Today on The Breakfast Club, Mara Brock Akil Talks 'The Revelation of Dionne Daphne,' 'Forever' S2' Protecting Your Energy, Healing From Trauma, Parenthood. Listen For More!
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Every day a week ago, clicks up the Breakfast Club.
You don't finish for y'all done morning.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Everybody is DJ Envy just hilarious. Charlamagne the guy we
are the Breakfast Club. Laura Roast is here as well.
We got a special guest in.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
The building, the legendary that's right, Marra Broca Kill.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Oh I love being here with you guys. Thanks for
having me back. How you feeling amazing?
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Feeling amazing?
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I'm feeling amazing. I have another story out in the
world in a new way.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
The revelation of Dion Daphney.
Speaker 5 (00:30):
Yeah, I get to the book allowed me to have
a bigger canvas, to go deeper, to go take up
more territory, to paint portraits. You know, That's what I've
been doing my whole career, and just to you know,
to have it this way. I'm really excited and and
I've been on this is them. I'm sort of wrapping up.
(00:50):
I have one more stop on my book tour. I'm
headed home today. In fact, I'm in the middle of
production of season two Forever.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
They shout out.
Speaker 5 (01:00):
Shout out to the team, the collaborators. They have been
holding it down so that I can prioritize this amazing
moment in my life, a debut novel, you know. And
but yeah, so I have this, you know, I've been
telling making portraits in that medium, and this is my
first portrait on the page. And I'm thrilled, I mean
(01:21):
literally just waiting to come in here. I'm seeing the
book out in the world, people posting about it. Read
it in twenty four hours. It's a page turner, this
is a plane read. It is the summer read, it's
the summer discussion. A lot to talk about. So the
reception I'm enjoying receiving all of I think the love
(01:41):
that I poured into the pen onto the page is
coming back to me.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
So I'm amazing.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Inspiration, Like you don't never get tied? How does it
come to you? Because you know, people have writer's block,
they can't think about things, but it seems like you
never have it, as I feel like you always get inspired.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
I'm tapped in.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
I'm really clear on my life.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
I really believe in people, place and purpose, and I've
locked in.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
I've locked in and so in.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
Fact, one of my challenges is that I have so
many stories I want to tell and I'm trying to
figure out with the pace of life and how do
I do it all? And also the challenges of business.
Sometimes you're writing something, but am I writing something that
I'm going to be.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Able to get into the marketplace? So there's two things.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
And I'm still in the business of storytelling, so I
have to think strategically about where do I go next,
how much time it takes me to get the story
out and a book. I really wasn't thinking about it
at the time that I and started engaging with the book.
In fact, it was my body of work that shout
(02:49):
out to Chelsea John's my editor who reached out to
me during COVID and said, Hey, I'm such a fan
of the work you do, such complex city with black characters,
human characters, specifically women. Would you consider writing a book.
I think your voice would translate beautifully to the page.
(03:10):
And I think sometimes you just need somebody to want you,
somebody who's like, I don't have to I don't have
to spend my energy on the proving of my searching.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Yeah, yeah, I don't have time for that.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
I gotta So that was that was lovely to experience
and so okay, so this is what I want to do.
In fact, this story I have I wanted. I thought
about the story right after I got staffed on Moesha
back in ninety five. This Yeah, it's Lizzy, but I
(03:42):
put it on the shelf and you can see the
subjects in some of my other I've touched on it
a little bit, but it wasn't enough room to talk
about what I really want.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
To talk about. And the book's alignment was that.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
And I also think, going back to your question about
the stories, I found a new outlet to get these
stories that are literally being in me. It's almost like
I getting this. I feel like I've birthed a baby.
Now I got another, Like I've got more babies in
there that I've got to incubate and get out in
the world.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
And so I do have.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
A lot of stories in me, and I'm just looking
for I feel like, you know, running out of time. Yeah,
I'm writing like I'm running out of time because we
are We're not promised, we're not promised.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
But we made it here. So what are we doing
with our life? What are we? What are we doing?
Speaker 5 (04:32):
And I'm excited about telling the story because I think
even for me, I'm the when you heal, when you
actually when you talk a lot about this, when you heal,
you create more capacity for who.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
You really are. And I think, why are we here?
Speaker 5 (04:50):
And I think that's when we get in harmony with
alignment and with ourselves and with each other, and we
need a new frequency. You guys, I just shout out
in New York. First of all, you know, I'm by coastal,
so I'm partially you know. But I was here for
Game one, And first of all, I brought the weather
that day because it was not supposed to be cute
(05:12):
on Tuesday and Wednesday, but I came in on Tuesday,
so it became very cute.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
And just I wanted to I remember, I want to
be there for game one and was it.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
I didn't go physically, I just was. I ended up
at I was. I ended up in Brooklyn with all
these beautiful black people watching the game again, and then
to go back to LA and watch you guys be
outside that heartbeat. That frequency is what we need, and
I feel like it's removing in that direction. And I
(05:41):
feel I hope that the book how I'm entering the
chat about releasing and not getting, not running, not dealing
with it later, not pushing it to the side.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I mean, face your stuff, deal with.
Speaker 5 (05:55):
It and let it go, and then be curious about yourself.
Where where your energy now can go? Because we spend
so much energy, like Dion. I know we're going to
get and talk about the book, but like Dion, who
looks like she's got it all together, spending all her
energy managing the lids that she's trying to keep on
(06:17):
her life.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Well, let's talk about the book.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
A little bit. The setting is nineteen nineties New Yes.
The plot beauty editor Dion. Her life gets turned upside down.
Her X rides with life threatening news because he has
a potential HIV diagnosed.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Yes, so she goes.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
On a road trip to confront a childhood secret she's
buried for decades.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yes, Well, she just she's that is exactly she's.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
We're meeting her like a lot of us, dealing with
the hits on her life, her recent hit.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
She's really doing really well.
Speaker 5 (06:46):
She's up for job promotion at essence, you know, she's
the it was the mecha of where you wanted to
work if you were a black girl and want to
be in publishing, magazine publishing. And she's just getting over
a guy who five years of her life and she
wanted to thought she was going to get married. And
so when that knock on the door, you don't ever
(07:08):
think back in the nineties, we did not think that
disease was even about us until it really took a
lot of us down because for a minute, you know,
in the late eighties it was still a gay, white
man's disease, but that disease was taking a lot of
us out. More specifically, our neighborhoods, our communities are womeneres.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yes, wait a minute, Wait a minute.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
And so if you think it was just so she
was living her best life, this knock comes on the door.
And in back then when we had to take the
HIV test, it was a two week wait. Could you
imagine waiting on you first, your your heart is beating,
(07:57):
You think, I may this could be my life be
over with this result. Well, that level of pause and
reflection is what Dion goes through, and she has to
because the homework you have to do during the test
is to write down all your sexual partners. And when
you make a list like that, you have to be
(08:18):
also you're confronting yourself and the choices that you have
made things that you've been complicit in and maybe those
that you haven't. And that's a lot to face. And
how did I get here? I'm cute and trying to
put this. You know, she's a beauty editor, so she's
just trying to tell you what the cutest makeup is
(08:39):
and not and just running away from all these things
that you think just because I moved away from home
and got some money in my pocket.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah, it's so crazy.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
You know, you're talking about something that happened that was
big in the eighties and nineties and I just wanted
to google. But it's still affecting so many people now.
They're saying, like Atlanta has one of the highest rates
in the country, which is just very scary for people
out there now because I just remember how me growing
up in New York, and I know it might be
different for everybody, but I felt like it hit New
York so heavy. Right in the late eighties, it was big,
(09:12):
and like you said, it was a men's it was
a gay, white men's disease. In the eighties the nineties,
it was a crack disease, right, disease, people shooting themselves up,
sharing needles, and just remember seeing it and people affected
by it.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
So I just remember how it was and the.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Fact that it's still we still don't have a cure.
We can kind of well, I don't even know we
have a cure because it's more manageable, more manageable, but
it's not in well system anymore.
Speaker 5 (09:36):
Well, it's interesting they're talking about PREP. They're taking PREP,
and so then people our behavior around sexual our sexual health.
People are not wearing the condom anymore, so that if
I get it, then it's okay because I have PREP.
But why do we want to use our energy that way?
Why do we want to use our resources that way?
Why do we want to And I think that's what
(09:57):
I'd like us to because I just want us to
consider how we are using our energy and collectively as
people in general under oppressive regimes, because that's like what's happening.
But we've been managing generation by generation. But I think
(10:17):
we're at a beautiful just watching you and we watch
your daughter dance, what you and your wife and your
family have able to do for her and the protection
of her, We're at a very critical, beautiful place of
protecting our future by really dealing with dealing with the
stuff we don't want to deal with.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Now we might as well.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
There's so much happening in the world, why not clean
out our closets? Just going and clean out our closets
right now? To me like Dion, because sometimes life is
just going to take the rug from underneath you. And
so when we meet Dion, the rug is taking up
from underneath her and she's got to go back and
face this idea of herself and how did I get here?
(11:03):
And I'm really hopeful that she will be sort of
a champion character for encouragement to go on and bear
your shame.
Speaker 6 (11:15):
Can we talk a little bit about compartmentalizing, because I
feel like Dion does a really good job, and girls
like Dion who are like I have the career and
I'm successful. You can compartmentalize a lot of things that
trauma or whatever that get you to that point. When
does Dion, or even for you personally, when do you
realize that compartmentalizing doesn't help you even though you're successful
(11:36):
in real life?
Speaker 1 (11:37):
That's such yes, really great question. One.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
I think two things can be true, and we are
learning how to do that better and better, especially even
with the onset of social media, we know how to
present many different avatars of ourselves by hiding a lot
times that origin story. And sometimes the origin story is
the fuel to get you to a certain place because
(12:06):
you're trying to prove to yourself I'm not the thing
that happened to me, or or or the choices I made.
I can wash myself clean with what we deem success. Right,
So it's easy to distract ourselves about success.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
You know about success?
Speaker 5 (12:23):
I mean, think about how much time we make content
for the ground versus actually living the life.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
You know what I'm saying, Yes.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
But your life is still over here.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
So we're carrying two things at once. And that is
in of itself compartment compartmentalization.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
So we have a skill.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
And it's not to say that that's a bad thing
all the time, you know it's but but that is
what we're doing. I am saying that is energy. And
you were saying what what for Dion or for me?
When you say it's just too much? When you are
when we are taking energy from our bodies and we
don't feel good, we don't look good, we're starting to
(13:02):
get sick. You're it's going to show up in your
body because you still are carrying it, whether you want
to pretend it's there or not, or you know it's
there and you want to ignore it, or you know what,
Let me drink this drink real quick to put it
to put it back to sleep. And every time you
drink that drink, you are adding more.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
This is an energy gain people. You I'm saying, like,
how what you eat, what you drink, who you hang with.
So imagine if you're constantly holding on to the trauma
that you never dealt with, that you even lie to
your therapist like you know, but you're.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
Pretending I go to church, I'm dealing with it, but
you're not really dealing with it. And I think it's
when it shows up in the body for me when
and I was just like, okay, why where's my energy?
