get any of that because she didn't do my deal.
So I paid her. She negotiated my contract. It was
a suck sucky contract, but at least I had one
right And I got on a plane. Never flown first
class before. It was pan am flew first But I

(01:06:25):
had a menu and a tablecloth and food and advertisers.
It's like, this is the ball food to La. They
put me up in like one of those top suites
at the Sheridan Universal that had like almost a panoramic.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
View of the valley.

Speaker 5 (01:06:41):
And I'm like, what is this life that I am?
What is happening right now? So I went to the audition.
The car came and got me, took me to the
studio and there were these young ladies there waiting to
be seen, and so it was three of us and
they're sitting there to well, this is my seventh callback,
and my agent told me that by this time they
have to offer it to me. And I know they

(01:07:01):
calling in some girl friend from New York and dead
and no I know she thinks she all of that.
And I'm the only one sitting there. I'm saying, wow,
are you trying? They were like trying to get in
my head. They were not nice.

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
So that's real.

Speaker 5 (01:07:13):
This is real.

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
I see it portrayed on television.

Speaker 5 (01:07:16):
Yes, it was not nice. Try to get in my head.
And it's like, wow, wow, you're not. I'm sitting right here,
you know. Okay, fine, whatever whatever. So I go into
the room and the producer's like, how is the flight?
Are you okay? Did you see your contracts?

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
And so?

Speaker 5 (01:07:32):
Fine? Fine. So I'm walking out after reading the sides,
and I'm leaving and the girls are sitting there and
the young lady that walks me and says, Okay, the
car is downstairs waiting for you. Your contracts are there,
everything should be in order. Just sign the paperwork and
the car. I'll be back to pick you up this afternoon, okays,
miss miss Lewis all right, you're good. You need anything else? No, no, no,
I'm fine. I'm fine. And the girls were sitting there

(01:07:54):
like so I looked over to them and said good
luck and left and left. And then that afternoon this
car comes and gets me. I now go to the studio.
So now the room is full of people who decide
whether or not you get hired. And if do you
remember the actress Vernee Watson Johnsons okay, Renee was also

(01:08:17):
auditioning to play the dorm mother. So Renee saw me
sitting there like rolling my sides up in my hand,
and I'm nervous. I'm like the lines. I'm like, doesn't
know my lines. And then one of the exect producers
comes out and says, take your hair out of your face.
I say okay, So I pulled it back out of
my face, and Renee says, are you okay? I said,
I'm just you know, yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine.
She says, come with me. She took me in the hallway.

(01:08:38):
She had me breathe and relax, and she said, if
you want, I'll run lines with you. Come on, just
let's let's go on. And she sat there and ran
lines with me until I cooled out and chilled out,
and then I went in the room, I did my thing,
and I came out and I hugged her, and she
and I have been friends ever since. When both of
us booked a pilot, she let me stay at her

(01:08:59):
house until I found an apartment. She's one of the
most beautiful I will never I'm telling you, Lessons like
that and opportunities teach you to be a decent human being.
So Verne, God bless you. I love you forever. So
they flew back to New York and they hues Man's
coused me and said, mister Cosby, is the last interview
that you have, and so we want you to book

(01:09:20):
this job. So come into our office tomorrow morning and
we're gonna put you in the right outfit and then
we're gonna go. And that was when the Cosby Show
was shooting in Brooklyn, like not even fifteen minutes from
my house. So I stayed up all night trying to
put outfits together, and got on the subway from last
stopping flap Us to Midtown on forty six, wherever their

(01:09:41):
office was, with this huge bundle of clothes that I
carried on the subway. Okay, so I walk into their
office and they go, perfect, what you're wearing is perfect.
I say, for really, really really right now really, So
then I had to take my big bundle of clothes
that we got in to a car and drove back

(01:10:03):
near my crib to go and meet with mister Cosby.
So we're sitting in his dressing room. He's on the
phone at his table over there, and myself and Tom Warner,
Marcy Carcy and the Hughes, Moss, Julie Hughes and Barry
are sitting there. And so he roddles over. He had
a chair that had wheels. He waddles over, and so

(01:10:23):
I'm ready. I got my side. I was nervous, wrong,
So I'm gonna read from mister Cox. Okay, all right,
all right, I'm gonna do this audition. And they said, well, Bill,
before we get started, what did you think of the song? Now,
mind this is all within the same week and a half, Bill,
what did you think of the song? Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:10:40):
I love the song.

