May 31, 2023 • 51 mins
Part 2 of the Questlove Supreme in-studio discussion with award-winning filmmaker and former record executive Lisa Cortés. Lisa recalls her career pivot from being a music executive with dreams of singing to becoming a filmmaker who learned every step of the process. After discussing working on Monster's Ball and Precious, Lisa opens up about his newest project, Little Richard: I Am Everything. Team Supreme and Lisa discuss Little Richard as a trailblazer, a pioneer, and a complex legend.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Yeo Yo Yo,
What up y'all?
Speaker 2 (00:06):
This is Fonte Fonte Delo and we are back with
part two of our New York City in Studio interview
with filmmaker, music executive and all around wonderful human being
Lisa Cortes. In this episode, we're gonna talk about her
new documentary Little Richard I Am Everything, which you should
definitely check out because this is a great film and
it is available.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
On YouTube, Amazon Prime, wherever you rent, wherever you stream.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Also, please listen to part one, where at Lista talks
about growing up for early musical memories and also working
at Deaf Drum Records at a very crucial time in
its history. We love this compo, and we hope y'all
do too. All right, Quest Love Supreme Peace.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I always wanted to know since you were there around
like eighty nine to ninety post Terodom, post Griff interview,
there is like a really scary period where like some
of us start, like Deaf Jam was about to shut
down during the entire you know, Griff interview Public Enemy.
(01:06):
Things I remember, like seeing Chuck on Entertainment tonight. I
think with tape over his mouth or had a like
he sat for an interview but then like I'm not
giving any comment or whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
How weird was that period?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Like, were you guys the type to embrace a controversy.
Was it sort of like Dann the JDL might shut
us down or that sort of thing, or did le
or have to sort of get in front of the
bullet did his thing?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (01:30):
I think the Ladler has always been an important strategist
in telling the true story of the artists and where
they were coming from. Bill was a great interpreter. Who
could call a guy trembay, who could you know, talk
to all these different people to really give them the
broader context of who this person is and what they're
(01:53):
talking about, why they're talking about it.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
We got to get Bill ed on the show.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Oh my gosh, it too.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
We got Lisa now.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So yeah, are you doing contact with your Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Yes, Bill Ladler.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
I imagine y'all have Jamsey Williams, Seasonal.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Faith, Newman Smith, you know, even the deaf jam Soul
songs artists. We had a little reunion, so.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
That's occasionally talked to.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Did not know he was perto Oran Tay Shawn, Chuck
Stanley and Alison Williams. Alison Williams and we went to
Europe and I was the tour manager. It was one
of those if it's Tuesday, it must be Belgium. Okay,
if it's Wednesday, we got to get in the bus
and get to Frankfurt. And that was Actually we had
(02:44):
a reunion like two months ago, and even the band members,
you know, we're all there.
Speaker 6 (02:51):
That's so full circle too, you said Alison Williams, And
I thought about you with the Luther concert.
Speaker 5 (02:55):
Then I thought about Ramote, Harvey and the whole I am.
It's just it's a beautiful, circular kind of connection between
all of y'all. That's beautiful.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Why did we the ghost room my life?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
We would have been bffsed to, I believe. So, I mean, look,
what made the deal irresistible was that, you know, most
artists will the label will have options to instantly drop
if they see the bands not fit. And we didn't
even learn how to craft the song until our fourth album.
(03:28):
So in this situation, the thing that brought us there
was the fact that if you our contract was hooked
up so that if you did album number one, they
had to do two and three. If we did four,
they had to do five and six. It was really
the true reason why we've had seventeen albums under our
belt because label trust me. There are many times where
the label was like, get rid of it, damn another
(03:51):
two records. And so that's that's the story. So why
did you leave def Jam and what brought you to Mercury?
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Well, x Stein offered me a gig and then everybody
did because people were afraid of Leora and Russell. But
they were like, yo, ed off is talking to her.
And then you know, I remember I met with Tommy
Mottola and you know, and just like the whole gamut.
(04:19):
And but I you know what I loved about ed
and I still love is we grew up listening to
all kinds of music, you know, because I got my
you know, I can sing all the Stairway to Heaven
and you know, Darkness on the Edge of Town Patty
Smith and Nick Drake and you know, then do a
little Brazilian lullaby with Sarah Vaugh and then drop into
(04:42):
a Cumbia audition.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Multitudes I think seems in love all day. She's talking
about Darkness spixteen.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Yeah, because there's a darkness on the edge of town.
And so and Ed. You know, as the son of
Billy x Stein growing up in California. He is a
diverse He's a good one to talk.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Talk to him. He's ready to go. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
And he said to me, Lisa, I said, and I
don't know if I just want to do black music.
He said, you can do whatever you want. And I
knew that I would want to produce the cast recording
of Jelly's Last cham which I did when I was
there working with George Wolf. I did records with John Lucienne.
You I just had loved so much, you know. And
(05:32):
then on the flip side, I'm working with hip hop,
I'm working with reggae. I worked with all kinds of music.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
You know.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
I was the person when Talking Loud came to the
States because I was the person in Incognito Omar Young Disciples.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
So wait, were you the one that introduced.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Might have wowse hip hop? Zeleig is now acid jazz.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Literally, when Giles got the word that he lost us,
he didn't take that line. He flew to Wendy was like,
I still want and she let him do it because
I used.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
To go to London and I was looped in with
all those folks and I when they brought the Talking
Loud label because of you know, it came to Mercury,
and I was a person like, yes, I want to
work with them, you know. I love what he was doing.
And when even when I had my label, I was
going to sign je Lisa Anderson and.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Bobby birds stepdaughter or daughter.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
I think she's a cousin because Carleen is there is
a daughter and she's a cousin. Olisah.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
I worked on our record pressure.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
I was going to sign.
Speaker 7 (06:47):
This happens like once a week. Do you like?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (06:50):
I played on her record.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
This is do you have a demos?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
I've worked on like five songs whe when we were
living in London and never got to Me and the
bass player of Jamaica Stewart, we worked on her record
and it never came out.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Well, it probably was for the UK label because I
was going to sign her before my Tragic again but
we'll get to that. Oh yeah. So I was the
point person for all the Talking Loud folks, so of
course I knew, you know Moreen Spernstein and Jonathan doing
Giant Step and blah blah blah blah blah. And that
was that, you know, I was so I love that
(07:31):
Ed allowed me that space to connect with and try
things out and really be able to broaden the scope
of expression within black music, you know. And I worked
with Angela Windbush Angela. Angela's not Angela, she's Angela. I
(07:54):
thought it was Angelo, Okay, who is incredible. She is producer, songwriter,
voice like an angel.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
You're in the studio with her or are you in?
Speaker 4 (08:08):
But she was married to Yeah. I went to their
their Spaceship studio in California.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Okay, I wanted to ask Lisa. You mentioned Larry Smith.
He's just someone that we always just you know, very
rare we get people that actually work with him, So like,
what was he like in the studio?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
What was that relationship like working with him? Because he's
just an unsung so.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
It's me DEENI and you know, he had this whole
connection to other UK artists because of Zomba multi instrumentalists
and just and a peacemaker. Because you have to remember
a lot of these artists are very young. This is
all new that they had a way and a pace
(08:50):
and Larry had come from where they had started, but
he had traveled and he had had the hits, and
he was really great talking to the artists and talking
them down and cooling them out. And you know, it's funny.
I ran into Paul Schaeffer. Came to a screening of
Little Richard over the weekend and Paul Schaeffer did a
(09:12):
hip hop record.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
When My Radio is on.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
And Larry Smith produce that song. He produced the album
that has Will. Yeah, that's Larry didn't. I didn't write
the songs. Might put that deal together, so you know.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
The world famous My first show was that Radio City
Music Hall thing. So Dion of Dionna and the Belmont
is also on the show and brings Paul Schafer out,
who I guess obviously just released the single. And I
remember like because Will and Jeff weren't there or whatever,
(09:53):
and they wanted to do that song. And for half
a second it's like they looked at my direction like, oh,
do you know a rap like you know that sort
of thing, and it was like, nah.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
I'm not doing that, but you orchestrated that song.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Well that because it's a whole album with that. Larry produces.
Yeah that let me just went out here.
Speaker 5 (10:14):
Let me be clear.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Yes, it's a dou wop. It's like Dion of Dionna
and the Bellmont's run around soon. It's it's deon is
in Paul's mind. He's doing what Boys the Men successfully did.
He wanted to do a do oop joint with hip
hop modern, you know, and he's New York and you know,
Paul was like a nerdy hip New Yorker type whatever,
(10:35):
so he wanted to just a moogamate all that. And
there was like a few performances where Jeff and Will
and Dion and Paul Schafer.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yeah, well this was no. It's eighty nine. So it's like,
you don't say no to Paul Schafer. Yeah, the check
was good, the opportunity, right, But you.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Know it's also how they then get invited to go
on David Letterman. The opportunity to tell us, Yeah, that
was that was like how it didn't just happen there.
You know, all these people were resistant, you know, the
way now that they want to have push a t
on it whoever on the show. They didn't want to
have these artists. They did not, you know, want that children,
(11:16):
just like with Little Richard to be exposed.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
He produced that song, So like, how do you you
became president of what was your highest position of mercury?
Speaker 4 (11:29):
I was Vpvynar.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
So for you in music, what do you deem like
your three crowning achievements? Yeah, like I seedd this and
blah blah blah happened? I like that song.
Speaker 7 (11:44):
When my radio?
Speaker 1 (11:47):
How do you all know this, Steve? Because I have taste?
Speaker 4 (11:52):
It wasn't look because we should look up?
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Wait because dad am I allowed to play this song
talking about.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
Yeah, he gave you the things until he cuts things.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Her answers, all, right, here we go.