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Why why is it hard?
Speaker 5 (13:58):
And it's not just age, not we And I think
that's another thing that I think is a part of
a capitalist thing that oh it's your age. No, No,
if you take care of yourself, your body will take
care of you.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
But how and we can talk.
Speaker 5 (14:11):
We're talking about a lot of the external things, like
there's a lot of growth and a lot of investment
in like the wellness spas great, but what are we
doing on the inside? And that is a messy job.
And Dion has a messy, messy, messy two weeks and
she and she literally puts it. She stepped by step. Funny,
(14:34):
that's been my walkout music, step by step. But anyway,
bring Whitney to the party.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
And I think that's what we do.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
Stop running from the storms, turn around, face the storms,
go through it. Have you guys ever been in the
storm like it's and then you get on the other side.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
I was in Florida once.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
I thought I was going to die inside this storm,
and I didn't even know what to do anymore.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
But it I couldn't go back, I couldn't go forward.
I was just going slow, so slow. And then I'm literally.
Speaker 5 (15:02):
Praying, white knuckling the steering wheel, just praying to God,
like I don't even know what to do. And then
suddenly I was on the other side and it was
like paradise.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
It was like it was almost like what happened? Did
I go through a portal? And that is true.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
We will go through a portal And then for me,
me going through my own portal, my lemons are now
technically my lemonade. Sure, you know it's technically the lemonade.
And I think what I think I'm really gifted at
is talking about now talking about the truth through fiction
(15:41):
so that sometimes there's just a little bit of a
distance from it, so that we can just there is
a bit of an entertainment, you know, to the storytelling
is entertainment.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Let me hold your attention to give you a fable
can Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
How does it affect your mental right? Cause you're talking
about trauma, sexual abused, generational pain healing, So how does
it affect you when you do it? Because you have
to open up some of your wounds.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yes, absolutely, it is funny. And then how we get vaccines? You?
Speaker 5 (16:12):
Yes, so you got to open it up. And I
think it's okay.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
You know. Uh.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
Even in fact, when I was writing this book, though,
there's like this last little the last like real effort
to know is this really a book? Because I literally guys,
I was like, if if this ain't good, I'm just
gonna give them their check back because I'm not gonna
do it, come out with a book and be like, oh,
just fail. I had to know that I loved it,
(16:40):
and in that last push, I was here in New York.
I love to write here in New York, and I
have a whole writing ritual. And the last last week,
I literally fasted so that I can stay completely focused,
called on God, called on my Angel. I just sort
(17:01):
of wrapped myself in this cocoon of creativity expectation for
God to show up in the creative process. And and
so what happens is when you do have to open
it up, but it's it's almost like you're baptizing your
wounds and that. And it was the fasting, I mean
it was I don't know if you've ever fasted, especially
(17:23):
for like Ramadan. You you it's all of that toxicity
comes up, but then it free then it just leaves
your body. It's like a birthing of it, excuse me,
just sort of letting it out. You can almost physically
feel it come off of your body. So that that
was my That's what happened for me. So it's also
a sign that this is this can go out into
(17:45):
the world. And and so that has been empowering. And
I do believe I loved it, just like when when
I wept in Forever the Last I loved it that
I can rock with that I know how to I
know how to fight for, protect, provide, promote, defend that
(18:08):
body of work and so.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
And I think and that was that. That was the last.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
You know, I think I'm a great writer because I
was afraid to talk, like.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I really envy people get y'all are here every day
just flowing, trusting your voice.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
Is it because you were a journalist prior to soul No, I.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
Became a journalist because I learned how my voice got
trapped in order to survive certain things.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
You silence is how you move for a second.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Right, because this book does deal with secrets, and you
think secrets protect us are to your point.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
In prison us? Oh absolutely, imprison us.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
But sometimes when you're you know, certain situations, you can't
say anything at that point because then you likely can
be harmed further than you're already being harmed. So I
silence was my protector until it becomes your oppressor when
you don't even know how to use your voice. So
(19:07):
going back to writing, I think that voice was in me.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
But I found it through the pen.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
Whereas in writing, which is why I think I'm a
pretty pretty good writer, is I rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite,
re write, rewrite, judge it before I'm happy with it.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
When you.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
Off the cuff, your intuition, your feeling of the moment.
I never trusted that. And that's when it started to
feel like my oppressor, that I have things to say
and I'm not even like I've been on I've been
on your show, and I thank you for always having me.
But I feel better and better each time because the nervousness.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Of being.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
If I say the wrong thing and back when you know,
you know, okay, If I say the wrong I don't
know where I'm going to be.
Speaker 6 (20:00):
And I.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Almost broke into tears watching you watch your daughter.
Speaker 5 (20:07):
I was her age when things were happening to me
instead of my father somewhere providing for my ability to
express myself as beautifully and artistically. The amount of time
and effort you and your wife and your family have
put into that child, and you have more than one child,
(20:28):
that child, and see the greatness in her at nine
years old, because she is loved and provided and protected.
Imagine if we were all that way. Yeah, And so
when I look at.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
That, I'm like, I didn't have that. I didn't have that.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
Do you still long for it sometimes?
Speaker 6 (20:47):
Like that feeling of protection?
Speaker 5 (20:49):
Well, this is what I wanted. One of the revelations
I had in writing this book. But I love I
loved all the storylines, but one of the storylines is
the friendship storyline between Dion and Farah.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
And what that storyline?
Speaker 5 (21:03):
Every time I do something, I do expect something back,
but I don't never know when the revelation of it
hits me. But I had to edit the copy editing
of a book. I see you with your book, Jess,
congratulations girl, But that copy editing part is arduous.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I just want to pull my hair out. And I
was being.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
Kind of fussy in a bad energy space, and I said,
let me get my let me get my situation together,
let me this is the blessing.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Let me reread.
Speaker 5 (21:28):
And the chapter that I reread was when Parah and
towards the end of the book, where the arc of
that friendship is there. And what I realized so much
about the fringe, what really girlfriends are? Why girlfriends resonates
to this day is I now understand the power deeper
girlfriends or friends, guy friends, we represent surrogate parents and
(21:55):
they will hold us until we are strong enough so
that can repairent ourselves. That's why I wanted to get
to It's about reparenting ourselves. So when you ask me
about the longing, I need to long because when I do,
I then go do something for Mara. I've then become
the father that didn't I become the mother that couldn't
(22:19):
whatever for myself.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
And then what that does is I can look.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
At my parents and I can put them in the
context of their history, of their life and of the world,
and I can then have empathy and compassion for them.
And they've stopped becoming mom and dad and they become
their names, and I get to know them and I
get to love them, and then I get to know
better my name, and then I know better my purpose
(22:45):
and I understand, No, I don't that the things that
have happened to me were supposed to happen to me, because.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
I am in my light right now.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
I'm my best when I'm a storyteller, and so I'm
here and even my guilt sometimes about parenting my career.
I don't always get to tuck my kids in, and
I don't get to make the right snacks, and I
don't always get to carpool my kids, so again a blessing.
But then I told them who I am as opposed
(23:18):
to the kind of mother. I think I'm supposed to be.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
One of the greatest gifts you can give your kids. Yes,
when you have a conversation with your parent and realize
that person had a life for they were your parents.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Yes, Oh it's so free.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
And then and knowing that your kids love you just
as much as you love them, and they make But
there is.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
This when you free yourself of guilt.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
I have all this energy back to think of more
creative ways that I can be uniquely their mother, not
the way the picture says I'm supposed to do it,
or the way Jess does it, or the way that
you know what I'm saying, or the way.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
That Envy's wife does it. I don't have to be
like her. I can be like me. And because these
kids chose us.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
And they came to get something from us, But I
want to ask what are we giving them?
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Are we giving our children.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
The best of who we are or do they are
still managing our unhealed pain.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
I think it depends where you are as a parent,
right because you know when you're a parent and you
come up shortened parent, Yes, like you can see it
and you can see when you do something that impacts
your child in a negative way. Are you willing to apologize?
Speaker 4 (24:27):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I do that me too, you know, and.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
The conversation that can open up between you and a
seven year.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Old, yes, are life changing.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
My daughter's seven, right. Yeah, So it's just like just
apologizing and having that you just feel like you're talking
to a thirty something.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
Yes, they have such wisdom, that's right, and dook, It's
just that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
That's what I want to protect.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
And you talk a lot about healing, and I think
you know the impact on your life.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Look at word, I mean listen. I mean just recently
where you guys have achieved together?
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Hm, I mean, come on, generational wealth, there's this we've got.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
We can unload this.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
And have moments of parenting like that where we have
really created more of a garden box for our children
to grow and not just you know, and you can
you know, use honesty and authenticity as the fertilizer for
that and that then that to me is like saying, hey,
(25:32):
what I what I'm trying to tell you is true.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
The way I said it was a little fucked up.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
Oh sorry, And and but what I'm trying to tell you,
I'm telling you this is how I think. I'm I
think you might need this for your protection or for
your this, or for your that.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Like even I tell my sons all the time, you
have to understand.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
Every thought I have is for the I want for
you to be great and what it then create?
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Okay, but mom, I have an idea. Okay, Well, then
tell me.
Speaker 5 (26:04):
Communicate, just tell me it because I'm gonna overthink it
to death.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Oh God, yeah, was mom? That's what you do?
Speaker 5 (26:10):
And then I'm nagging you. Yeah, I don't mean to
This is my love. This is love, and I'm frustrated
you won't listen to me.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
But oh, you have an idea? Okay, Well what's your idea?
Speaker 4 (26:22):
And how old?
Speaker 7 (26:23):
How old was your kid before they came to you
and told you that though? Because I feel like with
my son, he's fourteen right, and when he was younger.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
I wasn't healed. I was unhealed. I was operating out
of toxicity. I was dysfunctional.
Speaker 7 (26:40):
But now I have my one year old, she's on
a way to be in two, and I feel like
I'm a total different mom. Well, I am a total
different mom than I was back then. This was fourteen, thirteen,
twelve years ago, you know what I mean. And I
have that parental guilt because I wasn't this mom for
my son at this age.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Have you ever talked to him about.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
I have after writing my book.
Speaker 7 (27:01):
See, my book is a cool parenting mask where I've
reflect on all the things and.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
See, that's what I love about writing.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
If the writing's gonna make you pause, you've got to You've.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Got to figure some things out.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
And in that thing, let's say you never listener and
you never publish a book, you never literally even put
it out. But that process is the reflection and the
healing that you even already had. Your son, you're saying,
at fourteen has already received an apology or a understanding
of how hey, I wasn't her, But you still have him.