Speaker 5 (01:10:40):
The song is perfect in the girl's voice is the
Oh that's perfect. She's gonna be amazing. The words are perfect.
Everything is perfect. And I sat there like and I
raised I literally raised my hand. I kid you not,
and they said, yes, what I said, I just want
to say thank you for the song. I'm glad you
liked the song. What are you talking about? I said,
I'm I'm the girl, I'm the one who wrote it.
I'm the one you're listening to singing. And they look

(01:11:03):
at me like what and Bill just started up. He
just started laughing and they were like, he says, wait, stop,
that's you singing. I said, yeah, that's that's Stu. And
I did that last Friday and this was like Wednesday
or Thursday of the next the next and he's like,
all right, okay, And then they started talking about what

(01:11:24):
they're gonna do to my hair. You see the way
she's dressed right now. That's perfect. I love that we're
gonna do this to her hair and this and that.
So I'm sitting it like ten minutes goes by and
I raised my hand again. They said yes. What I said,
does this mean I have a job? Finally, does this
mean I have a job? And they said yes. So
they said just wait in the hallway for a minute.

(01:11:45):
I'm like, what is happening right now? What is happening?
So mister Werner comes out and I'm in the hallway
like leaned up against the wall. My eyes are big,
and how you scream and nothing comes out your mouth?
And he says, do you need anything? I said, well,
can I use your phone?

Speaker 1 (01:11:59):
Please?

Speaker 5 (01:11:59):
I have to call I got so he took me
into his office and sat me down. That was when
you had to push nine to get an outside line. Yes,
so he let me.

Speaker 1 (01:12:10):
Call on long distance.

Speaker 5 (01:12:12):
Oh remember what was it? The WATS lines when you
get a little cold to dialogue distance for free whatever. Yes,
So I said, well, before you go this, I don't
want to be crazy sound or anything, but would you
pray with me? And he said I'd be happy to.
So we prayed together in his office, gave God thanks,
and he left. He said, just whatever you need to
take as long as you want. So I called my mom.
My mom was an OAR technician, which means she assisted

(01:12:34):
surge surgeons in the operating room. So I called and said, well,
your mom is in search surger. I said, you have
to get her out now, you have to. I have
to speak to her right now. So my mom comes
to the phone, thinking I'm like bleeding or dying somewhere.
He says, what is it? What I said, my got
the job. She says what she's like, girl, I'm gonna
kill you. What I was like? I said, I got

(01:12:56):
the job. I went to She says, wit with with
with missed mister Crosby. She could never say cosby with
mister Crosby. I said, yeah, she's on talk ya Jesus,
Jesus or lot of mercy, thank you, d D. She
called me d D did yeah, tank your fada, And

(01:13:19):
neither one of us were any good after that. We
were just crying on the phone and it was it was,
It was great. And two days later I was back
on a plane in La shooting a pilot.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
Wait, so you had to move in forty eight hours?

Speaker 5 (01:13:31):
No, we shot to shoot the pilot.

Speaker 1 (01:13:33):
Okay, so I was there.

Speaker 5 (01:13:35):
We're still it's gonna get pickne or whatever. And at
that point, after shooting the pilot and seeing the female
influence and them deciding that since it wasn't my show,
it was too much to have me sing the theme song, right,
you know you can't write it, sing it, and this
is somebody else's show. Okay, Fine, They had Al Green
come in and sing it, and that was when they
we flipped the name to a Different World. So I

(01:13:56):
rewrote just that line instead of stepping up to step out.
It was it's you, It's different world.

Speaker 1 (01:14:02):
You had the coach.

Speaker 5 (01:14:04):
What was that like?

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
Because it was it was No, it was amazing.