Speaker 7 (12:06):
Ten seconds said yeah, ten seconds? Whose ten seconds?
Speaker 8 (12:11):
I got it? So that's ten seconds. That's ten seconds
in the NFL. Well this ship made mt V. Oh
this is definitely Larry Smith drum track.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Straight from the Whodini's open Sesame sessions.
Speaker 5 (12:33):
But what is Paul Shaffer doing?
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Paul do you not know.
Speaker 9 (12:41):
In the song he's the DJ college Oh.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
I didn't even know that. Who DENI was a part
of this.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
But you gotta understand, like in like Johnny Carson was
just the standard of late night.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
I get it, and the lerman was like he was
hip him and Paul are as nerdy as they were.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
They were like the cool guys that like not stuffy
suit like Carson. So you know this, I mean, no
one brought this ship and only nerd me. I'm the
one person that knows this song, all right, So okay,
I brought it. I'm sorry, go ahead, thank you for.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Giving me time.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
You see, how do so wait?
Speaker 7 (13:25):
Three achievements?
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Achievements or three magic moments that you got the witness
because I'm very impressed about you being in the room
with the Bomb Squad.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Okay, so Bomb Squad and Ice Cube singing back up
on the Lesson Zero soundtrack, the Danzig song and the
Roy Orbison song who Fades Away a Danzig Lonely and
Lesson Zero and Rick Rubin producers. Yeah, because you know,
(13:59):
I had thoughts that I was going to be a singer.
That's how I thought I could get a job in
the music industry and get discovered. And I very quickly
learned that it's not just about you got a great
voice and you you know, have a look and a
style and a vibe, but you also have the right label,
you have the right manager. You have like all the
(14:20):
stars have to line up. And when I fell into
this Motley family. That was so exciting and all these
different characters, and you know, in the office, you got
bottles coming in, you got people smoking crack outside. You
got like it was craziness. And I was like, I
can do the art, but I can also do the
(14:41):
commerce and I can be an advocate. And so I
gave up the singing. But for some reason, they needed
a fourth voice, and I think I worked my way
in to join. So I love that moment because we're
not credited on those two songs, but it's Chuck Stanley, Allison, myself,
(15:03):
and I think Tayshawn might have been singing.
Speaker 7 (15:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Really, so when did you, in your mind leave the
music industry?
Speaker 4 (15:17):
So I started this label after several years at Mercury,
I was going to go to another label. So my
label was called Loose Cannon. Yeah, And it was very
challenging to have a small boutique label, struggling to have
the promotion. People take your records out because you know,
(15:37):
you become second and third. And I had like my
little team and we're doing our own you know, street
team and blah dah blah, and I just hit the
glass ceiling. I hit the ceiling and I ultimately left.
I took action for gender and racial discrimination. I was
(16:01):
the only woman in this worldwide company and I didn't
have the same opportunities that I saw people around me
who were failing but going up, and you know I
and it was for my parents, because my parents were
so about we're not you know, like we as black
people have to stand up for injustices, not only for ourselves,
(16:25):
to be example for others, you know that, and not
only them, but their grand their parents, my grand you know,
they like I come from people who just were always
fighting to and not accepting and finding, you know, trying
to bring community forward. So I left and I didn't
listen to music for six months, and.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
You established this label and established I.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
Did the Till Shiloh record with Boujeoux. But and you know,
I'm I like all different shit. I put out a
folk group of Aboriginal women from Australia called Tittus. I
put out.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Titties titt I want to buy that record? That on
Spotify was that I would actually play your own song.
If you had a song, you gotta make yourself a song?
Speaker 4 (17:21):
Do you have to make a titty record? And I'll
say background. It made I'll come, I'll come out of retirement.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
I gotta have.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Titties.
Speaker 7 (17:32):
The musicales the.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Musical he t I D d h u okay Australian
Aboriginal now.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Okay, just so that I not feel like I'm not crazy,
Like there is definitely a discussion on like, guys, are
you sure this is the name that you want to go.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
By Aboriginal nipples? They changed it from nipple that was
and then they.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Tried but that didn't.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
This is why you're you're so quick? Okay. I love it.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
I love till Shiloh. It's a record I'm incredibly proud of.
But I also did the I reissued Red Fox and
Richard Pryor all those early comedy.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Records records they had been on. Laugh that's you, yes,
the reason for this.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Yeah, and so I got that catalog. I got people
like Walter Moseley to write the liner notes.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Come on, people don't even know about they.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
He and so yeah, so boom, chapter close. I'm not
listening to music. What do you do? You go to India?
So I went.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
In India?
Speaker 4 (18:53):
Well, I just I wanted to get away from everything,
to figure out what was gonna being next, and why
not go to a place where I was going to
be challenged.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
And what year was this for you, Lisen, This is.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
Okay, after the movie, before the movie.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
This was before the movie. Yes, And I didn't really
eat that much.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
I was I was afraid to eat.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
I'm like, I don't know, I'm just gonna be a
vegetarian for three months. But I was traveling and just
like reading books by local, you know, Indian authors like
Mystery and Salomon Rushdie, and hanging out with tabola players
and Varanasi and just like doing yoga and going to
the beach and you know whatever. And I went to
(19:39):
a movie theater. When I was in the middle of
watching this film, I realized, like, I want to make movies.
And I had studied film as an undergrad, and I
just saw that film gave me a bigger platform to communicate.
And even if you watch a little Richard and you
don't understand language, you're going to see the this roller
(20:00):
coaster ride he goes on, You're going to have a
sense of how his music affected people. You're going to
see his legacy. And so film then became my next
kind of place to go to. I came back to
New York. I took a production class at New York
Film Academy. I started volunteering. I started from ground zero,
(20:21):
and I just did the hustle, you know. I worked
at Urban World Film Festival. I put the panels together,
I met people. I went to the Toronto Film Festival.
I would watch four films a day. I would go
meet directors, I would volunteer. I would use my music
background and try to help people out. And then finally,
one day I got a call from someone I had
(20:41):
known for many years, and he said, I'm going to
New Orleans to make a movie. Would you like to
come and work for me and also for the director?
And that was Lee Daniels and that was Monster's Ball.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Oh you said go to New Orleans. I immediately thought.
My first thought was about it by master F I was,
I was so hoping whatever you worked on about it?
Speaker 4 (21:11):
But Lee Davis school too, you know, in the metaverse, maybe.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I did you know what I'm saying, I could totally
see you fitting in with Master V and I.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
So would I mean like I would just I would
love to be there because I love these these people
who are entrepreneurs, who are and are pulling, you know,
from a space and at the same time moving culture forward.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
But that was the Oscar winner. What were you experiences like?
Speaker 4 (21:37):
So it was really fantastic because Lee, so I'm insisting him.
I'm assisting Mark Forster, the director, and I would do
the famous drive to take our talent up to the
place where we shot.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
All the andla. So he's most was three hours.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Oh well, because I had worked with Most in the
interim years and I had done with Danny Hasten's a
video for Most. I had done Most and Tali Quali ePK,
you know, And I said to I told Lee about Most.
I was like, I love him and he's great and
he can act. Also Banam Badah part one then part two.
(22:22):
I would have to take the talent to Angola. So
we were all in New Orleans and we knew we
were going to go there at one point to shoot
some of the scenes there. So I remember like driving,
you know, the hour and a half with each way
with Heath Ledger and talking about life and books and whatever.
And then you go and you tour this place, that
former plantation still a plantation, and you know, seeing the
(22:46):
actual room that they execute people in. And then the
drive back home in that conversation. So I spent a
lot of time with the talent, but I also started
spending time with the DP, with the accountant, with wardrobe
and understanding like what they did and scheduling and lead
(23:11):
like gave me that space to go and learn. So
I had my little indie knowledge, but I also have
arts and crafts knowledge. My mother was really big about
making things. I like to make things, whether it's a
record or a movie or a documentary. I get a
lot of joy with all the people I get to
work with and the assembly of it. And so that
(23:36):
opportunity allowed me to have that access. And and you know,
that was a low budget film, you know, Holly, but
it was. There's so many funny, crazy stories.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Can I ask what was the budget for it?
Speaker 4 (23:48):
It's like around three three point five million.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Oh, y'all had to really cut corners and so nothing.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
And you know, it's it's interesting because originally Wes Bentley
was supposed to play the lead, and then Wes Bentley
kind of went off the rails, disappeared, and Heath Ledger
was huge, but like we had, Yeah, so we had
to convince them that that Heath Ledger could do this
(24:17):
because he didn't have a Southern accent, and we got
him this. I did like I had my own little
mixing a dialogue coach, and then I had to splice.
I had to play from cassette to cassette to make
something that would sound good to So it was a
lot of fun. It was very interesting. Getting to live
in New Orleans was fantastic job.
Speaker 6 (24:37):
Keep it light on the set because it was so heavy, like,
you know, a lot of love.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
A lot of care, a lot of taking care of people,
you know, mama, but but also you know Mark Fordster.
It is his second film, and he just is a
brilliant director, very loving and caring, you know, creating that
safe space, have the right people, like you know, when
(25:02):
you're doing certain scenes, you don't have everybody standing around,
you do last looks and then everybody's out and you
have to give them that privacy to go to some
really deep, emotional, vulnerable places. But nobody thought that that
film was going to do what it did, That halle
Berry would win the Academy Award, that it would go
(25:23):
on to make over thirty million dollars for a three
million dollar film. But what happened is Lee's like Miyon's Gate.
They made all the money. I'm not making any money.
I'm going to take Lee Daniels Entertainment that had been
a management company. Lee had represented Michael Shannon, Marina Baker,
and Wes Bentley. He represented all this great talent and
(25:46):
he said, let's start Lee Daniels Entertainment as a production company.