(27:36):
First of all, that's gonna feel good, whether he understands
it in the moment or not. The seed is already there,
and he also is. He loves you the most. His
eyes are on you all.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
So he already sees your change.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
But now you're almost saying to him. I'm sorry I
couldn't be that for you, but I'm here now, so
fourteen on boo boo, it's me you're here. That is
empowering and I feel like that that I think that
is just as healing. And you have him in your
under your roof for another at least four years for sure,
you know, just putting it out there, but they're gonna,
(28:16):
they're gonna eventually, You're right. Different times, I think of
our housing situation is gonna change because of the nature
of the future and jobs. But to your point, but
there's gonna be a day he's gonna want his own
because he wants to. He needs to know, because he's
so loved by you and the whole family that he
wants to flex and show he wants you. He wants
(28:39):
to experience the highest version of himself. And that's what
healing does all around. And I think that I think
that on the guilt part, I still think that I
would say, you have to pause and repair on yourself
in every moment that that comes up and ask yourself,
am I doing my best?
Speaker 1 (28:59):
And if you're not, what can you do in the moment?
Speaker 5 (29:01):
Like I'm still like I have my assistant helping me
about feeding them, like that's one of the biggest ones.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
I don't cook.
Speaker 5 (29:09):
I'm never in even home hault all the time, but
even like trying to just not even have them think
about cooking. At least I'm the one who thought about
what a postmate. And I'm trying to be better about
that because they can do it themselves, but I'm trying
to do like, no, it's still my, It's still under
(29:30):
my jurisdiction and responsibility for you to eat.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
And this is what I like for you to eat.
And here it is true.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Is writing this more vulnerable and writing television because there's
no way to hide like you know nothing.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
You well to your point what's going to hold a reader?
And so I think a deeper truth is what holds
a reader in television, though I think I do, really
I dig deep. Can I can mix it with other
storytelling ads like music, the cinematography, the tone, the vibe,
(30:14):
the interiors, the exteriors.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
The clothing, the setting. I'm holding you with all of.
Speaker 5 (30:20):
That information, whereas with the reader you have to imagine
the world. You're building the world with me. When I
say the color green, I'm assuming the four of you
have four different shades. When I say you know she cried,
you guys have four different ways that she cried. And
(30:42):
we get to build the world together. And that's what
makes it so intimate.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Did I did?
Speaker 5 (30:47):
I give you enough for you to feel and stay
connected to me as I tell you the story?
Speaker 4 (30:54):
What's easier writing and filmmaking?
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Neither I don't want, I don't, I don't. They're both
joyful for me.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
And joyful does include some hard, some challenging nights, yeah,
I And it also includes some my mom loves this word,
some horibulations I have. You're almost herripulations are almost like
like like no, it's all It's like it's like enthusiasm
on on a thousand you know what I'm saying, he says,
(31:29):
goosebumps and just like and you and that those moments, guys,
when I'm having horribulations, you.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Know, gods in the room.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
You know it's not really coming. You're not thinking, so
something's coming through you.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
You're being fed, and.
Speaker 5 (31:45):
So you're just like, ah, let me just try, okay,
hold on, hold on and you and you can.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
It's like riding.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
That's why I know now I understand surfers sometimes you know,
living on the West Coast, you drive, you know, pH
You're like, they're just.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Sitting in the water, They're not doing anything.
Speaker 5 (32:00):
But when you catch a wave on writing, you will
sit in that water. And sometimes you only ride a
little wave, a little wave, but when you want to
catch those big ones. And that's what I've been doing
my whole career. I've been catching the big ones and
that's where the horripulations are. But a lot of days
you were just sitting in the water. But that's a
part of it too. You got to be in the
(32:21):
water to catch the wave. You got to sit in
the chair and expect and work with it and try
to ride the dragon of trying to figure out how
to tell you a story that keeps your attention long
enough for us to have maybe deeper conversations and about healing.
Who sometimes you see the talk about healing, nobody wants
to talk about it. But when you get in somebody's business,
(32:43):
because this book, you all up in Dion's business and
you get to walk with her as her life gets
pulled from underneath her and her pilled herself right back up.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
And I feel like those triumphs are worth.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
The the hard parts. I'm trying not to use the
word hard. I think that's what you see me stuttering.
It's around this. It's not hard when you choose it.
It's a commitment and to that commitment. There are so
many joys in it, and there are so many days
that are challenging, challenging.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
It's like the gym.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
Yeah, it's like the gym.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Yeah, how long did you have to sit in the
water for forever? Season two?
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (33:28):
Well, it was interesting because at the while we were filmed.
Right toward the end of filming season one, I knew
what season two was. However, Netflix and I had a
conversation about uh, because and it was designed this way.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Justin and Keisha were are our COVID babies.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
They're they're they're the part of the generation who's some
of the biggest rights of passage timing, and.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Their life is affected because COVID.
Speaker 5 (34:03):
But a lot of statistics and a lot of algorithms
and a lot of data saying that audiences will tune
out if people have masks on their face. They just
cannot deal with that, And so they were just we
just had a real conversation and back and forth about
whether or not.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
You know, we'll do the COVID years, and but I
already knew what it was.
Speaker 5 (34:29):
I knew what that season was, and I knew that
that was going to be a challenge. And I had
all these ideas about what I wanted to do, but
I prayed on it and I said, Okay, let's take
the leap. And so when you asked me, how long
I sit in the water with that? This is where
collaboration and team work. The first person I said to Netflix,
I said, where is Erica Harrison Gez, executive producer on
(34:51):
the Film's on the film?
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Excuse me?
Speaker 5 (34:53):
It feels like a film that we write it an
eight hour film. But Erica is my right hand in
the writer's room. And we sat down. We love the show,
It's in our DNA. We sat down for three days
and we pitched the We understood, we understood the vision
(35:13):
of where we were going. We went in and pitched
it to our partners at Netflix. They were lovely. They
heard it, they got it, they understood it, and we
then hired an amazing writing staff from there, brought back
as many of our players, our other collaborators you know,
in production that we could That's one of the challenges
(35:34):
about not keeping production going. You could lose some of
the people that you do it with, but it then
makes space for new people. And so that's where we
are now.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
We are.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
Moe Marble is directing this block right now in Los
Angeles and he's incredible to work with.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
We're midway through production, so.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
You're skipping COVID, you're skipping the COVID years.
Speaker 5 (35:57):
But we're not skipping. So what was challenging and what
was fun? This is what it's the kind of the
work you do for a book. What is the backstory
to a moment? So what we had to do is
we had to build their backstory in COVID to understand
how we drop you into the summer of twenty twenty three,
got and so, but so we had to know all
of what happened, and so we have to build that.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
And that's what you do to do a book.
Speaker 5 (36:20):
Only I get to put it on the page, whereas
in the show, we had to build it so that
writers understood where the characters were when we were talking
about and how we reveal what happened during COVID too.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
So that's it's a fun it's a fun way to write.
Speaker 5 (36:36):
Now I realized, oh, just playing around with my writing
style in two different forms, constantly revealing the.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
COVID years were difficult years, shudo, because you know, I
have six kids. So O, my daughter, who she graduated
high school COVID years, started her freshman year in college
and she lost both of those because high school she
had to close out and one another yes. And then
her first year in college she had the do line.
(37:03):
So now her second year where they move off campus,
she doesn't have any friends because the first year.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Was just she didn't have any of those bonds.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
So I've seen how it affected kids without having that, Like,
those were bad times.
Speaker 5 (37:16):
And we need to I think, you know, that's something
that we should be looking for in our you know,
in our state funding. How are we giving children? Like
to think about this. One thing I love about writing
about the nineties though there was the shadow of HIV,
but it was all the promise of the future our
black culture was we were monetizing black culture in the nineties,
(37:39):
we were getting we were coming up in the nineties.
There was I mean, Dion represents a woman, is a
pioneer of the first time that we can consider careers
that our mothers and grandmothers could not even dream of,
so we were. It was full of a future. To
your point about the is now, how do you dream
(38:02):
though they're doing? Are we checking in on them in
a way, But a lot of times we can't check
in on them because we ain't dealt with us. We
can't even see that they're We might need to give
some attention to them. We're taking up our issues, undealt issues.
We're taking up too much space in our lives that
we cannot see what needs to be handled right now.
(38:24):
In fact, I'm so happy to be here with you
guys on the book tour. Shout out to my book tour.
Black women show up and show out all the time.
We are the backbone of this country point bank period
where I am excited and I'm really hopeful to also
have this conversation, especially being girl dads. I think the
(38:47):
allies to this book need to be girl dads because
knowingly and unknowingly when Dion had to make that list,
there are some guys on there.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Who probably in.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
They probably knew that they could manipulate and that's still
happening today. And I would love for fathers to give
their daughters some game now to say that you're not
but really being focused about what's going on out there.
One to protect them and their body so that they
are not being robbed of their body autonomy, that they
(39:26):
have a relationship with their body that is purely theirs,
and they can grow into understanding who they are. And
by the way, our children's brains do not develop until
I'm gonna say twenty seven. They say twenty five, but
I said twenty seven because I've just decided.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
I've decided it's twenty seven.
Speaker 5 (39:48):
So daddy's mommies we got to be protecting these babies
until then and reminding them and finding creative ways to
get to them, to protect them, but also to our sons,
fathers telling the sons how to treat hey. You know what,
there are gonna be some young ladies out there.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
And by the way, boys too.
Speaker 5 (40:13):
We don't even talk about what's happened to boys that
they don't even feel at all they.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Can talk about what happened to them.
Speaker 5 (40:20):
So anyway, I just would love to in this as
I build and get the word out about the book,
and I really just want us to have conversations for healing.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
That's what I mean.
Speaker 5 (40:31):
The book is just really me entering the chat to
talk about a lot of my portrait works are let's
look at us for real, y'all, from the good to
the bad and.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
The in between.
Speaker 4 (40:41):
It's like a protest on shame.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Come on, can I have that for my protest on shame? Yes,
it really is.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
And I think, you know, we unnecessarily are holding on
to too much of it, how much we get beat
upon as humans period, but more specifically black people. I
think I want us to collectively instead of let's let's
be a protest on shame. So I want the girl
dads to help out. I think you guys are my
(41:13):
natural next ally because the black women are holding it down.
And I would really love girl dads to get into
a conversation with their daughters about why daddy is trying
to protect you you you know, and and what's really
going on out in the world, and this is what
is you know, this is people pleasing and and how
(41:34):
that differs from pleasure. We had to get into helping
her understand the difference of this and what is really
on the minds of you guys having real conversations and
you know, you can find it on Instagram, but it's
nothing length your daddy telling you.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
I'm not saying it's easy, but you can.
Speaker 5 (41:55):
Still say you can, and you can, you can, you
can take it into trees. And also, our children are
made in degrees and some are gonna some are gonna
be right in on the conversations, some are gonna be out,
and it's our job to figure out how to reach them.
And if it's not you know the strategy of like, hey, auntie,
(42:18):
you may say this, and then you know the echo
the echo chamber of how we want to get information
and care and love to our children.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
I got homies having conversations with their daughters about going
in the birth control and you, you better than me,
you can't do that.
Speaker 5 (42:37):
Come on this, Wait a minute, are you telling me
you you can't have that conversation?
Speaker 3 (42:42):
But my oldest just turned eighteen.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
It's have you talked to her about?
Speaker 4 (42:47):
No?