Speaker 5 (01:14:10):
I couldn't believe it. I absolutely could not believe that.
I was like, no, no, it goes like this. He
was receptive. Not so much, he was reception. And that
was where I met Rachelle Farrell and then fidmont So
singing backgrounds on that version. It was me, Rochelle and

(01:14:30):
Lynn music. Well, yes, it had more of that like
honky Tonk feel to the so it's closer to what
Phoebe ended up releasing. So once it became clear this
was really female driven, they took out Al's vocal and
Phoebe came in and recorded. I wasn't in that. I
wasn't in that because I was I was filming by.

Speaker 1 (01:14:50):
Then Double Dutch.

Speaker 5 (01:14:52):
I was doing there you go, because we did that
in Brooklyn too.

Speaker 1 (01:14:56):
Was shot in Brooklyn.

Speaker 5 (01:14:57):
No, no, no, no, no, that was Al. They didn't
believe I knew how to jump double the just if
you find somebody who can really turn, I can I
can throw throw down. So I said, not only will
I throw out, I'm gonna do it in pumps. Y'all
ain't ready, y'all ain't ready. Y'all ain't ready, y'all ain't ready,
y'all ain't ready.

Speaker 8 (01:15:17):
Is there a version? Is there a version of the
Algreen version around?

Speaker 4 (01:15:20):
I have it.

Speaker 5 (01:15:21):
I have to stepping up to step out. Yes, I
have stepping up to step out. I have the al
Green version. And I wasn't there when I reap the
did it? So? Their their concept was like The Cosby
Show kind of revamped their music entry. They were going
to revamp it every season, but once Aretha saying it,
they were good.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):
Yeah, there's such a frozen moment where I was waiting
for the honky tong thing and yes, wait, what the
hell is this?

Speaker 5 (01:15:47):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:15:47):
And man, and this is without a VCR back then.
So yes, I had to wait seven days to record
it next week.

Speaker 5 (01:15:54):
And then the final season boys to mend it right.

Speaker 2 (01:15:58):
Yeah, shooting that show, of course, with the level where
The Cosby Show was, I mean, did you feel that
you were doing something important or historical that was going

(01:16:18):
to touch a bunch of kids lives that.

Speaker 5 (01:16:22):
You know, when I can only speak from myself when
we started the show, like any actor, young actor, you're
happy to have a job, and do you know the
quality of the show that you're coming off of? Because
The Cosby Show was just such a high quality show
and so many people, regardless of what nationality you were
or age group you were, you had and you had

(01:16:46):
a special place in your heart for that show. So
we knew some of that was going to be coming
over as far as legacy building and changing lives and
influencing generations. No, I didn't know. I knew that our
first season was typical sitcom and that was because of
the person that was the show.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
Who was the yeah who directed it, and well we had.

Speaker 5 (01:17:08):
Different directors first c season, but our ex executive producer
was and and Beats, who had come off of Square
Pegs and et cetera.

Speaker 1 (01:17:18):
So we were.

Speaker 5 (01:17:21):
There was no difference because we basically did square peg scripts.

Speaker 1 (01:17:25):
But did you feel like, I don't know this will
fly away?

Speaker 4 (01:17:28):
We were.

Speaker 5 (01:17:28):
We thought it was ridiculous. Really, we thought the scripts
were ridiculous and literally, I'm very serious. We did revamped
square Pegs scripts, Like when we first started working the
show was myself, Jasmine, myself, Lisa and Marissa to May.
When the new management came in. That was when the
Whitley Gilbert character was added, the Dwayne Wayne character.

Speaker 1 (01:17:51):
Pilot.

Speaker 5 (01:17:52):
Well, they we reshot the pilot, right, they weren't in
the pilot, but we reshot stuff so that they would
be included from beginning.

Speaker 1 (01:18:00):
Because he's the first person you see right on the Well,
the pilot was like this was.

Speaker 5 (01:18:05):
It was eighty six. No, we shot shot the pilot
in eighty five.

Speaker 1 (01:18:08):
Yeah, but it was eventually sorry, eight eighty six. It
was eventually aired as a finale of the first season,
right because no.

Speaker 5 (01:18:14):
It was eventually aired as the first episode was. It
was eventually aired as the first.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
Episode where Dwayne talks to the camera fourth wall like, yeah,
but there was another episode that came before that because
like Verne is in it as the door correct and Witley.