So the first film that we then did on our own,
which was very hip hop, was The Woodsman Kevin Bacon.
So that's when I then moved to phill Dai to
then make two films there. I'm a two one five.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
A day girl all day.
Speaker 5 (26:06):
Yeah, yeah, that Cuba Good and Junior Joint.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
That was my shadow box was Joint.
Speaker 5 (26:11):
That's the best I.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Ever I really liked, and most stuff you know He's
in that also and Dave all and Greer and Eve.
So that was the other thing we always wanted to
be mixed up, Yeah, the music and and making it
interesting with the casting. And with those films, we found
the scripts, we developed them, we found the internet, you know,
(26:32):
our investors, we did our pre sales, we did the production,
all the deals and then the you know post and
then bringing it to a festival and delivery. And in
the beginning it was Lee, a guy named Dave Robinson
who did international sales, and myself and you know, we
were doing material that other people were not all looking at.
(26:54):
And after Shadow Boxer with Helen Mirren and Joseph Gordon Levin,
Monique Cuba Gooding Jr. That's when Sapphire, who we had
been chasing for years, gave us the option to push.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
What took it so long that it was a struggle
to nail that deal down.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
She just was protective of who to give her work to.
I know she had been chased when the book first
came out by Madonna, who had wanted to tell it right.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
She directly called her and was like, all I know.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
Is that she wanted to option the material. Yeah, and
we showed a shadow Boxer and she said, Yo, you
guys are afraid to go there because she remember in
the film there's Helen Maren who was an assassin and
she carries off hits with her step son K Gooding Jr.
Who's also her lover.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
I read the script and I was blown away.
Speaker 6 (27:48):
So when I saw the vision when it got done,
I was like, Yo, it's really one of my favorite films.
I'm sorry I'm so hype about it, but it was
just a mind blower.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
In doing the Apollo Theater documentary.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Where is the Apollos their footage of I would have
thought they would have had more footage at least between
their early years in the forties and up until the
mid seventies. They never recorded or documented those shows at all.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
There's very few shows that were that were captured, and
I mean, I've become like a you know, a big
archival person. And luckily on that show, there was a
Jerry I forgot Jerry's name, who had worked with Percy
when Percy took over and did the remodeling, and Jerry
(28:36):
lives in Yonkers, and I went to his house and
we crawled through the basement and he had those beautiful
tapes of the renovation and the reveal because Percy tried
to have a multimedia center, so he had he started taping.
And that's also the onslite of you know, showtime at
the Apollo. But you know, I mean, I would have
(28:57):
loved to have seen when in the Motown review was there,
and so many of those incredible classic moments, but it
didn't exist. You know, and you know, I think the
thing about documenting Black stories is that oftentimes our archival
has been lost because we had to leave our homes
in the middle of the night and escape, or our
(29:17):
homes got burnt down, or you know, the flood came,
like you know.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Or we're just not sentimental. Well maybe that's a lot
I get.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Doctor willi Is literally blew up the Soul Trained stage
and everything the science because he didn't he didn't want
to pay for storage.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
So he was like get rid of it all.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
So they had to like crush it and like literally
his entire history.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
He didn't care.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Yeah, and the value of black cultural product and black
cultural archival is is really important to me because as
I tell these stories, as you tell the stories you're doing,
we want to bring people back to that moment. We
just don't want a bunch of contemporary people saying it
was like this.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
It was like that.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
No, we wanted to be immersive and we want you
to see and feel and get a sense of the
journey that we're on.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
We were talking outside before we started taping.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
You said this documentary, the Little Richard doc about two
years working on. What was the hardest part, Like what
was I guess the biggest kind of the bottleneck that
took the most time.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
Well, you know, we have this great partner, CNN Films,
and when you do a film from them, it's ninety
eight minutes, ninety seven and one hundred and one. Because
I kind of go like, well can it be one
hundred and one? No, So, you know, like when you
got to back into that time, there's things that have
to fall out For me. I wanted to talk a
(30:40):
little bit more in the film about the Shenanigans of
the music business, how it is that you can sign
someone and take everything and that they don't see. Yeah,
but as I like to say, I had to stay
on ninety five and not get off on exit five,
you know, because that would have taken us too long.
Our run time is.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
This because they for broadcast purposes, you had to fit.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
Yeah, that's their broadcast standard.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
I was under the impression, and I believe that he
said this, that Michael Jackson at V gave him his
rights back.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
So that's why John Branca is in the film. That's
why I interviewed him. Because John Branco, of course had
the relationship with Richard when Richard officiated at his marriage,
that Michael Jackson was and Bubbles were best men at
for John Branca. There are pictures.
Speaker 7 (31:38):
I just got.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Maritate that.
Speaker 5 (31:41):
Google.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Yes, it's the craziest picture.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Really.
Speaker 7 (31:49):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
And so Bronca, who you know, was Michael Jackson's attorney
and is still involved in the estate. I interviewed him
not only about that moment, but because when Richard protested
at ATV Music for his royalties, and then Michael Jackson
bought the catalog. So in his book and in his autobiography,
(32:10):
Richard goes, oh, yeah, Michael gave me money. But I
learned very early on making this film that a lot
of things that Richard said, you know, were not completely true.
So I was like, okay, John Marinca, you were there,
you were there all the time. Did Michael Jackson give
Little Richard money? And yes he did. I should have
asked him about sly Stone and Doris Day because maybe
(32:33):
he would have known about We could confirm, you know,
his h that Michael Jackson felt really bad, and he
did he gave him some bucks.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
In your opinion, like, what was your mission statement in
doing Little Richard's story, Because there's so much to uncover
as an artist as a human being, as a pop
culture figure, Like, what was your mission statement at like
before day one? I'm going to when people watch this,
(33:04):
they are going to blank.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
The thesis mission was little Richard's an icon? Why is
he an icon? Why is it that when he passed away,
this wide range of people from Bob Dylan to Harry
Allen to you know, Dave Grohl are talking to Bruce
(33:27):
Bingston talking about how important he is. He's so, why
is he an icon? Why does he matter? And if
he is the innovator, the architect, what did it take
to get there? Who is his fore mother, forefather? And
(33:48):
how does blackness and queerness factor into a conversation about
rock and roll?
Speaker 6 (33:54):
Oh my god, the black queer conversation that you start
very early on in the movie. That was the initial
thing that blew me away seeing black queer people, beautiful
black queer people of that time, because we don't see
black and white photos of like trans people and what
that meant. So after I saw the movie, I had
(34:15):
a physical reaction, Like, I had so much of a
reaction I had to like, I had to reach out
to Lisa. Did you expect for us to not only
be of course, empathetic and sympathetic, but also pissed.
Speaker 5 (34:26):
I was mad at times. Towards the end.
Speaker 6 (34:29):
I got mad seeing like Mick Jacker and you know,
the Paul McCartneys of it. I don't know, I got
mad because I was like, I got mad when Little
Richard said, you know, Elvis told me that it was
if it wasn't for me, there would be no him. Basically,
did you know that that was?
Speaker 4 (34:46):
I knew. I wanted it to be immersive, you know,
because you can't just do Little Richard at shut up.
You know, he's more than the one note comedic foil
that he had it become on these talk shows. He
is so deeply nuanced. And also he's this connector to
the Beatles, to the Rolling Stones, to Jimmy Hendricks, James Brown.
(35:07):
He brings him to making and that's where James cuts
his first hit. And when Little Richard blows up at
the same time and goes to Hollywood to be in
these you know, rock and roll movies, he has James
Brown got on the road as him because people didn't
know what Little Richard looked like. So he's like, oh,
you go out as me?
Speaker 5 (35:28):
You know.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
He was also he was so giving and has been
There's been a lot of erasure about his contributions. So yeah,
you gotta be you gotta feel moved by it. You
got to be mad, and you have to say, you
know what, we need to know our history and an
inclusive history, a history that many people are trying to
(35:51):
either negate or criminalize. And you know what, sorry, people,
this is America. There's documentation of drag balls in DC
in eighteen hundred. So don't come through now and say like, no,
this has always been here.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
What is your hope?
Speaker 3 (36:16):
Because I think this is probably the most compelling argument
that one can happen again.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
I know that there's a big.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Sort of divide between and really I'm not just saying
conservative people. I'm being real like with conservative blacks, like
would turn a blind eye to them or whatever. Like,
it's very interesting even in watching like Soul Train, a
place where literally like you know that you know the
(36:46):
LGBTQIA culture is, especially in the mid seventies and disco
period and all that stuff. There's an artist from DC,
a group named the Dynamic Superiors. They give one of
the greatest performances I've ever seen on a show. But
the lead singer is way beyond what we would call
like flamboyant whatever like, and Don's reaction to him is
(37:10):
it's it's clearly like I'm just going to act like
you're not.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
There, like yeah, he got it.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Yeah, it wasn't even it wasn't even like hostility, and
it wasn't it was I've never even seen indifference, like
most people will just be like ignoring, like okay, like
you're not there. But it's it's a level of conservatism
that I can't even describe that Don does to him,
Whereas like I'm clearly not going to acknowledge the what
(37:39):
I see here is what I feel I don't understand,
so let me just act like it's not there. But
I feel like this film could actually sort of open
that door, Like is that for you?
Speaker 4 (37:52):
Like yeah, I think people learning this history, learning that
you know the complexities of someone that most people really love,
little Richard, Like you know, you say little Richard like
oh tooty fruity lontail Sally, you people start shouting.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Literally, I didn't know about that. I don't know what,
but you do now. I have no doubt.
Speaker 4 (38:12):
And I went to Florida to screen it. I was like, God,
I don't want to go to Florida. We know it's
going on in.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Florida, an even as we'll go to America's.