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Really, but the first time you had sex?
Speaker 3 (42:51):
What what age were you the first time I had sex? Yes, sir,
I don't know, like seventeen eighteen maybe.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Wow, that's those conversations.
Speaker 6 (43:00):
I think you think it's difficult though, because it's like
that's your baby, But they're they're.
Speaker 4 (43:07):
The only ones that he saw with just his daughters
everybody else.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Very rough, very true.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
It's just about that particular topic.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
And and but that topic, you know we're gonna talk about.
There's another Anna.
Speaker 5 (43:27):
Malika Tubbs has a book called Erased, and it really
talks about the founding of sex, procreation and all of
this and how it really is tied into the founding
of this country, but by those particular that patriarchy. My
(43:49):
point is, I believe we are healing still from that
level of trauma in our country, and so the mixing
of what we guess this is.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
The question I even had when I started the book.
Speaker 5 (44:02):
Is is our sexual agency as women now true liberation
or an echo of the trauma? Because we have to
understand and I'm not saying yes, it is our sexual
agency today, ladies, our sexual agency.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
How we deal? Is it really liberation? Is it?
Speaker 5 (44:26):
Or are they echoes of the trauma that we still
have not healed?
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Our bodies?
Speaker 5 (44:35):
Women girls need to be should be not only protected,
but we should feel safe enough to show the beauty
of us and that be honored. But it's somehow, you know,
even we talk about misogyny that's not particular to men,
(44:56):
that is a concept that even women can adopt and
call it freedom. And if it is, I mean I'm there.
If a woman has her sexual agency through liberation, great.
Speaker 6 (45:10):
You're talking about the feminist movement when no, I'm not
even talking about feminist movement. I'm talking about body autonomy.
Our bodies.
Speaker 5 (45:17):
Our bodies are bantied about in politics all the time
because if we understand the origin of this country, white
women's bodies are to produce a certain air. Our bodies,
our black bodies were to produce labor, a labor force.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
About that this morning, that is happening. So is that gone?
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (45:42):
How is it showing up in everyday life when I
can be bad all by myself.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
And I can do you understand? I don't know. I'm
not saying and I'm not I'm not.
Speaker 5 (45:52):
There is no So I'm just asking can we examine
and I think, Dion, when you've got to face a
the number of lovers you have or sexual partners.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
That you had, and how did I get here? How
do I get here?
Speaker 5 (46:06):
And she takes you on how she got here and
where she is currently, and so then the question becomes
I'm going back to you and your conversation with your
daughters about why not tell her what young boys you're
what young boys are thinking when they see young girls,
why not why not say hey, what is pleasure like?
Speaker 1 (46:29):
You know? On forever all the it's.
Speaker 5 (46:31):
Intentional to to depict young girls who are sex positive.
They're all sex positive. Keshaul went through a social challenge,
but she used that phone as as a lot of
us do, as a part of their sexual play. And
(46:53):
that is something that can be healthy if it stays contained.
But if it doesn't, it be comes. And those are
the boundaries that there was not enough protection and providing
for and helping us to negotiate and helping our children
understand that choice. And even Keisha says herself, I betrayed myself.
(47:16):
I betrayed myself. And when you take ownership of yourself,
then you're gonna the next time you're gonna be a
little different. Even if you still make the same choice,
you're making it from a different, a more informed.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Place, a more so anyway.
Speaker 5 (47:33):
I just those conversations, I think Charlemagne, it can't just
be mothers.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
I talk to my sons about a woman's point of view.
Speaker 5 (47:42):
Sometimes just giving you some just giving you something to
think about, just giving you something to think about that
sometimes some young women, you know, especially unhealed ones, a
little good attention might just feel like the daddy they
never had, and she's gonna cling different even though you
told her let's keep a casual Yeah, you told her that,
(48:05):
But for her to lay down, she's laying down with
her heart. She's laying down with a void in her
and it's not just casual.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
And so you got to be able to detect, do you, because.
Speaker 5 (48:19):
Then you might then be partially She might ask you
to be responsible for something she can't deal with, yet
you want that, And so those are the conversations I
think we can get. Besides, you know how to do
it and how to I mean, even like you were saying,
in the statistics of HIV and AIDS going up in
(48:42):
our black communities, that's disheartening because I would just say, dang,
just from a resource game, you could take that money
and go on vacation than having to constantly buy your medicines.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
You know, I think, just how do we shift the energy?
Speaker 5 (49:02):
Energy is resources, and we have a lot of it,
and it's trapped in the compartmentization of our bodies.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Most times yeah, I think about these things. You guys
are letting me.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
You know, I gotta ask because every time you mentioned
the great girlfriend, come on, that was the last question
rolls up every single time, and that's.
Speaker 5 (49:26):
The number this time, the first no, the first time
I gave a number with with you, when I was
promoting love Is, I gave a number and that number
still stands.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
What people, is there any movement? When you say there.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
Is, it's funny you know there is this.
Speaker 5 (49:45):
It's interesting the last I think with the with the
success of Forever, I think people are, oh, shit, she's
not she's not gone. She still got it. Then there
was some reach out, but oh, but can you do
it for this price? It's like, guys, I know, No,
this is how I and this is where healthy Mara
comes into play.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
This is how I want to experience it.
Speaker 4 (50:08):
That's it.
Speaker 5 (50:09):
Just like I want my sex this way, I want
my tea. I would just like I want to experience.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
It this way. That's a powerful thing.
Speaker 5 (50:19):
Going back to then, Okay, whatever you want, I'm all
want sex more in business, whatever you want, and then
I may or may not get what I want out
of it because because I'm people pleasing I'm in a
place right now with girlfriends. I don't I want to
(50:39):
do it that I've made that clear, right, I want
to do it. The cast wants to do it. But
I believe there is a value on this. It is
and I also know what fifty million will turn over.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
Is insane.
Speaker 5 (50:55):
And so if I can't do it the way that
I think it deserves, why am I doing it? And
so and I haven't come up with yet a story
that I'm excited to tell in a different budget.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
Because guess what that is more energy, just more thinking.
Speaker 5 (51:15):
And I've got to I got forever to do. I
got a book to promote. I got kids, you know,
to raise. I've got I've got a life to live
to I need to have I need to put rest
in there. I got tennis to play, you know, I
got you know. And so I have a story that
I think would be amazing. And I think and also,
this is another thing. What's gonna make peoples all these
(51:38):
markers like the film's got to be this to get
people out of the house. So I need fifty million
dollars to get people out of the house, and not
just I don't want you to watch it on a streamer.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
I want to say, I want to wear Joan.
Speaker 5 (51:50):
I want to see Joan outfits. I want to see
Tony outfits. I want to see Maya outfits. I want
to see Lynn outfits. I want to see Williams suits.
I want to see I want to see people come
out and celebrate something we've been loving for twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (52:08):
And I want to have a party. I want us
to go out afterwards.
Speaker 5 (52:12):
You'm saying, I want us to talk about I want
us to show up with our friends, this.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
Friend group, that friend group. Yeah, I want that. I
want us to I want those ladies to be at
Canned killing the red carpet, like killing it.
Speaker 5 (52:29):
That's everything they deserve and you deserve it exactly. So
right now, I think fifty million is a bargain. Otherwise
I'll use my energy and I'll go maybe write another book,
or I'll go do something else, another storyline. I know
how i'd like to end girlfriends and how I would
like to experience it.
Speaker 3 (52:47):
Could mar Brock and Kill be comfortable with not giving
girlfriends the.
Speaker 5 (52:52):
Proper yeah closure, because mar Brock and Quill gave it all.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
What about us?
Speaker 5 (52:58):
No? No, but no, But I know, I know so
then okay, so then what we're gonna start off, go
fundme right here?
Speaker 1 (53:06):
We can we get Can we get a million people
to give five dollars?
Speaker 6 (53:11):
I think people would do that for you and girlfriends
so easily, especially with the new wave of like the
Netflix and people sitting down and rewatching it again. I
don't think that you think we don't know if you
want to do that. But I think that the.
Speaker 5 (53:22):
If I, if I can, I don't want, guys, what
I don't. What I can't do is go build a
whole campaign to go get I don't when I think
about my time, the amount of if you said, if
you guys said right now, we can go online and
say a million dollars for five a million people for
five bucks, and we have fifty million marble, go make that.
Speaker 1 (53:43):
But but if I I'm not begging, no, let me
show up.
Speaker 5 (53:50):
I think when we honor our artists, our storytellers, we
are the people who help build culture, honor us, invest
in storytelling.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
Invest in.
Speaker 5 (54:01):
Support so that we can all eat. And because what's
here's here's here's the truth about storytelling. It's it's a
great asset you build girlfriends and to that in.
Speaker 1 (54:12):
The economy will shift.
Speaker 5 (54:13):
People will buy outfits, they'll buy tickets, they'll buy merch,
they'll buy dinner reservations, they'll go it, go, go to
the movie several times because they want to be Joan,
Tony Maya, Anlin rebirth of an era people's lives. Yes,
and it's right in alignment with all the fashion people
who are putting out ninety stuff. Right, it makes no sense.
(54:34):
So then it has to ask you why, because there's
a constant devaluation of black women, and as a black woman,
I cannot.
Speaker 1 (54:42):
Participate in that devaluation. I agree with you.
Speaker 3 (54:47):
It's gonna happen.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
Man's gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (54:49):
I know it's gonna happen.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
It's gonna happen.
Speaker 5 (54:50):
That's something you have been one of my biggest supporters.
And I want to say, always say thank you to you.
Always think can ash you just so I can.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
What is it about girlfriends that you love so much?
Speaker 3 (55:02):
Well, you know me and my wife and together. Oh,
it'll be twenty years this year, congrat twenty.
Speaker 4 (55:07):
I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
I can't remember that.
Speaker 3 (55:09):
But when she was in college, she's gonna kill them.
And I used to go and I used to go.
Speaker 1 (55:13):
I used to go to her house let him come
back to life.
Speaker 3 (55:16):
She would always be watching it. Oh and so I
just started watching it, and for me, it was like
it was kind of like how we talk about secrets.
It was like women, black women especially letting men in
on their secrets. Yeah, I'm like, these are the kind
of conversations y'all be having. So then it becomes a
conversation start between you and the women in your life.
So it's just something that I ended up having an
(55:37):
emotional attachment to.
Speaker 4 (55:39):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (55:40):
I love that. Well, Yeah, join us. Thank you for
always having you guys, always.
Speaker 5 (55:46):
Make me feel safe, welcomed, and I really appreciate you guys,
and congrat again. Congrats to what you're doing and thanks
for me, thanks for letting me a part of your
journey as well.
Speaker 3 (55:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (55:56):
Or brought the kill Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
The Revelation to Dion Daphne out right now and there's
an audiobook too.
Speaker 1 (56:01):
Oh yes, the wand ways can we shout her out?
She did an amazing job. Yes, yes, yes, it's the
Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (56:07):
Good morning, hold.
Speaker 5 (56:08):
Up every day a week ago.