Speaker 5 (01:18:31):
And they weren't so you remember butter than I do. Yeah,
so that's what we were doing, and miss miss Beats
brought in those other characters, so we reshot stuff to
include them once for when the show actually began airing, was.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
There panic in the air once you realize that Lisa
wasn't going to come back for season two.

Speaker 1 (01:18:54):
But how comfortable do you have to be before you're like,
this job is real?

Speaker 5 (01:19:01):
Let me be you know, I never got that. No,
I'm because I had already been working for so long.
Shows start, shows end, Nothing is forever. So you know
different people. You buy cars, you buy houses, like I
ain't buying nothing because they could tell us tomorrow. And
the way they fire folk around here. If Lisa can

(01:19:23):
go guess what they can let you go to you
know what I mean? You we would come to work
some days and not know who was going to be
at work. It was like that.

Speaker 8 (01:19:34):
But by this point you could probably afford your own marbles.

Speaker 5 (01:19:36):
Right, yes, but but but I was so far past
I was so past marvels. But then yes, yes, but
that was hilarious.

Speaker 2 (01:19:49):
You didn't You didn't have what is there a moment
where it's sort of like, okay, uh I made it,
or you're still.

Speaker 1 (01:19:59):
Like is the guilt?

Speaker 5 (01:20:02):
But yes, I'm telling you. I wouldn't say not comfort.
You knew you had a job, and you were if
you were wise, you would be aware that this could
change at any moment, So you go to work and
you do your gig. And I watched the show go
from featuring three people to featuring fourteen people in just

(01:20:26):
four years. You know, all these other characters got added,
you know, from you know, to from Creed's character to
Sean Chanelle's character, you know, everybody. All these people kept
getting added, and they were Every storyline was pretty much
focused on Dwayne, Wayne and Whitley. So you add more people,
that means there's less and less for everyone else to do.

(01:20:48):
So that was when I started digging deeper into Okay,
what else am I going to do? And that was
how I ended up working with Quincy Jones and the
Handles Messiah Social Celebration. That was how I won the Grammy.
And writing and producing for other people and doing my
own stuff, I got into animation, you know, I know
Korea is known a lot for animation, but I've been

(01:21:09):
doing any Yeah, so right now I think I do
like six seven different series.

Speaker 1 (01:21:15):
Now, how hard is it to navigate in that world because.

Speaker 5 (01:21:18):
Voiceover, Yeah, it really depends you. The directors and studios
like to work with who they know can deliver. So
once you're in the circle, you work a bit more
and people just request you directly. It's a little harder
to break into, but it's not impossible, especially because there

(01:21:39):
were so many projects available now. When I first started,
my first animated series was produced by Susanna Pass Wow
Suzanna Pass project.

Speaker 1 (01:21:50):
It was Kidd and Play their cartoon.

Speaker 5 (01:21:52):
Kidding played card cartoon. I played the younger sister. I
was the younger sister on the show. And I remember
that there you go, Oh God. I was the younger
sister on that show. And then Suzanne got the opportunity
to produce a Christmas special with boys to men doing
guest spot voices called cool like That. So I did

(01:22:15):
voices for that and I played a seven year old
boy in that that show. And again this was all freelance.
Didn't have an agent, so I would get called to
do things here and there because I was the new
voice in town. I was on a TV show. People
knew who I was. I was able to create different
characters with my voice of different ages and male or female.
And so I finally decided to get an agent. And

(01:22:38):
that was when I got an agent, and they allowed
me to freelance as well.

Speaker 1 (01:22:42):
I assume the term that can deliver means that you
can knock it out with the well, you.

Speaker 5 (01:22:47):
Knock it out and you understand what what they're asking
you to do. And because you're not on camera, you
have to be able to sell and convince something just
with your with your voice.

Speaker 1 (01:22:57):
So you have to turn into a seven year old
turn into a seven.

Speaker 5 (01:22:59):
Year old boy and yeah, and it has to be
believable when you listen back to it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:04):
So since then, you know, So what is your arrange
like as far as your I know Cree has a
range of Yeah, she could sound like a freakazoid or.

Speaker 1 (01:23:15):
You know whatever.