Speaker 4 (38:25):
It was the best thing. First of all, there's like
all these older people who you know, they've got this
memory of the routines and they saw him and they
love this story and they embraced this story. They didn't go, oh,
I like this part, but I don't like the queer part.
And then I talked to the young people who were like, yeah,
they want to take African American, you know, ap history out.
(38:46):
And so what this film does, it's very corrective to
to a history that has not included the multitudes that
someone like a Richard contained.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Do you think that he I mean, we accepted all
of him. Do you think he accepted all of himself?
Speaker 4 (39:04):
I don't think so. I mean he's on such a
roller coaster.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
And that part where you really go into the eighties
version of him where we deny it, like that made
me inherently sad. Yeah, yeah, like nothing sadder than a
person that has to suffer as themselves or whatever. So
have you screened it for anyone with the two on
the far left digit of their birth year, like a.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Millennials gen z. What is their reaction to it?
Speaker 4 (39:32):
They actually are like, oh, this isn't some old fogy stuff.
They're all I think, I get a lot of where
can I get a mirrored suit? I have that great
fashion moment. But I think that you know, they like
the music and they're they're really captivated by how his
(39:53):
DNA went forth to artists like and how he paved away.
You don't have saucy Santana, you don't have next, you
don't have.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Right, yes a little.
Speaker 5 (40:05):
I was like, I wanted all of them in it.
Actually at the end, towards the end, you start talking about.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
That, did they not want to?
Speaker 4 (40:12):
I called the people I always do charts when I'm
directing films of you know, who's the family, who are
the friends, who's the artists, and in this case, who
are the incredible black and queer scholars who are not
the usual history of rock and roll. I was very
intentional in the academic voices who are narrating.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
I was really happy to see Sandre in it like she.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
I mean when she says, you know, it's not appropriation,
it's obliteration. I was like, Okay, everybody could go okay,
you know what it's about, and like it tore him asunder.
And I love that in this film we have that
level of commentary because that's who we are. You know,
(41:05):
we can we can be talking about we can deconstructuty
fruity and you know Richard on the as Princess Levone
as a drag queen. But we can also talk about
a harm to our community because those are all apart.
You know, if someone said to me, they'll take our rhythm,
but they won't take.
Speaker 6 (41:26):
Right.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
And so to know little Richard, you know, you need
to know the joy, but you also need to know
the intense pain of him feeling invisible, feeling that all
of his contributions and all these people he helped out
are not there. Like when he's at the Otis Redding,
he goes, I still sing, you can record with me,
you know, call me. And and that is the part
(41:51):
of the complexity of his journey that is more than
oh I'm the bronze lie Barachi.
Speaker 5 (41:58):
You made us get to know him a little more.
Speaker 6 (41:59):
And I actually also kind of answered the conflict with it,
I think all of us, because it was like, was
he wasn't he?
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Now?
Speaker 6 (42:06):
I understand even his own personal conflict and why I
felt that way because he was unsure.
Speaker 5 (42:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wish you would have known that.
We would have loved him regardless, but thank you all.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
I definitely feel like it will help people now you
really it's a beautiful film, like we we've.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Super enjoyed it.
Speaker 6 (42:23):
The black dust, that's what I wanted to ask about.
I'm sorry, what was the black dust in your mind
throughout the movie?
Speaker 4 (42:29):
It's beautiful black dust sis energy. I believe he is elemental.
He came from another planet. He's a super nova, and
he arrived and unleashed this energy that we established in
the beginning of the film, and it continues and it
grows in specific places of innovation, of expansion, of creation
(42:54):
and how the energy is him And that was a
great motif, you know, working with the editors, because I
was like, how do we do it? How do we
show this?
Speaker 7 (43:04):
You know?
Speaker 1 (43:05):
And sequences to the music, Yeah, how did you choose them?
Speaker 7 (43:12):
The reinterpreters of the song.
Speaker 4 (43:14):
So when I pitched this film, I always said I
wanted to have dreamscapes. I love magic realism, and I
wanted to have contemporary artists who are part of his legacy.
You know, when I spoke to Valerie June, who does
the Sister Rosetta tharp uh scene, I said sister and
she said Rosetta. I mean, she just like completed good
(43:37):
and she understood why Sister Rosetta is important to this.
Corey Henry I adore, and Corey started in the church.
Then he goes and you know he does gospel, hip hop,
jazz pop, and I just thought musically he could bring
so much. He's such a he's so fantastic and Pastor
(43:59):
Key that that is not a little Richard song. But
I'm a big fan of John p Key and that's
one of my favorite songs standing in Need of Prayer,
and I thought it really spoke to how low Richard
is when he has lost every everything and like the
only thing he has is God.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Was there convincing him to do it? No? Oh really? Okay.
Speaker 4 (44:24):
We've been talking for years about a project I want
to do with him, Okay, And when I called and
I told him what was about, he said yes, and
he knew Richard and he was really helpful for us
by even finding the church, et cetera. So you know,
all of those artists are part of this desire to
(44:45):
make this immersive, and to be also in scenes that
are part of portal's opening portals of possibility for Richard
being seen by a sister Rosetta creating Tooty Fruity, and
even the portal of I've lost everything and I'm now
going back to the church. There, they're big emotional shifts
(45:06):
for him.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
I hate to admit this, Fonte, but my actual introduction
to John p Key.
Speaker 9 (45:14):
Crash John Peakey, Oh wow, Well you know what, at
least as we wrap up, I'm actually sitting here like
in some sort of Paltrow esque sliding doors.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
I'm expansive.
Speaker 7 (45:35):
You are the expansive ist.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
Just a forty eight hour decision changed the entire course
of my life, of which I am extremely happy of
my journey, especially in light of Okay, so.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Yeah, I would have got seventeen albums on Death Jam Doug.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Right, But even if that, I'm like, Okay, there is
a tortist in the Hair journey. And was it better
for me on my second album to sell seventeen million copies?
And now you know twenty twenty three, I'm going to
jail for Sbiona wow right, or to be on this path.
But now I'm like, damn, if I just signed in Mercury,
(46:17):
I think I would have had an amazing ass relationship
with Lisa Kurtez.
Speaker 5 (46:22):
Like it's never too late.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
I never had regrets, but I'm now trying to figure
out what would have happened in my life if we
just went through it and we had Lisa at the.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
Top of the pyramid. Could have been on Brian McKnight albums.
Yeah you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (46:38):
You would have met ralph raphaelsa earlier.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Wow right? Oh oh yeah, do you have a Latin
quarter story?
Speaker 4 (46:46):
I survived a story?
Speaker 5 (46:49):
Oh so she I mean she had to she had
to go.
Speaker 4 (46:52):
No, I've had many hit the ground, hit the ground.
Speaker 5 (46:55):
Before we rap. I just want to say Lisa, because
I said to Lisa after I watched this movie. Okay,
so Lisa, this was amazing. I don't know what you're
going to do next.
Speaker 6 (47:01):
Can you just tell the folks the two projects that
you got cooking that's going to be blowing their minds
away too.
Speaker 4 (47:06):
So premiering at Rebecca, I have something called The Space Race.
It is the story of Ed Dwight, who almost became
an astronaut. Black man. But and it focuses on the shuttlemen,
the Black astronauts who in nineteen eighty three, Guy Blueford,
Fred Gregory, Ron McNee, you go to space. But it's
(47:28):
really about this community because it's also Victor Glover and
Leland Melvin. It's about afrofuturism and black astronauts and moving
things forward. So that's the space you're doing this. Yep,
it's all done.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
I've got to get thunder Cat to do the score.
Speaker 4 (47:47):
Tomp is on it, so it's a good Next one
is The Empire of Ebony. It's a three part series
on Eunice Johnson and I know somebody here as a
collection of these maxaines.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
I do I do? You know?
Speaker 3 (48:07):
At one point I was part of the board, so
you know the moment. So they're doing the food version
of the moment. And at one point we owned the
Ebony Kitchen. We had to dismantle the board and you know,
raise more money, so we had to sell our Ebony Kitchen.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
But literally they move it to me from the building when.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
We dismantled it, and very meticulous and we moved it
to New York and set it up back in its
original seventies sixties.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
Sort of like but yeah, man, I was, Yeah, it's
you know, how do you build a media empire where
in a space that did not exist? And how can
you be a race man and a capitalists doing this?
And then finally I'm eating a rate film coming out.
The milk goes on forever, the art of David Hammond's
(49:05):
and I produced The Invisible Beauty, which is the story
of Beth and the model music activists.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
All right, so closing, can you give us a tale
from the Latin Quarter?
Speaker 7 (49:29):
The fucking Timbola ships so good every time.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
Well, it's like Mexican Colombia.
Speaker 7 (49:34):
Every there's some Kombea in it. I'm just saying.
Speaker 4 (49:37):
Anyway, moving, I remember going and having to hide in
the bathroom and and that's all I'll say.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
I take the shift, ladies and gentlemen. That was tilt.
Speaker 5 (49:52):
I can't stop doing it.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I apologize.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
And it took three decades for our BFF courtship to start,
but no time like the president.
Speaker 4 (50:11):
Well, and congratulations to you, thank you. I feel like
every Academy Awards we need to go back and give
you guys your award again properly. But the art, the
work is there. So many people talk about the glorious
summer soul. But thank you and you know, like and
(50:33):
all the projects you. I want to come and interview
and to hear you talk about all your films that
you're doing like you're doing the.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Risk of talk about myself all the time.
Speaker 5 (50:41):
Yes, we don't.
Speaker 7 (50:44):
On the next Quest Love Supreme, Quest.
Speaker 5 (50:46):
Love, we don't do that. We are going to do that.