Speaker 1 (56:10):
Click your ass up the Breakfast Club. You'll finish the
y'all done,
Every day a week ago, clicks up the Breakfast Club.
You don't finish for y'all done morning.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Everybody is DJ Envy just hilarious. Charlamagne the guy we
are the Breakfast Club. Laura Roast is here as well.
We got a special guest in.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
The building, the legendary that's right, Marra Broca Kill.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Oh I love being here with you guys. Thanks for
having me back. How you feeling amazing?
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Feeling amazing?
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I'm feeling amazing. I have another story out in the
world in a new way.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
The revelation of Dion Daphney.
Speaker 5 (00:30):
Yeah, I get to the book allowed me to have
a bigger canvas, to go deeper, to go take up
more territory, to paint portraits. You know, That's what I've
been doing my whole career, and just to you know,
to have it this way. I'm really excited and and
I've been on this is them. I'm sort of wrapping up.
(00:50):
I have one more stop on my book tour. I'm
headed home today. In fact, I'm in the middle of
production of season two Forever.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
They shout out.
Speaker 5 (01:00):
Shout out to the team, the collaborators. They have been
holding it down so that I can prioritize this amazing
moment in my life, a debut novel, you know. And
but yeah, so I have this, you know, I've been
telling making portraits in that medium, and this is my
first portrait on the page. And I'm thrilled, I mean
(01:21):
literally just waiting to come in here. I'm seeing the
book out in the world, people posting about it. Read
it in twenty four hours. It's a page turner, this
is a plane read. It is the summer read, it's
the summer discussion. A lot to talk about. So the
reception I'm enjoying receiving all of I think the love
(01:41):
that I poured into the pen onto the page is
coming back to me.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
So I'm amazing.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Inspiration, Like you don't never get tied? How does it
come to you? Because you know, people have writer's block,
they can't think about things, but it seems like you
never have it, as I feel like you always get inspired.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
I'm tapped in.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
I'm really clear on my life.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
I really believe in people, place and purpose, and I've
locked in.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
I've locked in and so in.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
Fact, one of my challenges is that I have so
many stories I want to tell and I'm trying to
figure out with the pace of life and how do
I do it all? And also the challenges of business.
Sometimes you're writing something, but am I writing something that
I'm going to be.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Able to get into the marketplace? So there's two things.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
And I'm still in the business of storytelling, so I
have to think strategically about where do I go next,
how much time it takes me to get the story
out and a book. I really wasn't thinking about it
at the time that I and started engaging with the book.
In fact, it was my body of work that shout
(02:49):
out to Chelsea John's my editor who reached out to
me during COVID and said, Hey, I'm such a fan
of the work you do, such complex city with black characters,
human characters, specifically women. Would you consider writing a book.
I think your voice would translate beautifully to the page.
(03:10):
And I think sometimes you just need somebody to want you,
somebody who's like, I don't have to I don't have
to spend my energy on the proving of my searching.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Yeah, yeah, I don't have time for that.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
I gotta So that was that was lovely to experience
and so okay, so this is what I want to do.
In fact, this story I have I wanted. I thought
about the story right after I got staffed on Moesha
back in ninety five. This Yeah, it's Lizzy, but I
(03:42):
put it on the shelf and you can see the
subjects in some of my other I've touched on it
a little bit, but it wasn't enough room to talk
about what I really want.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
To talk about. And the book's alignment was that.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
And I also think, going back to your question about
the stories, I found a new outlet to get these
stories that are literally being in me. It's almost like
I getting this. I feel like I've birthed a baby.
Now I got another, Like I've got more babies in
there that I've got to incubate and get out in
the world.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
And so I do have.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
A lot of stories in me, and I'm just looking
for I feel like, you know, running out of time. Yeah,
I'm writing like I'm running out of time because we
are We're not promised, we're not promised.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
But we made it here. So what are we doing
with our life? What are we? What are we doing?
Speaker 5 (04:32):
And I'm excited about telling the story because I think
even for me, I'm the when you heal, when you
actually when you talk a lot about this, when you heal,
you create more capacity for who.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
You really are. And I think, why are we here?
Speaker 5 (04:50):
And I think that's when we get in harmony with
alignment and with ourselves and with each other, and we
need a new frequency. You guys, I just shout out
in New York. First of all, you know, I'm by coastal,
so I'm partially you know. But I was here for
Game one, And first of all, I brought the weather
that day because it was not supposed to be cute
(05:12):
on Tuesday and Wednesday, but I came in on Tuesday,
so it became very cute.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
And just I wanted to I remember, I want to
be there for game one and was it.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
I didn't go physically, I just was. I ended up
at I was. I ended up in Brooklyn with all
these beautiful black people watching the game again, and then
to go back to LA and watch you guys be
outside that heartbeat. That frequency is what we need, and
I feel like it's removing in that direction. And I
(05:41):
feel I hope that the book how I'm entering the
chat about releasing and not getting, not running, not dealing
with it later, not pushing it to the side.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I mean, face your stuff, deal with.
Speaker 5 (05:55):
It and let it go, and then be curious about yourself.
Where where your energy now can go? Because we spend
so much energy, like Dion. I know we're going to
get and talk about the book, but like Dion, who
looks like she's got it all together, spending all her
energy managing the lids that she's trying to keep on
(06:17):
her life.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Well, let's talk about the book.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
A little bit. The setting is nineteen nineties New Yes.
The plot beauty editor Dion. Her life gets turned upside down.
Her X rides with life threatening news because he has
a potential HIV diagnosed.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Yes, so she goes.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
On a road trip to confront a childhood secret she's
buried for decades.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yes, Well, she just she's that is exactly she's.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
We're meeting her like a lot of us, dealing with
the hits on her life, her recent hit.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
She's really doing really well.
Speaker 5 (06:46):
She's up for job promotion at essence, you know, she's
the it was the mecha of where you wanted to
work if you were a black girl and want to
be in publishing, magazine publishing. And she's just getting over
a guy who five years of her life and she
wanted to thought she was going to get married. And
so when that knock on the door, you don't ever
(07:08):
think back in the nineties, we did not think that
disease was even about us until it really took a
lot of us down because for a minute, you know,
in the late eighties it was still a gay, white
man's disease, but that disease was taking a lot of
us out. More specifically, our neighborhoods, our communities are womeneres.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yes, wait a minute, Wait a minute.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
And so if you think it was just so she
was living her best life, this knock comes on the door.
And in back then when we had to take the
HIV test, it was a two week wait. Could you
imagine waiting on you first, your your heart is beating,
(07:57):
You think, I may this could be my life be
over with this result. Well, that level of pause and
reflection is what Dion goes through, and she has to
because the homework you have to do during the test
is to write down all your sexual partners. And when
you make a list like that, you have to be
(08:18):
also you're confronting yourself and the choices that you have
made things that you've been complicit in and maybe those
that you haven't. And that's a lot to face. And
how did I get here? I'm cute and trying to
put this. You know, she's a beauty editor, so she's
just trying to tell you what the cutest makeup is
(08:39):
and not and just running away from all these things
that you think just because I moved away from home
and got some money in my pocket.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah, it's so crazy.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
You know, you're talking about something that happened that was
big in the eighties and nineties and I just wanted
to google. But it's still affecting so many people now.
They're saying, like Atlanta has one of the highest rates
in the country, which is just very scary for people
out there now because I just remember how me growing
up in New York, and I know it might be
different for everybody, but I felt like it hit New
York so heavy. Right in the late eighties, it was big,
(09:12):
and like you said, it was a men's it was
a gay, white men's disease. In the eighties the nineties,
it was a crack disease, right, disease, people shooting themselves up,
sharing needles, and just remember seeing it and people affected
by it.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
So I just remember how it was and the.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Fact that it's still we still don't have a cure.
We can kind of well, I don't even know we
have a cure because it's more manageable, more manageable, but
it's not in well system anymore.
Speaker 5 (09:36):
Well, it's interesting they're talking about PREP. They're taking PREP,
and so then people our behavior around sexual our sexual health.
People are not wearing the condom anymore, so that if
I get it, then it's okay because I have PREP.
But why do we want to use our energy that way?
Why do we want to use our resources that way?
Why do we want to And I think that's what
(09:57):
I'd like us to because I just want us to
consider how we are using our energy and collectively as
people in general under oppressive regimes, because that's like what's happening.
But we've been managing generation by generation. But I think
(10:17):
we're at a beautiful just watching you and we watch
your daughter dance, what you and your wife and your
family have able to do for her and the protection
of her, We're at a very critical, beautiful place of
protecting our future by really dealing with dealing with the
stuff we don't want to deal with.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Now we might as well.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
There's so much happening in the world, why not clean
out our closets? Just going and clean out our closets
right now? To me like Dion, because sometimes life is
just going to take the rug from underneath you. And
so when we meet Dion, the rug is taking up
from underneath her and she's got to go back and
face this idea of herself and how did I get here?
(11:03):
And I'm really hopeful that she will be sort of
a champion character for encouragement to go on and bear
your shame.
Speaker 6 (11:15):
Can we talk a little bit about compartmentalizing, because I
feel like Dion does a really good job, and girls
like Dion who are like I have the career and
I'm successful. You can compartmentalize a lot of things that
trauma or whatever that get you to that point. When
does Dion, or even for you personally, when do you
realize that compartmentalizing doesn't help you even though you're successful
(11:36):
in real life?
Speaker 1 (11:37):
That's such yes, really great question. One.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
I think two things can be true, and we are
learning how to do that better and better, especially even
with the onset of social media, we know how to
present many different avatars of ourselves by hiding a lot
times that origin story. And sometimes the origin story is
the fuel to get you to a certain place because
(12:06):
you're trying to prove to yourself I'm not the thing
that happened to me, or or or the choices I made.
I can wash myself clean with what we deem success. Right,
So it's easy to distract ourselves about success.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
You know about success?
Speaker 5 (12:23):
I mean, think about how much time we make content
for the ground versus actually living the life.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
You know what I'm saying, Yes.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
But your life is still over here.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
So we're carrying two things at once. And that is
in of itself compartment compartmentalization.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
So we have a skill.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
And it's not to say that that's a bad thing
all the time, you know it's but but that is
what we're doing. I am saying that is energy. And
you were saying what what for Dion or for me?
When you say it's just too much? When you are
when we are taking energy from our bodies and we
don't feel good, we don't look good, we're starting to
(13:02):
get sick. You're it's going to show up in your
body because you still are carrying it, whether you want
to pretend it's there or not, or you know it's
there and you want to ignore it, or you know what,
Let me drink this drink real quick to put it
to put it back to sleep. And every time you
drink that drink, you are adding more.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
This is an energy gain people. You I'm saying, like,
how what you eat, what you drink, who you hang with.
So imagine if you're constantly holding on to the trauma
that you never dealt with, that you even lie to
your therapist like you know, but you're.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
Pretending I go to church, I'm dealing with it, but
you're not really dealing with it. And I think it's
when it shows up in the body for me when
and I was just like, okay, why where's my energy?
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Why why is it hard?