Speaker 5 (01:23:16):
Right, I do all of that. I do video games
Mortal Kombat and I've done Yes Storm and the x
X Men. I do lots of different video games. I
do Simpsons, Simpsons calls me and to do all kinds
of extraneous voices like the last three years I record
to Simpsons last week. I have another one next week.
I do the series Apple and Onion, where I played

(01:23:38):
Patty the Meat, the Meat Patty Boss.

Speaker 2 (01:23:40):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (01:23:40):
Star CBS is coming out with a new animated series,
Star Trek Lower Decks the Captain on Star Trek Lower.

Speaker 1 (01:23:48):
Decks, Don Lewis, I'm really not going to ask you
about cramps now, No.

Speaker 4 (01:23:54):
No.

Speaker 5 (01:23:56):
I also do Where in the world is Carbon San Diego?
For Netflix, I'm the voice of the Cheap And when
we just released our interactive series games, I do the
voice of the chief in that don't forget Futurama Now Futurama.
I'm La Barbara In Futurama, I'm Granny mcstuffans and Doc
mixed mic mcstuffans and who is.

Speaker 1 (01:24:15):
The voice of actual uh of Doc mcstuffans.

Speaker 5 (01:24:20):
To be honest with you, I don't know. I honestly
don't know the young lad lady's name because usually when
I get called in the studio, it's just me and
you meet people, you don't meet people. So I apologize.

Speaker 2 (01:24:31):
I was stuck in an elevator with her once and
when I told I had never heard of Doc mc
stuffins in my life. Okay, So when I got out
the elevator go to the airport, one of my managers
she's like, I mean, even though she's of age, she's
eternally thirteen years old. So I Cavli said that, Yeah,
I was in the elevator with the whoever plays doc
x stuffans, and she, like Zarah like lost their mind.

Speaker 5 (01:24:53):
Yeah, they do a lot of people do. Yeah, it's
it's a trip shows like Spirit shows like Sophie of
the First. Another one I did way back in the
day was c Bear and Jamal with Tone Tone Lok.

Speaker 1 (01:25:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:25:07):
I think I did like three or four voices in
that show. I played the grandmother who kind of almost
didn't have any teeth in her in her mouth and
it was just so much fun and the and the
kids teacher Miss Fine. Another one where the little bear
wanted to get a job. I was an old, old
Jewish man in the factory where he worked.

Speaker 8 (01:25:30):
So no, we had a lot of maybe I know
wants his name.

Speaker 5 (01:25:36):
His name was Fingo. You're basing too much time? Time
is money? Fuck fuck fasta.

Speaker 1 (01:25:45):
To hear it. Doors have never closed on you or
always I wouldn't say. I gotta ask. Has one role
ever gotten away?

Speaker 2 (01:25:55):
That like either to a to another commitment or something
that you had a chance to go for that you
weren't able to.

Speaker 5 (01:26:03):
Yeah. I wanted to do Tina Turner and What's Love
God to Do with it? And they got some unknown
chick named Angela Bassett to do it. She was she
was phenomenal.

Speaker 1 (01:26:14):
The name like Angela Bassett.

Speaker 5 (01:26:16):
She'll never go anywhere, She'll never I mean, she's just
the coolest people, one of my dear friends in a.

Speaker 1 (01:26:23):
You know, yeah, I got it well.

Speaker 2 (01:26:24):
Speaking of which, let me let me lead it to
this where you are now at the Tina Turner play, the.

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):
Sort of the the why is I? A violatile relationship
between her mother and her in that play? Was that
that was intense? Is she executive producer of the play?

Speaker 5 (01:26:49):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:26:49):
Is she a part of the production?

Speaker 5 (01:26:51):
Miss Turner?

Speaker 4 (01:26:52):
Yes?

Speaker 5 (01:26:52):
Yes, from the from the beginning, she handpicked all of
the songs that are in the show. All of the
songs are songs that she record at one time or another.
The way that they're placed in the show is not
necessarily chronolological or when they were released, but there they're
placed strategically to help tell the story.

Speaker 2 (01:27:11):
Well only ask because this was way more intense than
the what's love got to do with it?

Speaker 1 (01:27:18):
At least the relationship, yes, between the two and I wanted.