Speaker 4 (50:50):
Oh no, thank you everything.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
And Sugar Steve and I'm Big Bill and the Great
Polsa Cortez Quest Love Out cousin Jake and Brittany and
also thank you again live live at cd M Studios
in Manhattan.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
Thank you very much for listening us. Count that money
out that money, count that money.
Speaker 7 (51:15):
That's what, that's that's around.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Yeo Yo Yo,
What up y'all?
Speaker 2 (00:06):
This is Fonte Fonte Delo and we are back with
part two of our New York City in Studio interview
with filmmaker, music executive and all around wonderful human being
Lisa Cortes. In this episode, we're gonna talk about her
new documentary Little Richard I Am Everything, which you should
definitely check out because this is a great film and
it is available.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
On YouTube, Amazon Prime, wherever you rent, wherever you stream.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Also, please listen to part one, where at Lista talks
about growing up for early musical memories and also working
at Deaf Drum Records at a very crucial time in
its history. We love this compo, and we hope y'all
do too. All right, Quest Love Supreme Peace.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I always wanted to know since you were there around
like eighty nine to ninety post Terodom, post Griff interview,
there is like a really scary period where like some
of us start, like Deaf Jam was about to shut
down during the entire you know, Griff interview Public Enemy.
(01:06):
Things I remember, like seeing Chuck on Entertainment tonight. I
think with tape over his mouth or had a like
he sat for an interview but then like I'm not
giving any comment or whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
How weird was that period?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Like, were you guys the type to embrace a controversy.
Was it sort of like Dann the JDL might shut
us down or that sort of thing, or did le
or have to sort of get in front of the
bullet did his thing?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (01:30):
I think the Ladler has always been an important strategist
in telling the true story of the artists and where
they were coming from. Bill was a great interpreter. Who
could call a guy trembay, who could you know, talk
to all these different people to really give them the
broader context of who this person is and what they're
(01:53):
talking about, why they're talking about it.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
We got to get Bill ed on the show.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Oh my gosh, it too.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
We got Lisa now.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So yeah, are you doing contact with your Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Yes, Bill Ladler.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
I imagine y'all have Jamsey Williams, Seasonal.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Faith, Newman Smith, you know, even the deaf jam Soul
songs artists. We had a little reunion, so.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
That's occasionally talked to.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Did not know he was perto Oran Tay Shawn, Chuck
Stanley and Alison Williams. Alison Williams and we went to
Europe and I was the tour manager. It was one
of those if it's Tuesday, it must be Belgium. Okay,
if it's Wednesday, we got to get in the bus
and get to Frankfurt. And that was Actually we had
(02:44):
a reunion like two months ago, and even the band members,
you know, we're all there.
Speaker 6 (02:51):
That's so full circle too, you said Alison Williams, And
I thought about you with the Luther concert.
Speaker 5 (02:55):
Then I thought about Ramote, Harvey and the whole I am.
It's just it's a beautiful, circular kind of connection between
all of y'all. That's beautiful.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Why did we the ghost room my life?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
We would have been bffsed to, I believe. So, I mean, look,
what made the deal irresistible was that, you know, most
artists will the label will have options to instantly drop
if they see the bands not fit. And we didn't
even learn how to craft the song until our fourth album.
(03:28):
So in this situation, the thing that brought us there
was the fact that if you our contract was hooked
up so that if you did album number one, they
had to do two and three. If we did four,
they had to do five and six. It was really
the true reason why we've had seventeen albums under our
belt because label trust me. There are many times where
the label was like, get rid of it, damn another
(03:51):
two records. And so that's that's the story. So why
did you leave def Jam and what brought you to Mercury?
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Well, x Stein offered me a gig and then everybody
did because people were afraid of Leora and Russell. But
they were like, yo, ed off is talking to her.
And then you know, I remember I met with Tommy
Mottola and you know, and just like the whole gamut.
(04:19):
And but I you know what I loved about ed
and I still love is we grew up listening to
all kinds of music, you know, because I got my
you know, I can sing all the Stairway to Heaven
and you know, Darkness on the Edge of Town Patty
Smith and Nick Drake and you know, then do a
little Brazilian lullaby with Sarah Vaugh and then drop into
(04:42):
a Cumbia audition.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Multitudes I think seems in love all day. She's talking
about Darkness spixteen.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Yeah, because there's a darkness on the edge of town.
And so and Ed. You know, as the son of
Billy x Stein growing up in California. He is a
diverse He's a good one to talk.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Talk to him. He's ready to go. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
And he said to me, Lisa, I said, and I
don't know if I just want to do black music.
He said, you can do whatever you want. And I
knew that I would want to produce the cast recording
of Jelly's Last cham which I did when I was
there working with George Wolf. I did records with John Lucienne.
You I just had loved so much, you know. And
(05:32):
then on the flip side, I'm working with hip hop,
I'm working with reggae. I worked with all kinds of music.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
You know.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
I was the person when Talking Loud came to the
States because I was the person in Incognito Omar Young Disciples.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
So wait, were you the one that introduced.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Might have wowse hip hop? Zeleig is now acid jazz.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Literally, when Giles got the word that he lost us,
he didn't take that line. He flew to Wendy was like,
I still want and she let him do it because
I used.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
To go to London and I was looped in with
all those folks and I when they brought the Talking
Loud label because of you know, it came to Mercury,
and I was a person like, yes, I want to
work with them, you know. I love what he was doing.
And when even when I had my label, I was
going to sign je Lisa Anderson and.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Bobby birds stepdaughter or daughter.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
I think she's a cousin because Carleen is there is
a daughter and she's a cousin. Olisah.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
I worked on our record pressure.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
I was going to sign.
Speaker 7 (06:47):
This happens like once a week. Do you like?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (06:50):
I played on her record.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
This is do you have a demos?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
I've worked on like five songs whe when we were
living in London and never got to Me and the
bass player of Jamaica Stewart, we worked on her record
and it never came out.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Well, it probably was for the UK label because I
was going to sign her before my Tragic again but
we'll get to that. Oh yeah. So I was the
point person for all the Talking Loud folks, so of
course I knew, you know Moreen Spernstein and Jonathan doing
Giant Step and blah blah blah blah blah. And that
was that, you know, I was so I love that
(07:31):
Ed allowed me that space to connect with and try
things out and really be able to broaden the scope
of expression within black music, you know. And I worked
with Angela Windbush Angela. Angela's not Angela, she's Angela. I
(07:54):
thought it was Angelo, Okay, who is incredible. She is producer, songwriter,
voice like an angel.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
You're in the studio with her or are you in?
Speaker 4 (08:08):
But she was married to Yeah. I went to their
their Spaceship studio in California.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Okay, I wanted to ask Lisa. You mentioned Larry Smith.
He's just someone that we always just you know, very
rare we get people that actually work with him, So like,
what was he like in the studio?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
What was that relationship like working with him? Because he's
just an unsung so.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
It's me DEENI and you know, he had this whole
connection to other UK artists because of Zomba multi instrumentalists
and just and a peacemaker. Because you have to remember
a lot of these artists are very young. This is
all new that they had a way and a pace
(08:50):
and Larry had come from where they had started, but
he had traveled and he had had the hits, and
he was really great talking to the artists and talking
them down and cooling them out. And you know, it's funny.
I ran into Paul Schaeffer. Came to a screening of
Little Richard over the weekend and Paul Schaeffer did a
(09:12):
hip hop record.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
When My Radio is on.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
And Larry Smith produce that song. He produced the album
that has Will. Yeah, that's Larry didn't. I didn't write
the songs. Might put that deal together, so you know.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
The world famous My first show was that Radio City
Music Hall thing. So Dion of Dionna and the Belmont
is also on the show and brings Paul Schafer out,
who I guess obviously just released the single. And I
remember like because Will and Jeff weren't there or whatever,
(09:53):
and they wanted to do that song. And for half
a second it's like they looked at my direction like, oh,
do you know a rap like you know that sort
of thing, and it was like, nah.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
I'm not doing that, but you orchestrated that song.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Well that because it's a whole album with that. Larry produces.
Yeah that let me just went out here.
Speaker 5 (10:14):
Let me be clear.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Yes, it's a dou wop. It's like Dion of Dionna
and the Bellmont's run around soon. It's it's deon is
in Paul's mind. He's doing what Boys the Men successfully did.
He wanted to do a do oop joint with hip
hop modern, you know, and he's New York and you know,
Paul was like a nerdy hip New Yorker type whatever,
(10:35):
so he wanted to just a moogamate all that. And
there was like a few performances where Jeff and Will
and Dion and Paul Schafer.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yeah, well this was no. It's eighty nine. So it's like,
you don't say no to Paul Schafer. Yeah, the check
was good, the opportunity, right, But you.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Know it's also how they then get invited to go
on David Letterman. The opportunity to tell us, Yeah, that
was that was like how it didn't just happen there.
You know, all these people were resistant, you know, the
way now that they want to have push a t
on it whoever on the show. They didn't want to
have these artists. They did not, you know, want that children,
(11:16):
just like with Little Richard to be exposed.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
He produced that song, So like, how do you you
became president of what was your highest position of mercury?
Speaker 4 (11:29):
I was Vpvynar.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
So for you in music, what do you deem like
your three crowning achievements? Yeah, like I seedd this and
blah blah blah happened? I like that song.
Speaker 7 (11:44):
When my radio?
Speaker 1 (11:47):
How do you all know this, Steve? Because I have taste?
Speaker 4 (11:52):
It wasn't look because we should look up?
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Wait because dad am I allowed to play this song
talking about.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
Yeah, he gave you the things until he cuts things.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Her answers, all, right, here we go.
Speaker 7 (12:06):
Ten seconds said yeah, ten seconds? Whose ten seconds?
Speaker 8 (12:11):
I got it? So that's ten seconds. That's ten seconds
in the NFL. Well this ship made mt V. Oh
this is definitely Larry Smith drum track.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Straight from the Whodini's open Sesame sessions.