Speaker 5 (13:58):
And it's not just age, not we And I think
that's another thing that I think is a part of
a capitalist thing that oh it's your age. No, No,
if you take care of yourself, your body will take
care of you.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
But how and we can talk.
Speaker 5 (14:11):
We're talking about a lot of the external things, like
there's a lot of growth and a lot of investment
in like the wellness spas great, but what are we
doing on the inside? And that is a messy job.
And Dion has a messy, messy, messy two weeks and
she and she literally puts it. She stepped by step. Funny,
(14:34):
that's been my walkout music, step by step. But anyway,
bring Whitney to the party.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
And I think that's what we do.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
Stop running from the storms, turn around, face the storms,
go through it. Have you guys ever been in the
storm like it's and then you get on the other side.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
I was in Florida once.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
I thought I was going to die inside this storm,
and I didn't even know what to do anymore.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
But it I couldn't go back, I couldn't go forward.
I was just going slow, so slow. And then I'm literally.
Speaker 5 (15:02):
Praying, white knuckling the steering wheel, just praying to God,
like I don't even know what to do. And then
suddenly I was on the other side and it was
like paradise.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
It was like it was almost like what happened? Did
I go through a portal? And that is true.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
We will go through a portal And then for me,
me going through my own portal, my lemons are now
technically my lemonade. Sure, you know it's technically the lemonade.
And I think what I think I'm really gifted at
is talking about now talking about the truth through fiction
(15:41):
so that sometimes there's just a little bit of a
distance from it, so that we can just there is
a bit of an entertainment, you know, to the storytelling
is entertainment.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Let me hold your attention to give you a fable
can Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
How does it affect your mental right? Cause you're talking
about trauma, sexual abused, generational pain healing, So how does
it affect you when you do it? Because you have
to open up some of your wounds.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yes, absolutely, it is funny. And then how we get vaccines? You?
Speaker 5 (16:12):
Yes, so you got to open it up. And I
think it's okay.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
You know. Uh.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
Even in fact, when I was writing this book, though,
there's like this last little the last like real effort
to know is this really a book? Because I literally guys,
I was like, if if this ain't good, I'm just
gonna give them their check back because I'm not gonna
do it, come out with a book and be like, oh,
just fail. I had to know that I loved it,
(16:40):
and in that last push, I was here in New York.
I love to write here in New York, and I
have a whole writing ritual. And the last last week,
I literally fasted so that I can stay completely focused,
called on God, called on my Angel. I just sort
(17:01):
of wrapped myself in this cocoon of creativity expectation for
God to show up in the creative process. And and
so what happens is when you do have to open
it up, but it's it's almost like you're baptizing your
wounds and that. And it was the fasting, I mean
it was I don't know if you've ever fasted, especially
(17:23):
for like Ramadan. You you it's all of that toxicity
comes up, but then it free then it just leaves
your body. It's like a birthing of it, excuse me,
just sort of letting it out. You can almost physically
feel it come off of your body. So that that
was my That's what happened for me. So it's also
a sign that this is this can go out into
(17:45):
the world. And and so that has been empowering. And
I do believe I loved it, just like when when
I wept in Forever the Last I loved it that
I can rock with that I know how to I
know how to fight for, protect, provide, promote, defend that
(18:08):
body of work and so.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
And I think and that was that. That was the last.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
You know, I think I'm a great writer because I
was afraid to talk, like.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I really envy people get y'all are here every day
just flowing, trusting your voice.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
Is it because you were a journalist prior to soul No, I.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
Became a journalist because I learned how my voice got
trapped in order to survive certain things.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
You silence is how you move for a second.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Right, because this book does deal with secrets, and you
think secrets protect us are to your point.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
In prison us? Oh absolutely, imprison us.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
But sometimes when you're you know, certain situations, you can't
say anything at that point because then you likely can
be harmed further than you're already being harmed. So I
silence was my protector until it becomes your oppressor when
you don't even know how to use your voice. So
(19:07):
going back to writing, I think that voice was in me.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
But I found it through the pen.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
Whereas in writing, which is why I think I'm a
pretty pretty good writer, is I rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite,
re write, rewrite, judge it before I'm happy with it.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
When you.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
Off the cuff, your intuition, your feeling of the moment.
I never trusted that. And that's when it started to
feel like my oppressor, that I have things to say
and I'm not even like I've been on I've been
on your show, and I thank you for always having me.
But I feel better and better each time because the nervousness.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Of being.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
If I say the wrong thing and back when you know,
you know, okay, If I say the wrong I don't
know where I'm going to be.
Speaker 6 (20:00):
And I.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Almost broke into tears watching you watch your daughter.
Speaker 5 (20:07):
I was her age when things were happening to me
instead of my father somewhere providing for my ability to
express myself as beautifully and artistically. The amount of time
and effort you and your wife and your family have
put into that child, and you have more than one child,
(20:28):
that child, and see the greatness in her at nine
years old, because she is loved and provided and protected.
Imagine if we were all that way. Yeah, And so
when I look at.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
That, I'm like, I didn't have that. I didn't have that.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
Do you still long for it sometimes?
Speaker 6 (20:47):
Like that feeling of protection?
Speaker 5 (20:49):
Well, this is what I wanted. One of the revelations
I had in writing this book. But I love I
loved all the storylines, but one of the storylines is
the friendship storyline between Dion and Farah.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
And what that storyline?
Speaker 5 (21:03):
Every time I do something, I do expect something back,
but I don't never know when the revelation of it
hits me. But I had to edit the copy editing
of a book. I see you with your book, Jess,
congratulations girl, But that copy editing part is arduous.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I just want to pull my hair out. And I
was being.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
Kind of fussy in a bad energy space, and I said,
let me get my let me get my situation together,
let me this is the blessing.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Let me reread.
Speaker 5 (21:28):
And the chapter that I reread was when Parah and
towards the end of the book, where the arc of
that friendship is there. And what I realized so much
about the fringe, what really girlfriends are? Why girlfriends resonates
to this day is I now understand the power deeper
girlfriends or friends, guy friends, we represent surrogate parents and
(21:55):
they will hold us until we are strong enough so
that can repairent ourselves. That's why I wanted to get
to It's about reparenting ourselves. So when you ask me
about the longing, I need to long because when I do,
I then go do something for Mara. I've then become
the father that didn't I become the mother that couldn't
(22:19):
whatever for myself.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
And then what that does is I can look.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
At my parents and I can put them in the
context of their history, of their life and of the world,
and I can then have empathy and compassion for them.
And they've stopped becoming mom and dad and they become
their names, and I get to know them and I
get to love them, and then I get to know
better my name, and then I know better my purpose
(22:45):
and I understand, No, I don't that the things that
have happened to me were supposed to happen to me, because.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
I am in my light right now.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
I'm my best when I'm a storyteller, and so I'm
here and even my guilt sometimes about parenting my career.
I don't always get to tuck my kids in, and
I don't get to make the right snacks, and I
don't always get to carpool my kids, so again a blessing.
But then I told them who I am as opposed
(23:18):
to the kind of mother. I think I'm supposed to be.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
One of the greatest gifts you can give your kids. Yes,
when you have a conversation with your parent and realize
that person had a life for they were your parents.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Yes, Oh it's so free.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
And then and knowing that your kids love you just
as much as you love them, and they make But
there is.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
This when you free yourself of guilt.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
I have all this energy back to think of more
creative ways that I can be uniquely their mother, not
the way the picture says I'm supposed to do it,
or the way Jess does it, or the way that
you know what I'm saying, or the way.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
That Envy's wife does it. I don't have to be
like her. I can be like me. And because these
kids chose us.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
And they came to get something from us, But I
want to ask what are we giving them?
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Are we giving our children.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
The best of who we are or do they are
still managing our unhealed pain.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
I think it depends where you are as a parent,
right because you know when you're a parent and you
come up shortened parent, Yes, like you can see it
and you can see when you do something that impacts
your child in a negative way. Are you willing to apologize?
Speaker 4 (24:27):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I do that me too, you know, and.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
The conversation that can open up between you and a
seven year.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Old, yes, are life changing.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
My daughter's seven, right. Yeah, So it's just like just
apologizing and having that you just feel like you're talking
to a thirty something.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
Yes, they have such wisdom, that's right, and dook, It's
just that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
That's what I want to protect.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
And you talk a lot about healing, and I think
you know the impact on your life.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Look at word, I mean listen. I mean just recently
where you guys have achieved together?
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Hm, I mean, come on, generational wealth, there's this we've got.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
We can unload this.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
And have moments of parenting like that where we have
really created more of a garden box for our children
to grow and not just you know, and you can
you know, use honesty and authenticity as the fertilizer for
that and that then that to me is like saying, hey,
(25:32):
what I what I'm trying to tell you is true.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
The way I said it was a little fucked up.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
Oh sorry, And and but what I'm trying to tell you,
I'm telling you this is how I think. I'm I
think you might need this for your protection or for
your this, or for your that.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Like even I tell my sons all the time, you
have to understand.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
Every thought I have is for the I want for
you to be great and what it then create?
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Okay, but mom, I have an idea. Okay, Well, then
tell me.
Speaker 5 (26:04):
Communicate, just tell me it because I'm gonna overthink it
to death.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Oh God, yeah, was mom? That's what you do?
Speaker 5 (26:10):
And then I'm nagging you. Yeah, I don't mean to
This is my love. This is love, and I'm frustrated
you won't listen to me.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
But oh, you have an idea? Okay, Well what's your idea?
Speaker 4 (26:22):
And how old?
Speaker 7 (26:23):
How old was your kid before they came to you
and told you that though? Because I feel like with
my son, he's fourteen right, and when he was younger.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
I wasn't healed. I was unhealed. I was operating out
of toxicity. I was dysfunctional.
Speaker 7 (26:40):
But now I have my one year old, she's on
a way to be in two, and I feel like
I'm a total different mom. Well, I am a total
different mom than I was back then. This was fourteen, thirteen,
twelve years ago, you know what I mean. And I
have that parental guilt because I wasn't this mom for
my son at this age.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Have you ever talked to him about.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
I have after writing my book.
Speaker 7 (27:01):
See, my book is a cool parenting mask where I've
reflect on all the things and.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
See, that's what I love about writing.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
If the writing's gonna make you pause, you've got to You've.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Got to figure some things out.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
And in that thing, let's say you never listener and
you never publish a book, you never literally even put
it out. But that process is the reflection and the
healing that you even already had. Your son, you're saying,
at fourteen has already received an apology or a understanding
of how hey, I wasn't her, But you still have him.
(27:36):
First of all, that's gonna feel good, whether he understands
it in the moment or not. The seed is already there,
and he also is. He loves you the most. His
eyes are on you all.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
So he already sees your change.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
But now you're almost saying to him. I'm sorry I
couldn't be that for you, but I'm here now, so
fourteen on boo boo, it's me you're here. That is
empowering and I feel like that that I think that
is just as healing. And you have him in your
under your roof for another at least four years for sure,
you know, just putting it out there, but they're gonna,
(28:16):
they're gonna eventually, You're right. Different times, I think of
our housing situation is gonna change because of the nature
of the future and jobs. But to your point, but
there's gonna be a day he's gonna want his own
because he wants to. He needs to know, because he's
so loved by you and the whole family that he
wants to flex and show he wants you. He wants
(28:39):
to experience the highest version of himself. And that's what
healing does all around. And I think that I think
that on the guilt part, I still think that I
would say, you have to pause and repair on yourself
in every moment that that comes up and ask yourself,
am I doing my best?