Speaker 5 (01:27:21):
To know, Well, it goes into a bit more detail
of the life. You know, some people, you know, think
that if you've seen that movie, then then you've seen
the whole right, But that's that's not the case. At
all and in playing Zelma. My mother's name is Zelma Bullock.
Her name was originally Anime Bullock before it got changed
to Tina Tina Turner. It was important to me to

(01:27:44):
come and do this particular role just because it was
so real for me in my life, because that was
the life that I lived, I watched. I was raised
in the house with domestic violence. My mom had to
get out in order to save herself and put herself
in a better position to save us. My dad was
a policeman. He was head of the Department of Homicide

(01:28:04):
in Brooklyn when I was small, and so when my
mom would go to report the violence, the cops would
basically tell her that novel, if you would just do
what he told you, he wouldn't have to hit you.
Kind of a thing.

Speaker 1 (01:28:13):
That's domestic situation, get involved.

Speaker 5 (01:28:15):
In, yeah, exactly, Jesus. So my mom left us and
we ended up being taken by my grandmother that I
mentioned for a cup couple of years until my mom
was able to come back and get us. So that
was how we went from Bedstide to Park Slope back
to Bedstye when my mom came back and got us. Fortunately,
my dad learned to make better choices in his life
and grateful for that, especially you know, before he passed,

(01:28:37):
passed us the way, so we were able to heal
certain things. But again, my relationship with my mom, her mom,
like Zelma tells Tina at one point, you need to
go back to him, because who do you think he
helped make you? And what my mom was told was,
who do you think is going to take you? With
four kids? What person's going to want you? Even though

(01:29:00):
understanding what that violence says, situate mashit was. So it
was a very different time. People didn't get divorced. You
knew that there were other kids somewhere across the town,
or other girlfriends or whatever, but you dealt with it.
So people like Zelma, like my mother, like my grandmother,
who were strong enough to love themselves enough to make

(01:29:21):
a different choice, especially during that time. I just have
nothing but love for it's not a popular choice and
looking at it by today's standards, you can judge and
point fingers, well, I would never leave my kids. And
yet it was a very different time. And until you're
in that position, I know some people who really should
believe right, you know, domestic violence shouldn't be tolerated, whether

(01:29:42):
it's male to female or female to male, because there's
some violent women out there with you know, men being
really physically and emotionally damaged in these relationships. So you know,
you can't help up your kids unless you save yourself,
and that was what happened in our family. So in
my portrayal of Zelma, it was important to me that

(01:30:04):
you see her as a human being who had to
make different choices. You may or may not agree with them.
Their relationship was always very cocomplicated and damaged, but hopefully
you can see a human being there and both of them. Unfortunately,
you sometimes repeat generational realities because in order to become

(01:30:25):
the teen attorney that we knew, she ended up having
to leave her kids to basically be raised by you know,
her sis sister and her mother and you know, in
order for her to be who she is. But it
ultimately is a story of not just surviving, but thriving,
you know what I mean, in spite of so I'm
really honored to be part of that.

Speaker 1 (01:30:47):
Thank you, I enjoyed it.

Speaker 5 (01:30:48):
Thank you very much. I brought you a gift, Actually.

Speaker 1 (01:30:51):
Thank you, you brought me a g scroll.

Speaker 5 (01:30:54):
I'm unrolling a scroll. This was something that I made
for the entire company for Opening Gift. So it is
a playbill version of your cast. I made this for
the professional man, and this is the entire company, each
one of us. And so yeah, so that's that's the
creative team. That's the Bullock family. Tina, that's our director.

(01:31:19):
That's me, that's young the little girl that plays Anime Bullock.
That's the young woman that was playing uh, the older
version of our daughter alive. She's she's not there anymore.
This is the woman my Luke lue Creekisha Taylor who
plays Gg the grandmother. That's David Jennings who plays Richard Bullock.
And then those are the guys in the ensemble. And

(01:31:41):
that's everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:31:42):
Well, we thank you for this. I will cherish this,
he says.

Speaker 5 (01:31:45):
Did you notice that I will cherish this?

Speaker 4 (01:31:47):
This is.

Speaker 1 (01:31:49):
This is really on good paper. This paper is like leather.

Speaker 5 (01:31:55):
Yeah, that's beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:31:59):
So I would like to think that.