Speaker 5 (12:33):
But what is Paul Shaffer doing?
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Paul do you not know.
Speaker 9 (12:41):
In the song he's the DJ college Oh.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
I didn't even know that. Who DENI was a part
of this.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
But you gotta understand, like in like Johnny Carson was
just the standard of late night.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
I get it, and the lerman was like he was
hip him and Paul are as nerdy as they were.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
They were like the cool guys that like not stuffy
suit like Carson. So you know this, I mean, no
one brought this ship and only nerd me. I'm the
one person that knows this song, all right, So okay,
I brought it. I'm sorry, go ahead, thank you for.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Giving me time.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
You see, how do so wait?
Speaker 7 (13:25):
Three achievements?
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Achievements or three magic moments that you got the witness
because I'm very impressed about you being in the room
with the Bomb Squad.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Okay, so Bomb Squad and Ice Cube singing back up
on the Lesson Zero soundtrack, the Danzig song and the
Roy Orbison song who Fades Away a Danzig Lonely and
Lesson Zero and Rick Rubin producers. Yeah, because you know,
(13:59):
I had thoughts that I was going to be a singer.
That's how I thought I could get a job in
the music industry and get discovered. And I very quickly
learned that it's not just about you got a great
voice and you you know, have a look and a
style and a vibe, but you also have the right label,
you have the right manager. You have like all the
(14:20):
stars have to line up. And when I fell into
this Motley family. That was so exciting and all these
different characters, and you know, in the office, you got
bottles coming in, you got people smoking crack outside. You
got like it was craziness. And I was like, I
can do the art, but I can also do the
(14:41):
commerce and I can be an advocate. And so I
gave up the singing. But for some reason, they needed
a fourth voice, and I think I worked my way
in to join. So I love that moment because we're
not credited on those two songs, but it's Chuck Stanley, Allison, myself,
(15:03):
and I think Tayshawn might have been singing.
Speaker 7 (15:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Really, so when did you, in your mind leave the
music industry?
Speaker 4 (15:17):
So I started this label after several years at Mercury,
I was going to go to another label. So my
label was called Loose Cannon. Yeah, And it was very
challenging to have a small boutique label, struggling to have
the promotion. People take your records out because you know,
(15:37):
you become second and third. And I had like my
little team and we're doing our own you know, street
team and blah dah blah, and I just hit the
glass ceiling. I hit the ceiling and I ultimately left.
I took action for gender and racial discrimination. I was
(16:01):
the only woman in this worldwide company and I didn't
have the same opportunities that I saw people around me
who were failing but going up, and you know I
and it was for my parents, because my parents were
so about we're not you know, like we as black
people have to stand up for injustices, not only for ourselves,
(16:25):
to be example for others, you know that, and not
only them, but their grand their parents, my grand you know,
they like I come from people who just were always
fighting to and not accepting and finding, you know, trying
to bring community forward. So I left and I didn't
listen to music for six months, and.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
You established this label and established I.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
Did the Till Shiloh record with Boujeoux. But and you know,
I'm I like all different shit. I put out a
folk group of Aboriginal women from Australia called Tittus. I
put out.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Titties titt I want to buy that record? That on
Spotify was that I would actually play your own song.
If you had a song, you gotta make yourself a song?
Speaker 4 (17:21):
Do you have to make a titty record? And I'll
say background. It made I'll come, I'll come out of retirement.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
I gotta have.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Titties.
Speaker 7 (17:32):
The musicales the.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Musical he t I D d h u okay Australian
Aboriginal now.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Okay, just so that I not feel like I'm not crazy,
Like there is definitely a discussion on like, guys, are
you sure this is the name that you want to go.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
By Aboriginal nipples? They changed it from nipple that was
and then they.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Tried but that didn't.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
This is why you're you're so quick? Okay. I love it.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
I love till Shiloh. It's a record I'm incredibly proud of.
But I also did the I reissued Red Fox and
Richard Pryor all those early comedy.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Records records they had been on. Laugh that's you, yes,
the reason for this.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Yeah, and so I got that catalog. I got people
like Walter Moseley to write the liner notes.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Come on, people don't even know about they.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
He and so yeah, so boom, chapter close. I'm not
listening to music. What do you do? You go to India?
So I went.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
In India?
Speaker 4 (18:53):
Well, I just I wanted to get away from everything,
to figure out what was gonna being next, and why
not go to a place where I was going to
be challenged.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
And what year was this for you, Lisen, This is.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
Okay, after the movie, before the movie.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
This was before the movie. Yes, And I didn't really
eat that much.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
I was I was afraid to eat.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
I'm like, I don't know, I'm just gonna be a
vegetarian for three months. But I was traveling and just
like reading books by local, you know, Indian authors like
Mystery and Salomon Rushdie, and hanging out with tabola players
and Varanasi and just like doing yoga and going to
the beach and you know whatever. And I went to
(19:39):
a movie theater. When I was in the middle of
watching this film, I realized, like, I want to make movies.
And I had studied film as an undergrad, and I
just saw that film gave me a bigger platform to communicate.
And even if you watch a little Richard and you
don't understand language, you're going to see the this roller
(20:00):
coaster ride he goes on, You're going to have a
sense of how his music affected people. You're going to
see his legacy. And so film then became my next
kind of place to go to. I came back to
New York. I took a production class at New York
Film Academy. I started volunteering. I started from ground zero,
(20:21):
and I just did the hustle, you know. I worked
at Urban World Film Festival. I put the panels together,
I met people. I went to the Toronto Film Festival.
I would watch four films a day. I would go
meet directors, I would volunteer. I would use my music
background and try to help people out. And then finally,
one day I got a call from someone I had
(20:41):
known for many years, and he said, I'm going to
New Orleans to make a movie. Would you like to
come and work for me and also for the director?
And that was Lee Daniels and that was Monster's Ball.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Oh you said go to New Orleans. I immediately thought.
My first thought was about it by master F I was,
I was so hoping whatever you worked on about it?
Speaker 4 (21:11):
But Lee Davis school too, you know, in the metaverse, maybe.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I did you know what I'm saying, I could totally
see you fitting in with Master V and I.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
So would I mean like I would just I would
love to be there because I love these these people
who are entrepreneurs, who are and are pulling, you know,
from a space and at the same time moving culture forward.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
But that was the Oscar winner. What were you experiences like?
Speaker 4 (21:37):
So it was really fantastic because Lee, so I'm insisting him.
I'm assisting Mark Forster, the director, and I would do
the famous drive to take our talent up to the
place where we shot.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
All the andla. So he's most was three hours.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Oh well, because I had worked with Most in the
interim years and I had done with Danny Hasten's a
video for Most. I had done Most and Tali Quali ePK,
you know, And I said to I told Lee about Most.
I was like, I love him and he's great and
he can act. Also Banam Badah part one then part two.
(22:22):
I would have to take the talent to Angola. So
we were all in New Orleans and we knew we
were going to go there at one point to shoot
some of the scenes there. So I remember like driving,
you know, the hour and a half with each way
with Heath Ledger and talking about life and books and whatever.
And then you go and you tour this place, that
former plantation still a plantation, and you know, seeing the
(22:46):
actual room that they execute people in. And then the
drive back home in that conversation. So I spent a
lot of time with the talent, but I also started
spending time with the DP, with the accountant, with wardrobe
and understanding like what they did and scheduling and lead
(23:11):
like gave me that space to go and learn. So
I had my little indie knowledge, but I also have
arts and crafts knowledge. My mother was really big about
making things. I like to make things, whether it's a
record or a movie or a documentary. I get a
lot of joy with all the people I get to
work with and the assembly of it. And so that
(23:36):
opportunity allowed me to have that access. And and you know,
that was a low budget film, you know, Holly, but
it was. There's so many funny, crazy stories.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Can I ask what was the budget for it?
Speaker 4 (23:48):
It's like around three three point five million.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Oh, y'all had to really cut corners and so nothing.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
And you know, it's it's interesting because originally Wes Bentley
was supposed to play the lead, and then Wes Bentley
kind of went off the rails, disappeared, and Heath Ledger
was huge, but like we had, Yeah, so we had
to convince them that that Heath Ledger could do this
(24:17):
because he didn't have a Southern accent, and we got
him this. I did like I had my own little
mixing a dialogue coach, and then I had to splice.
I had to play from cassette to cassette to make
something that would sound good to So it was a
lot of fun. It was very interesting. Getting to live
in New Orleans was fantastic job.
Speaker 6 (24:37):
Keep it light on the set because it was so heavy, like,
you know, a lot of love.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
A lot of care, a lot of taking care of people,
you know, mama, but but also you know Mark Fordster.
It is his second film, and he just is a
brilliant director, very loving and caring, you know, creating that
safe space, have the right people, like you know, when
(25:02):
you're doing certain scenes, you don't have everybody standing around,
you do last looks and then everybody's out and you
have to give them that privacy to go to some
really deep, emotional, vulnerable places. But nobody thought that that
film was going to do what it did, That halle
Berry would win the Academy Award, that it would go
(25:23):
on to make over thirty million dollars for a three
million dollar film. But what happened is Lee's like Miyon's Gate.
They made all the money. I'm not making any money.
I'm going to take Lee Daniels Entertainment that had been
a management company. Lee had represented Michael Shannon, Marina Baker,
and Wes Bentley. He represented all this great talent and
(25:46):
he said, let's start Lee Daniels Entertainment as a production company.
So the first film that we then did on our own,
which was very hip hop, was The Woodsman Kevin Bacon.
So that's when I then moved to phill Dai to
then make two films there. I'm a two one five.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
A day girl all day.
Speaker 5 (26:06):
Yeah, yeah, that Cuba Good and Junior Joint.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
That was my shadow box was Joint.