Speaker 1 (28:59):
And if you're not, what can you do in the moment?
Speaker 5 (29:01):
Like I'm still like I have my assistant helping me
about feeding them, like that's one of the biggest ones.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
I don't cook.
Speaker 5 (29:09):
I'm never in even home hault all the time, but
even like trying to just not even have them think
about cooking. At least I'm the one who thought about
what a postmate. And I'm trying to be better about
that because they can do it themselves, but I'm trying
to do like, no, it's still my, It's still under
(29:30):
my jurisdiction and responsibility for you to eat.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
And this is what I like for you to eat.
And here it is true.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Is writing this more vulnerable and writing television because there's
no way to hide like you know nothing.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
You well to your point what's going to hold a reader?
And so I think a deeper truth is what holds
a reader in television, though I think I do, really
I dig deep. Can I can mix it with other
storytelling ads like music, the cinematography, the tone, the vibe,
(30:14):
the interiors, the exteriors.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
The clothing, the setting. I'm holding you with all of.
Speaker 5 (30:20):
That information, whereas with the reader you have to imagine
the world. You're building the world with me. When I
say the color green, I'm assuming the four of you
have four different shades. When I say you know she cried,
you guys have four different ways that she cried. And
(30:42):
we get to build the world together. And that's what
makes it so intimate.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Did I did?
Speaker 5 (30:47):
I give you enough for you to feel and stay
connected to me as I tell you the story?
Speaker 4 (30:54):
What's easier writing and filmmaking?
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Neither I don't want, I don't, I don't. They're both
joyful for me.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
And joyful does include some hard, some challenging nights, yeah,
I And it also includes some my mom loves this word,
some horibulations I have. You're almost herripulations are almost like
like like no, it's all It's like it's like enthusiasm
on on a thousand you know what I'm saying, he says,
(31:29):
goosebumps and just like and you and that those moments, guys,
when I'm having horribulations, you.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Know, gods in the room.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
You know it's not really coming. You're not thinking, so
something's coming through you.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
You're being fed, and.
Speaker 5 (31:45):
So you're just like, ah, let me just try, okay,
hold on, hold on and you and you can.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
It's like riding.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
That's why I know now I understand surfers sometimes you know,
living on the West Coast, you drive, you know, pH
You're like, they're just.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Sitting in the water, They're not doing anything.
Speaker 5 (32:00):
But when you catch a wave on writing, you will
sit in that water. And sometimes you only ride a
little wave, a little wave, but when you want to
catch those big ones. And that's what I've been doing
my whole career. I've been catching the big ones and
that's where the horripulations are. But a lot of days
you were just sitting in the water. But that's a
part of it too. You got to be in the
(32:21):
water to catch the wave. You got to sit in
the chair and expect and work with it and try
to ride the dragon of trying to figure out how
to tell you a story that keeps your attention long
enough for us to have maybe deeper conversations and about healing.
Who sometimes you see the talk about healing, nobody wants
to talk about it. But when you get in somebody's business,
(32:43):
because this book, you all up in Dion's business and
you get to walk with her as her life gets
pulled from underneath her and her pilled herself right back up.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
And I feel like those triumphs are worth.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
The the hard parts. I'm trying not to use the
word hard. I think that's what you see me stuttering.
It's around this. It's not hard when you choose it.
It's a commitment and to that commitment. There are so
many joys in it, and there are so many days
that are challenging, challenging.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
It's like the gym.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
Yeah, it's like the gym.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Yeah, how long did you have to sit in the
water for forever? Season two?
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (33:28):
Well, it was interesting because at the while we were filmed.
Right toward the end of filming season one, I knew
what season two was. However, Netflix and I had a
conversation about uh, because and it was designed this way.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Justin and Keisha were are our COVID babies.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
They're they're they're the part of the generation who's some
of the biggest rights of passage timing, and.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Their life is affected because COVID.
Speaker 5 (34:03):
But a lot of statistics and a lot of algorithms
and a lot of data saying that audiences will tune
out if people have masks on their face. They just
cannot deal with that, And so they were just we
just had a real conversation and back and forth about
whether or not.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
You know, we'll do the COVID years, and but I
already knew what it was.
Speaker 5 (34:29):
I knew what that season was, and I knew that
that was going to be a challenge. And I had
all these ideas about what I wanted to do, but
I prayed on it and I said, Okay, let's take
the leap. And so when you asked me, how long
I sit in the water with that? This is where
collaboration and team work. The first person I said to Netflix,
I said, where is Erica Harrison Gez, executive producer on
(34:51):
the Film's on the film?
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Excuse me?
Speaker 5 (34:53):
It feels like a film that we write it an
eight hour film. But Erica is my right hand in
the writer's room. And we sat down. We love the show,
It's in our DNA. We sat down for three days
and we pitched the We understood, we understood the vision
(35:13):
of where we were going. We went in and pitched
it to our partners at Netflix. They were lovely. They
heard it, they got it, they understood it, and we
then hired an amazing writing staff from there, brought back
as many of our players, our other collaborators you know,
in production that we could That's one of the challenges
(35:34):
about not keeping production going. You could lose some of
the people that you do it with, but it then
makes space for new people. And so that's where we
are now.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
We are.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
Moe Marble is directing this block right now in Los
Angeles and he's incredible to work with.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
We're midway through production, so.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
You're skipping COVID, you're skipping the COVID years.
Speaker 5 (35:57):
But we're not skipping. So what was challenging and what
was fun? This is what it's the kind of the
work you do for a book. What is the backstory
to a moment? So what we had to do is
we had to build their backstory in COVID to understand
how we drop you into the summer of twenty twenty three,
got and so, but so we had to know all
of what happened, and so we have to build that.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
And that's what you do to do a book.
Speaker 5 (36:20):
Only I get to put it on the page, whereas
in the show, we had to build it so that
writers understood where the characters were when we were talking
about and how we reveal what happened during COVID too.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
So that's it's a fun it's a fun way to write.
Speaker 5 (36:36):
Now I realized, oh, just playing around with my writing
style in two different forms, constantly revealing the.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
COVID years were difficult years, shudo, because you know, I
have six kids. So O, my daughter, who she graduated
high school COVID years, started her freshman year in college
and she lost both of those because high school she
had to close out and one another yes. And then
her first year in college she had the do line.
(37:03):
So now her second year where they move off campus,
she doesn't have any friends because the first year.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Was just she didn't have any of those bonds.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
So I've seen how it affected kids without having that, Like,
those were bad times.
Speaker 5 (37:16):
And we need to I think, you know, that's something
that we should be looking for in our you know,
in our state funding. How are we giving children? Like
to think about this. One thing I love about writing
about the nineties though there was the shadow of HIV,
but it was all the promise of the future our
black culture was we were monetizing black culture in the nineties,
(37:39):
we were getting we were coming up in the nineties.
There was I mean, Dion represents a woman, is a
pioneer of the first time that we can consider careers
that our mothers and grandmothers could not even dream of,
so we were. It was full of a future. To
your point about the is now, how do you dream
(38:02):
though they're doing? Are we checking in on them in
a way, But a lot of times we can't check
in on them because we ain't dealt with us. We
can't even see that they're We might need to give
some attention to them. We're taking up our issues, undealt issues.
We're taking up too much space in our lives that
we cannot see what needs to be handled right now.
(38:24):
In fact, I'm so happy to be here with you
guys on the book tour. Shout out to my book tour.
Black women show up and show out all the time.
We are the backbone of this country point bank period
where I am excited and I'm really hopeful to also
have this conversation, especially being girl dads. I think the
(38:47):
allies to this book need to be girl dads because
knowingly and unknowingly when Dion had to make that list,
there are some guys on there.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Who probably in.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
They probably knew that they could manipulate and that's still
happening today. And I would love for fathers to give
their daughters some game now to say that you're not
but really being focused about what's going on out there.
One to protect them and their body so that they
are not being robbed of their body autonomy, that they
(39:26):
have a relationship with their body that is purely theirs,
and they can grow into understanding who they are. And
by the way, our children's brains do not develop until
I'm gonna say twenty seven. They say twenty five, but
I said twenty seven because I've just decided.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
I've decided it's twenty seven.
Speaker 5 (39:48):
So daddy's mommies we got to be protecting these babies
until then and reminding them and finding creative ways to
get to them, to protect them, but also to our sons,
fathers telling the sons how to treat hey. You know what,
there are gonna be some young ladies out there.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
And by the way, boys too.
Speaker 5 (40:13):
We don't even talk about what's happened to boys that
they don't even feel at all they.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Can talk about what happened to them.
Speaker 5 (40:20):
So anyway, I just would love to in this as
I build and get the word out about the book,
and I really just want us to have conversations for healing.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
That's what I mean.
Speaker 5 (40:31):
The book is just really me entering the chat to
talk about a lot of my portrait works are let's
look at us for real, y'all, from the good to
the bad and.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
The in between.
Speaker 4 (40:41):
It's like a protest on shame.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Come on, can I have that for my protest on shame? Yes,
it really is.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
And I think, you know, we unnecessarily are holding on
to too much of it, how much we get beat
upon as humans period, but more specifically black people. I
think I want us to collectively instead of let's let's
be a protest on shame. So I want the girl
dads to help out. I think you guys are my
(41:13):
natural next ally because the black women are holding it down.
And I would really love girl dads to get into
a conversation with their daughters about why daddy is trying
to protect you you you know, and and what's really
going on out in the world, and this is what
is you know, this is people pleasing and and how
(41:34):
that differs from pleasure. We had to get into helping
her understand the difference of this and what is really
on the minds of you guys having real conversations and
you know, you can find it on Instagram, but it's
nothing length your daddy telling you.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
I'm not saying it's easy, but you can.
Speaker 5 (41:55):
Still say you can, and you can, you can, you
can take it into trees. And also, our children are
made in degrees and some are gonna some are gonna
be right in on the conversations, some are gonna be out,
and it's our job to figure out how to reach them.
And if it's not you know the strategy of like, hey, auntie,
(42:18):
you may say this, and then you know the echo
the echo chamber of how we want to get information
and care and love to our children.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
I got homies having conversations with their daughters about going
in the birth control and you, you better than me,
you can't do that.
Speaker 5 (42:37):
Come on this, Wait a minute, are you telling me
you you can't have that conversation?
Speaker 3 (42:42):
But my oldest just turned eighteen.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
It's have you talked to her about?
Speaker 4 (42:47):
No?
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Really, but the first time you had sex?
Speaker 3 (42:51):
What what age were you the first time I had sex? Yes, sir,
I don't know, like seventeen eighteen maybe.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Wow, that's those conversations.