Speaker 2 (01:32:03):
At least hearing the narrative and sort of the linear
emotion that your life has taken you stepping out in
confidence and not saying that everything was done without you
being nervous or I can't do this, but I kind
of feel like the common denominator is like everything.

Speaker 1 (01:32:23):
That you've attempted to attempted to do.

Speaker 2 (01:32:26):
You did without a second thought or a voice in
your head that says you can't do this and you know,
so what But from you doing that at an early
age till even now still working where no one has
this narrative that I've heard and I've been doing the

(01:32:46):
show for three years now practically, like what is that?
Because I feel like that's what's it. I feel like
you have a confidence or stepping out on faith in
terms of just.

Speaker 5 (01:32:59):
Doors open for you, you know, yes and no, yes,
doors open. When I saw you at mister bebela Fonte's
birthday celebration and you told me that you wanted me
to be on your show, that just really blessed my spirit.
Because you don't know who sees you, you don't know

(01:33:20):
who cares. You know who you pursue in life and
they either respond or you don't. Like me trying to
chase down an agent for months and nobody being willing
to call back. There are still people that I try
to approach now that you would hope would be supportive
or encouraging who are not necessarily because they have other
people to answer to the politics, the you know whatever,

(01:33:42):
Like yeah, and I'm gonna say it. I want to
come and do Jimmy Fallon, I want to do the show,
I want to do the view, I want to do
all these things, and for whatever reason it will, it
won't happen, you know. But those are shows that I
did back in the day when I was on Hang
with Mister Cooper or some other TV show. But now
that I'm here in New York, you know, my own
home hometown. You know, I'm on Broadway big stage, doing

(01:34:06):
good work with great peat people. You want to do things,
and as you know, in our in our business, the
next gig is almost predicated on the previous gig, like
what did what did you do, how did you maximize it,
did anybody care? Et cetera, et cetera, And then that's
how the next gig happens. And things like staying relevant,
staying present, staying marketable are what makes those kinds of

(01:34:30):
things happen. So you do the best to do your
best to do that. So I just want to tell
you how much I appreciate being here, and you know,
I had no idea that my journey meant, even what
it means to you, but for us to be able
to sit here and talk about it and exchange some
of the things that we even have in common. Skellies,
I mean you who knew, who knew.

Speaker 1 (01:34:54):
Tournament, Yes, you.

Speaker 5 (01:34:55):
Know what I'm saying. All those kinds of things matter,
and it it sometimes gets frustrating when the journey feels stifled.
But like you said, I'm walking on faith because I
was told at seven that where I was pursuing was
going to take me on a downward spiral, that was
going to be my spiritual demise, my physical demise, all

(01:35:16):
of that. And God has proven me that that is
just not true, that that's just not his journey for me.
So any step I want to take, if I feel
empowered and if I feel like, Okay, He's given me
everything I need to succeed here, that I'm going to
give it a shot and let it be someone else's
choice to say no, she's too tall, Because I'm as
tall as I'm as I am, I'm as brown as

(01:35:37):
I am, I'm as whatever as I am. But if
I believe I have something to offer, then that's what
I'm going to do.

Speaker 1 (01:35:44):
I wish you was here.

Speaker 8 (01:35:48):
She we should tell was very upset that she couldn't
be here today. She really really wanted to.

Speaker 5 (01:35:53):
I was looking forward to meeting her. She's been very kind.

Speaker 1 (01:35:55):
Well, we thank you very much for doing this.

Speaker 7 (01:35:57):
You've got to come back and tell us some Latin
record stories.

Speaker 5 (01:36:00):
You guess, there's always stories. There's plenty, plenty stories and
tales to tell, so.

Speaker 2 (01:36:07):
On behalf of Boss Bill and Sugar Steve lay Fan, Tikolo,
and Babe Bill.

Speaker 1 (01:36:13):
Thank you Don.

Speaker 2 (01:36:14):
Lewis for being here today and we will see you
on the next go round of Quest Love Supreme.

Speaker 3 (01:36:19):
I love It, Love It.

Speaker 1 (01:36:27):
Quest Love Supreme. It's the production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (01:36:32):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Laiya St. Clair

Questlove

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