Speaker 5 (26:11):
That's the best I.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Ever I really liked, and most stuff you know He's
in that also and Dave all and Greer and Eve.
So that was the other thing we always wanted to
be mixed up, Yeah, the music and and making it
interesting with the casting. And with those films, we found
the scripts, we developed them, we found the internet, you know,
(26:32):
our investors, we did our pre sales, we did the production,
all the deals and then the you know post and
then bringing it to a festival and delivery. And in
the beginning it was Lee, a guy named Dave Robinson
who did international sales, and myself and you know, we
were doing material that other people were not all looking at.
(26:54):
And after Shadow Boxer with Helen Mirren and Joseph Gordon Levin,
Monique Cuba Gooding Jr. That's when Sapphire, who we had
been chasing for years, gave us the option to push.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
What took it so long that it was a struggle
to nail that deal down.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
She just was protective of who to give her work to.
I know she had been chased when the book first
came out by Madonna, who had wanted to tell it right.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
She directly called her and was like, all I know.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
Is that she wanted to option the material. Yeah, and
we showed a shadow Boxer and she said, Yo, you
guys are afraid to go there because she remember in
the film there's Helen Maren who was an assassin and
she carries off hits with her step son K Gooding Jr.
Who's also her lover.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
I read the script and I was blown away.
Speaker 6 (27:48):
So when I saw the vision when it got done,
I was like, Yo, it's really one of my favorite films.
I'm sorry I'm so hype about it, but it was
just a mind blower.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
In doing the Apollo Theater documentary.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Where is the Apollos their footage of I would have
thought they would have had more footage at least between
their early years in the forties and up until the
mid seventies. They never recorded or documented those shows at all.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
There's very few shows that were that were captured, and
I mean, I've become like a you know, a big
archival person. And luckily on that show, there was a
Jerry I forgot Jerry's name, who had worked with Percy
when Percy took over and did the remodeling, and Jerry
(28:36):
lives in Yonkers, and I went to his house and
we crawled through the basement and he had those beautiful
tapes of the renovation and the reveal because Percy tried
to have a multimedia center, so he had he started taping.
And that's also the onslite of you know, showtime at
the Apollo. But you know, I mean, I would have
(28:57):
loved to have seen when in the Motown review was there,
and so many of those incredible classic moments, but it
didn't exist. You know, and you know, I think the
thing about documenting Black stories is that oftentimes our archival
has been lost because we had to leave our homes
in the middle of the night and escape, or our
(29:17):
homes got burnt down, or you know, the flood came,
like you know.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Or we're just not sentimental. Well maybe that's a lot
I get.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Doctor willi Is literally blew up the Soul Trained stage
and everything the science because he didn't he didn't want
to pay for storage.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
So he was like get rid of it all.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
So they had to like crush it and like literally
his entire history.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
He didn't care.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Yeah, and the value of black cultural product and black
cultural archival is is really important to me because as
I tell these stories, as you tell the stories you're doing,
we want to bring people back to that moment. We
just don't want a bunch of contemporary people saying it
was like this.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
It was like that.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
No, we wanted to be immersive and we want you
to see and feel and get a sense of the
journey that we're on.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
We were talking outside before we started taping.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
You said this documentary, the Little Richard doc about two
years working on. What was the hardest part, Like what
was I guess the biggest kind of the bottleneck that
took the most time.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
Well, you know, we have this great partner, CNN Films,
and when you do a film from them, it's ninety
eight minutes, ninety seven and one hundred and one. Because
I kind of go like, well can it be one
hundred and one? No, So, you know, like when you
got to back into that time, there's things that have
to fall out For me. I wanted to talk a
(30:40):
little bit more in the film about the Shenanigans of
the music business, how it is that you can sign
someone and take everything and that they don't see. Yeah,
but as I like to say, I had to stay
on ninety five and not get off on exit five,
you know, because that would have taken us too long.
Our run time is.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
This because they for broadcast purposes, you had to fit.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
Yeah, that's their broadcast standard.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
I was under the impression, and I believe that he
said this, that Michael Jackson at V gave him his
rights back.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
So that's why John Branca is in the film. That's
why I interviewed him. Because John Branco, of course had
the relationship with Richard when Richard officiated at his marriage,
that Michael Jackson was and Bubbles were best men at
for John Branca. There are pictures.
Speaker 7 (31:38):
I just got.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Maritate that.
Speaker 5 (31:41):
Google.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Yes, it's the craziest picture.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Really.
Speaker 7 (31:49):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
And so Bronca, who you know, was Michael Jackson's attorney
and is still involved in the estate. I interviewed him
not only about that moment, but because when Richard protested
at ATV Music for his royalties, and then Michael Jackson
bought the catalog. So in his book and in his autobiography,
(32:10):
Richard goes, oh, yeah, Michael gave me money. But I
learned very early on making this film that a lot
of things that Richard said, you know, were not completely true.
So I was like, okay, John Marinca, you were there,
you were there all the time. Did Michael Jackson give
Little Richard money? And yes he did. I should have
asked him about sly Stone and Doris Day because maybe
(32:33):
he would have known about We could confirm, you know,
his h that Michael Jackson felt really bad, and he
did he gave him some bucks.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
In your opinion, like, what was your mission statement in
doing Little Richard's story, Because there's so much to uncover
as an artist as a human being, as a pop
culture figure, Like, what was your mission statement at like
before day one? I'm going to when people watch this,
(33:04):
they are going to blank.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
The thesis mission was little Richard's an icon? Why is
he an icon? Why is it that when he passed away,
this wide range of people from Bob Dylan to Harry
Allen to you know, Dave Grohl are talking to Bruce
(33:27):
Bingston talking about how important he is. He's so, why
is he an icon? Why does he matter? And if
he is the innovator, the architect, what did it take
to get there? Who is his fore mother, forefather? And
(33:48):
how does blackness and queerness factor into a conversation about
rock and roll?
Speaker 6 (33:54):
Oh my god, the black queer conversation that you start
very early on in the movie. That was the initial
thing that blew me away seeing black queer people, beautiful
black queer people of that time, because we don't see
black and white photos of like trans people and what
that meant. So after I saw the movie, I had
(34:15):
a physical reaction, Like, I had so much of a
reaction I had to like, I had to reach out
to Lisa. Did you expect for us to not only
be of course, empathetic and sympathetic, but also pissed.
Speaker 5 (34:26):
I was mad at times. Towards the end.
Speaker 6 (34:29):
I got mad seeing like Mick Jacker and you know,
the Paul McCartneys of it. I don't know, I got
mad because I was like, I got mad when Little
Richard said, you know, Elvis told me that it was
if it wasn't for me, there would be no him. Basically,
did you know that that was?
Speaker 4 (34:46):
I knew. I wanted it to be immersive, you know,
because you can't just do Little Richard at shut up.
You know, he's more than the one note comedic foil
that he had it become on these talk shows. He
is so deeply nuanced. And also he's this connector to
the Beatles, to the Rolling Stones, to Jimmy Hendricks, James Brown.
(35:07):
He brings him to making and that's where James cuts
his first hit. And when Little Richard blows up at
the same time and goes to Hollywood to be in
these you know, rock and roll movies, he has James
Brown got on the road as him because people didn't
know what Little Richard looked like. So he's like, oh,
you go out as me?
Speaker 5 (35:28):
You know.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
He was also he was so giving and has been
There's been a lot of erasure about his contributions. So yeah,
you gotta be you gotta feel moved by it. You
got to be mad, and you have to say, you
know what, we need to know our history and an
inclusive history, a history that many people are trying to
(35:51):
either negate or criminalize. And you know what, sorry, people,
this is America. There's documentation of drag balls in DC
in eighteen hundred. So don't come through now and say like, no,
this has always been here.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
What is your hope?
Speaker 3 (36:16):
Because I think this is probably the most compelling argument
that one can happen again.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
I know that there's a big.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Sort of divide between and really I'm not just saying
conservative people. I'm being real like with conservative blacks, like
would turn a blind eye to them or whatever. Like,
it's very interesting even in watching like Soul Train, a
place where literally like you know that you know the
(36:46):
LGBTQIA culture is, especially in the mid seventies and disco
period and all that stuff. There's an artist from DC,
a group named the Dynamic Superiors. They give one of
the greatest performances I've ever seen on a show. But
the lead singer is way beyond what we would call
like flamboyant whatever like, and Don's reaction to him is
(37:10):
it's it's clearly like I'm just going to act like
you're not.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
There, like yeah, he got it.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Yeah, it wasn't even it wasn't even like hostility, and
it wasn't it was I've never even seen indifference, like
most people will just be like ignoring, like okay, like
you're not there. But it's it's a level of conservatism
that I can't even describe that Don does to him,
Whereas like I'm clearly not going to acknowledge the what
(37:39):
I see here is what I feel I don't understand,
so let me just act like it's not there. But
I feel like this film could actually sort of open
that door, Like is that for you?
Speaker 4 (37:52):
Like yeah, I think people learning this history, learning that
you know the complexities of someone that most people really love,
little Richard, Like you know, you say little Richard like
oh tooty fruity lontail Sally, you people start shouting.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Literally, I didn't know about that. I don't know what,
but you do now. I have no doubt.
Speaker 4 (38:12):
And I went to Florida to screen it. I was like, God,
I don't want to go to Florida. We know it's
going on in.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Florida, an even as we'll go to America's.
Speaker 4 (38:25):
It was the best thing. First of all, there's like
all these older people who you know, they've got this
memory of the routines and they saw him and they
love this story and they embraced this story. They didn't go, oh,
I like this part, but I don't like the queer part.
And then I talked to the young people who were like, yeah,
they want to take African American, you know, ap history out.