Speaker 6 (43:00):
I think you think it's difficult though, because it's like
that's your baby, But they're they're.
Speaker 4 (43:07):
The only ones that he saw with just his daughters
everybody else.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Very rough, very true.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
It's just about that particular topic.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
And and but that topic, you know we're gonna talk about.
There's another Anna.
Speaker 5 (43:27):
Malika Tubbs has a book called Erased, and it really
talks about the founding of sex, procreation and all of
this and how it really is tied into the founding
of this country, but by those particular that patriarchy. My
(43:49):
point is, I believe we are healing still from that
level of trauma in our country, and so the mixing
of what we guess this is.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
The question I even had when I started the book.
Speaker 5 (44:02):
Is is our sexual agency as women now true liberation
or an echo of the trauma? Because we have to
understand and I'm not saying yes, it is our sexual
agency today, ladies, our sexual agency.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
How we deal? Is it really liberation? Is it?
Speaker 5 (44:26):
Or are they echoes of the trauma that we still
have not healed?
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Our bodies?
Speaker 5 (44:35):
Women girls need to be should be not only protected,
but we should feel safe enough to show the beauty
of us and that be honored. But it's somehow, you know,
even we talk about misogyny that's not particular to men,
(44:56):
that is a concept that even women can adopt and
call it freedom. And if it is, I mean I'm there.
If a woman has her sexual agency through liberation, great.
Speaker 6 (45:10):
You're talking about the feminist movement when no, I'm not
even talking about feminist movement. I'm talking about body autonomy.
Our bodies.
Speaker 5 (45:17):
Our bodies are bantied about in politics all the time
because if we understand the origin of this country, white
women's bodies are to produce a certain air. Our bodies,
our black bodies were to produce labor, a labor force.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
About that this morning, that is happening. So is that gone?
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (45:42):
How is it showing up in everyday life when I
can be bad all by myself.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
And I can do you understand? I don't know. I'm
not saying and I'm not I'm not.
Speaker 5 (45:52):
There is no So I'm just asking can we examine
and I think, Dion, when you've got to face a
the number of lovers you have or sexual partners.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
That you had, and how did I get here? How
do I get here?
Speaker 5 (46:06):
And she takes you on how she got here and
where she is currently, and so then the question becomes
I'm going back to you and your conversation with your
daughters about why not tell her what young boys you're
what young boys are thinking when they see young girls,
why not why not say hey, what is pleasure like?
Speaker 1 (46:29):
You know? On forever all the it's.
Speaker 5 (46:31):
Intentional to to depict young girls who are sex positive.
They're all sex positive. Keshaul went through a social challenge,
but she used that phone as as a lot of
us do, as a part of their sexual play. And
(46:53):
that is something that can be healthy if it stays contained.
But if it doesn't, it be comes. And those are
the boundaries that there was not enough protection and providing
for and helping us to negotiate and helping our children
understand that choice. And even Keisha says herself, I betrayed myself.
(47:16):
I betrayed myself. And when you take ownership of yourself,
then you're gonna the next time you're gonna be a
little different. Even if you still make the same choice,
you're making it from a different, a more informed.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Place, a more so anyway.
Speaker 5 (47:33):
I just those conversations, I think Charlemagne, it can't just
be mothers.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
I talk to my sons about a woman's point of view.
Speaker 5 (47:42):
Sometimes just giving you some just giving you something to
think about, just giving you something to think about that
sometimes some young women, you know, especially unhealed ones, a
little good attention might just feel like the daddy they
never had, and she's gonna cling different even though you
told her let's keep a casual Yeah, you told her that,
(48:05):
But for her to lay down, she's laying down with
her heart. She's laying down with a void in her
and it's not just casual.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
And so you got to be able to detect, do you, because.
Speaker 5 (48:19):
Then you might then be partially She might ask you
to be responsible for something she can't deal with, yet
you want that, And so those are the conversations I
think we can get. Besides, you know how to do
it and how to I mean, even like you were saying,
in the statistics of HIV and AIDS going up in
(48:42):
our black communities, that's disheartening because I would just say, dang,
just from a resource game, you could take that money
and go on vacation than having to constantly buy your medicines.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
You know, I think, just how do we shift the energy?
Speaker 5 (49:02):
Energy is resources, and we have a lot of it,
and it's trapped in the compartmentization of our bodies.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Most times yeah, I think about these things. You guys
are letting me.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
You know, I gotta ask because every time you mentioned
the great girlfriend, come on, that was the last question
rolls up every single time, and that's.
Speaker 5 (49:26):
The number this time, the first no, the first time
I gave a number with with you, when I was
promoting love Is, I gave a number and that number
still stands.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
What people, is there any movement? When you say there.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
Is, it's funny you know there is this.
Speaker 5 (49:45):
It's interesting the last I think with the with the
success of Forever, I think people are, oh, shit, she's
not she's not gone. She still got it. Then there
was some reach out, but oh, but can you do
it for this price? It's like, guys, I know, No,
this is how I and this is where healthy Mara
comes into play.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
This is how I want to experience it.
Speaker 4 (50:08):
That's it.
Speaker 5 (50:09):
Just like I want my sex this way, I want
my tea. I would just like I want to experience.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
It this way. That's a powerful thing.
Speaker 5 (50:19):
Going back to then, Okay, whatever you want, I'm all
want sex more in business, whatever you want, and then
I may or may not get what I want out
of it because because I'm people pleasing I'm in a
place right now with girlfriends. I don't I want to
(50:39):
do it that I've made that clear, right, I want
to do it. The cast wants to do it. But
I believe there is a value on this. It is
and I also know what fifty million will turn over.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
Is insane.
Speaker 5 (50:55):
And so if I can't do it the way that
I think it deserves, why am I doing it? And
so and I haven't come up with yet a story
that I'm excited to tell in a different budget.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
Because guess what that is more energy, just more thinking.
Speaker 5 (51:15):
And I've got to I got forever to do. I
got a book to promote. I got kids, you know,
to raise. I've got I've got a life to live
to I need to have I need to put rest
in there. I got tennis to play, you know, I
got you know. And so I have a story that
I think would be amazing. And I think and also,
this is another thing. What's gonna make peoples all these
(51:38):
markers like the film's got to be this to get
people out of the house. So I need fifty million
dollars to get people out of the house, and not
just I don't want you to watch it on a streamer.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
I want to say, I want to wear Joan.
Speaker 5 (51:50):
I want to see Joan outfits. I want to see
Tony outfits. I want to see Maya outfits. I want
to see Lynn outfits. I want to see Williams suits.
I want to see I want to see people come
out and celebrate something we've been loving for twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (52:08):
And I want to have a party. I want us
to go out afterwards.
Speaker 5 (52:12):
You'm saying, I want us to talk about I want
us to show up with our friends, this.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
Friend group, that friend group. Yeah, I want that. I
want us to I want those ladies to be at
Canned killing the red carpet, like killing it.
Speaker 5 (52:29):
That's everything they deserve and you deserve it exactly. So
right now, I think fifty million is a bargain. Otherwise
I'll use my energy and I'll go maybe write another book,
or I'll go do something else, another storyline. I know
how i'd like to end girlfriends and how I would
like to experience it.
Speaker 3 (52:47):
Could mar Brock and Kill be comfortable with not giving
girlfriends the.
Speaker 5 (52:52):
Proper yeah closure, because mar Brock and Quill gave it all.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
What about us?
Speaker 5 (52:58):
No? No, but no, But I know, I know so
then okay, so then what we're gonna start off, go
fundme right here?
Speaker 1 (53:06):
We can we get Can we get a million people
to give five dollars?
Speaker 6 (53:11):
I think people would do that for you and girlfriends
so easily, especially with the new wave of like the
Netflix and people sitting down and rewatching it again. I
don't think that you think we don't know if you
want to do that. But I think that the.
Speaker 5 (53:22):
If I, if I can, I don't want, guys, what
I don't. What I can't do is go build a
whole campaign to go get I don't when I think
about my time, the amount of if you said, if
you guys said right now, we can go online and
say a million dollars for five a million people for
five bucks, and we have fifty million marble, go make that.
Speaker 1 (53:43):
But but if I I'm not begging, no, let me
show up.
Speaker 5 (53:50):
I think when we honor our artists, our storytellers, we
are the people who help build culture, honor us, invest
in storytelling.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
Invest in.
Speaker 5 (54:01):
Support so that we can all eat. And because what's
here's here's here's the truth about storytelling. It's it's a
great asset you build girlfriends and to that in.
Speaker 1 (54:12):
The economy will shift.
Speaker 5 (54:13):
People will buy outfits, they'll buy tickets, they'll buy merch,
they'll buy dinner reservations, they'll go it, go, go to
the movie several times because they want to be Joan,
Tony Maya, Anlin rebirth of an era people's lives. Yes,
and it's right in alignment with all the fashion people
who are putting out ninety stuff. Right, it makes no sense.
(54:34):
So then it has to ask you why, because there's
a constant devaluation of black women, and as a black woman,
I cannot.
Speaker 1 (54:42):
Participate in that devaluation. I agree with you.
Speaker 3 (54:47):
It's gonna happen.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
Man's gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (54:49):
I know it's gonna happen.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
It's gonna happen.
Speaker 5 (54:50):
That's something you have been one of my biggest supporters.
And I want to say, always say thank you to you.
Always think can ash you just so I can.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
What is it about girlfriends that you love so much?
Speaker 3 (55:02):
Well, you know me and my wife and together. Oh,
it'll be twenty years this year, congrat twenty.
Speaker 4 (55:07):
I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
I can't remember that.
Speaker 3 (55:09):
But when she was in college, she's gonna kill them.
And I used to go and I used to go.
Speaker 1 (55:13):
I used to go to her house let him come
back to life.
Speaker 3 (55:16):
She would always be watching it. Oh and so I
just started watching it, and for me, it was like
it was kind of like how we talk about secrets.
It was like women, black women especially letting men in
on their secrets. Yeah, I'm like, these are the kind
of conversations y'all be having. So then it becomes a
conversation start between you and the women in your life.
So it's just something that I ended up having an
(55:37):
emotional attachment to.
Speaker 4 (55:39):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (55:40):
I love that. Well, Yeah, join us. Thank you for
always having you guys, always.
Speaker 5 (55:46):
Make me feel safe, welcomed, and I really appreciate you guys,
and congrat again. Congrats to what you're doing and thanks
for me, thanks for letting me a part of your
journey as well.
Speaker 3 (55:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (55:56):
Or brought the kill Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
The Revelation to Dion Daphne out right now and there's
an audiobook too.
Speaker 1 (56:01):
Oh yes, the wand ways can we shout her out?
She did an amazing job. Yes, yes, yes, it's the
Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (56:07):
Good morning, hold.
Speaker 5 (56:08):
Up every day a week ago.
Speaker 1 (56:10):
Click your ass up the Breakfast Club. You'll finish the
y'all done,
The Breakfast Club News
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Charlamagne Tha God
DJ Envy
Jess Hilarious
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