(38:46):
And so what this film does, it's very corrective to
to a history that has not included the multitudes that
someone like a Richard contained.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Do you think that he I mean, we accepted all
of him. Do you think he accepted all of himself?
Speaker 4 (39:04):
I don't think so. I mean he's on such a
roller coaster.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
And that part where you really go into the eighties
version of him where we deny it, like that made
me inherently sad. Yeah, yeah, like nothing sadder than a
person that has to suffer as themselves or whatever. So
have you screened it for anyone with the two on
the far left digit of their birth year, like a.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Millennials gen z. What is their reaction to it?
Speaker 4 (39:32):
They actually are like, oh, this isn't some old fogy stuff.
They're all I think, I get a lot of where
can I get a mirrored suit? I have that great
fashion moment. But I think that you know, they like
the music and they're they're really captivated by how his
(39:53):
DNA went forth to artists like and how he paved away.
You don't have saucy Santana, you don't have next, you
don't have.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Right, yes a little.
Speaker 5 (40:05):
I was like, I wanted all of them in it.
Actually at the end, towards the end, you start talking about.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
That, did they not want to?
Speaker 4 (40:12):
I called the people I always do charts when I'm
directing films of you know, who's the family, who are
the friends, who's the artists, and in this case, who
are the incredible black and queer scholars who are not
the usual history of rock and roll. I was very
intentional in the academic voices who are narrating.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
I was really happy to see Sandre in it like she.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
I mean when she says, you know, it's not appropriation,
it's obliteration. I was like, Okay, everybody could go okay,
you know what it's about, and like it tore him asunder.
And I love that in this film we have that
level of commentary because that's who we are. You know,
(41:05):
we can we can be talking about we can deconstructuty
fruity and you know Richard on the as Princess Levone
as a drag queen. But we can also talk about
a harm to our community because those are all apart.
You know, if someone said to me, they'll take our rhythm,
but they won't take.
Speaker 6 (41:26):
Right.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
And so to know little Richard, you know, you need
to know the joy, but you also need to know
the intense pain of him feeling invisible, feeling that all
of his contributions and all these people he helped out
are not there. Like when he's at the Otis Redding,
he goes, I still sing, you can record with me,
you know, call me. And and that is the part
(41:51):
of the complexity of his journey that is more than
oh I'm the bronze lie Barachi.
Speaker 5 (41:58):
You made us get to know him a little more.
Speaker 6 (41:59):
And I actually also kind of answered the conflict with it,
I think all of us, because it was like, was
he wasn't he?
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Now?
Speaker 6 (42:06):
I understand even his own personal conflict and why I
felt that way because he was unsure.
Speaker 5 (42:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wish you would have known that.
We would have loved him regardless, but thank you all.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
I definitely feel like it will help people now you
really it's a beautiful film, like we we've.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Super enjoyed it.
Speaker 6 (42:23):
The black dust, that's what I wanted to ask about.
I'm sorry, what was the black dust in your mind
throughout the movie?
Speaker 4 (42:29):
It's beautiful black dust sis energy. I believe he is elemental.
He came from another planet. He's a super nova, and
he arrived and unleashed this energy that we established in
the beginning of the film, and it continues and it
grows in specific places of innovation, of expansion, of creation
(42:54):
and how the energy is him And that was a
great motif, you know, working with the editors, because I
was like, how do we do it? How do we
show this?
Speaker 7 (43:04):
You know?
Speaker 1 (43:05):
And sequences to the music, Yeah, how did you choose them?
Speaker 7 (43:12):
The reinterpreters of the song.
Speaker 4 (43:14):
So when I pitched this film, I always said I
wanted to have dreamscapes. I love magic realism, and I
wanted to have contemporary artists who are part of his legacy.
You know, when I spoke to Valerie June, who does
the Sister Rosetta tharp uh scene, I said sister and
she said Rosetta. I mean, she just like completed good
(43:37):
and she understood why Sister Rosetta is important to this.
Corey Henry I adore, and Corey started in the church.
Then he goes and you know he does gospel, hip hop,
jazz pop, and I just thought musically he could bring
so much. He's such a he's so fantastic and Pastor
(43:59):
Key that that is not a little Richard song. But
I'm a big fan of John p Key and that's
one of my favorite songs standing in Need of Prayer,
and I thought it really spoke to how low Richard
is when he has lost every everything and like the
only thing he has is God.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Was there convincing him to do it? No? Oh really? Okay.
Speaker 4 (44:24):
We've been talking for years about a project I want
to do with him, Okay, And when I called and
I told him what was about, he said yes, and
he knew Richard and he was really helpful for us
by even finding the church, et cetera. So you know,
all of those artists are part of this desire to
(44:45):
make this immersive, and to be also in scenes that
are part of portal's opening portals of possibility for Richard
being seen by a sister Rosetta creating Tooty Fruity, and
even the portal of I've lost everything and I'm now
going back to the church. There, they're big emotional shifts
(45:06):
for him.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
I hate to admit this, Fonte, but my actual introduction
to John p Key.
Speaker 9 (45:14):
Crash John Peakey, Oh wow, Well you know what, at
least as we wrap up, I'm actually sitting here like
in some sort of Paltrow esque sliding doors.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
I'm expansive.
Speaker 7 (45:35):
You are the expansive ist.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
Just a forty eight hour decision changed the entire course
of my life, of which I am extremely happy of
my journey, especially in light of Okay, so.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Yeah, I would have got seventeen albums on Death Jam Doug.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Right, But even if that, I'm like, Okay, there is
a tortist in the Hair journey. And was it better
for me on my second album to sell seventeen million copies?
And now you know twenty twenty three, I'm going to
jail for Sbiona wow right, or to be on this path.
But now I'm like, damn, if I just signed in Mercury,
(46:17):
I think I would have had an amazing ass relationship
with Lisa Kurtez.
Speaker 5 (46:22):
Like it's never too late.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
I never had regrets, but I'm now trying to figure
out what would have happened in my life if we
just went through it and we had Lisa at the.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
Top of the pyramid. Could have been on Brian McKnight albums.
Yeah you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (46:38):
You would have met ralph raphaelsa earlier.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Wow right? Oh oh yeah, do you have a Latin
quarter story?
Speaker 4 (46:46):
I survived a story?
Speaker 5 (46:49):
Oh so she I mean she had to she had
to go.
Speaker 4 (46:52):
No, I've had many hit the ground, hit the ground.
Speaker 5 (46:55):
Before we rap. I just want to say Lisa, because
I said to Lisa after I watched this movie. Okay,
so Lisa, this was amazing. I don't know what you're
going to do next.
Speaker 6 (47:01):
Can you just tell the folks the two projects that
you got cooking that's going to be blowing their minds
away too.
Speaker 4 (47:06):
So premiering at Rebecca, I have something called The Space Race.
It is the story of Ed Dwight, who almost became
an astronaut. Black man. But and it focuses on the shuttlemen,
the Black astronauts who in nineteen eighty three, Guy Blueford,
Fred Gregory, Ron McNee, you go to space. But it's
(47:28):
really about this community because it's also Victor Glover and
Leland Melvin. It's about afrofuturism and black astronauts and moving
things forward. So that's the space you're doing this. Yep,
it's all done.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
I've got to get thunder Cat to do the score.
Speaker 4 (47:47):
Tomp is on it, so it's a good Next one
is The Empire of Ebony. It's a three part series
on Eunice Johnson and I know somebody here as a
collection of these maxaines.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
I do I do? You know?
Speaker 3 (48:07):
At one point I was part of the board, so
you know the moment. So they're doing the food version
of the moment. And at one point we owned the
Ebony Kitchen. We had to dismantle the board and you know,
raise more money, so we had to sell our Ebony Kitchen.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
But literally they move it to me from the building when.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
We dismantled it, and very meticulous and we moved it
to New York and set it up back in its
original seventies sixties.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
Sort of like but yeah, man, I was, Yeah, it's
you know, how do you build a media empire where
in a space that did not exist? And how can
you be a race man and a capitalists doing this?
And then finally I'm eating a rate film coming out.
The milk goes on forever, the art of David Hammond's
(49:05):
and I produced The Invisible Beauty, which is the story
of Beth and the model music activists.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
All right, so closing, can you give us a tale
from the Latin Quarter?
Speaker 7 (49:29):
The fucking Timbola ships so good every time.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
Well, it's like Mexican Colombia.
Speaker 7 (49:34):
Every there's some Kombea in it. I'm just saying.
Speaker 4 (49:37):
Anyway, moving, I remember going and having to hide in
the bathroom and and that's all I'll say.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
I take the shift, ladies and gentlemen. That was tilt.
Speaker 5 (49:52):
I can't stop doing it.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I apologize.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
And it took three decades for our BFF courtship to start,
but no time like the president.
Speaker 4 (50:11):
Well, and congratulations to you, thank you. I feel like
every Academy Awards we need to go back and give
you guys your award again properly. But the art, the
work is there. So many people talk about the glorious
summer soul. But thank you and you know, like and
(50:33):
all the projects you. I want to come and interview
and to hear you talk about all your films that
you're doing like you're doing the.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Risk of talk about myself all the time.
Speaker 5 (50:41):
Yes, we don't.
Speaker 7 (50:44):
On the next Quest Love Supreme, Quest.
Speaker 5 (50:46):
Love, we don't do that. We are going to do that.
Speaker 4 (50:50):
Oh no, thank you everything.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
And Sugar Steve and I'm Big Bill and the Great
Polsa Cortez Quest Love Out cousin Jake and Brittany and
also thank you again live live at cd M Studios
in Manhattan.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
Thank you very much for listening us. Count that money
out that money, count that money.
Speaker 7 (51:15):
That's what, that's that's around.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Laiya St. Clair
Questlove
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