Fatima Robinson

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Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to West Love Supreme.

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Speaker 2: Your host, Quest Love and with Me is the award winning team inst of all the teams.

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Speaker 1: How else it going?

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Speaker 3: Like you?

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Speaker 1: You look awfully glowy tod that.

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Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I'm on I'm on the new fancy camera excuse so I'm feeling I might be feeling myself quite a little bit.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I was about to say, you got that Lenny Kravitz on the show, A little bit about yourself today?

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Speaker 1: What is it?

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Speaker 4: I knew Fatima was gonna come on here looking correct, so I had to make sure I was, you know, far with my sense?

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Speaker 1: Okay? And what are you wearing this evening, Steve.

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Speaker 5: I'm wearing pretty much the same thing as for a team of the time, but.

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Speaker 3: You have to take it off the shoulders.

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Speaker 6: Oh God, like the surface of the shoulder.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for tim yea.

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Speaker 2: By the way, Steve, my older family members you can tell they're older because of what they told me.

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Speaker 1: They was like, Yo, how come that boy always smokes? Reefer? Wait what was your response?

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Speaker 3: No?

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Speaker 1: I was laughing at.

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Speaker 7: Them because I was like, you didn't tell was good? Once?

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Speaker 1: Some.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like, wait to hear about me. Good to see you in your uh your old spot.

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Speaker 1: Bill.

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Speaker 6: Yep, I'm back in the studio. I'm I'm wearing Stitch fixed. Thank you very much, little proud from stitch Ficks. I don't look like Fatima, but that's okay.

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Speaker 1: Uh, I'm good.

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Speaker 6: I'm happy to be home.

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Speaker 1: I was waiting, all right, how you doing. I'm great, you.

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Speaker 7: Know, happy anniversary and Mirror have you anniversary?

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Speaker 4: You and Fante and all the okay players have you anniversary.

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Speaker 2: That's right, big twenty five. We are twenty five years old. Font Tikolo, okay, you got your try sweater on?

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Speaker 1: I see yeah, man, yeah, I have to for the tribe.

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Speaker 8: Man we in the present sorority tonight.

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Speaker 1: Right, I see? So, speaking of which, ladies and gentlemen.

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Speaker 2: Similar to the ll cool J episode in which I admit it that maybe I purposely slowed down the pursuit of real camaraderie because I knew I wanted my first real conversation to be on this platform, you know. And that's just not for self serving purposes. I just I know that the first month and a half of a friendship with me with a fellow industry peer person is kind of going a result to a lot of weird, nerdy questions, and I've been told it's rather annoying. So that's why this platform exists, and today our guest is no exception to that.

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Speaker 1: I will say that there's.

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Speaker 2: Literally no human being in this industry that I personally am curious about the path of their journey from soup to nuts that they've taken tactically. Every iconic video worth its grain of salt that has been on MTV or BT or you know, now YouTube is how we get it has either been you know, blessed by her presence. If we're telling back in the day later with her expertise in choreography. Later as she pivots into directing not to mention any wild moment that we've seen with dancing, nine times out of ten, you're either watching her personal blueprint or I'm almost certain that her disciples have you know, have carried the baton.

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Speaker 1: I would be remiss if I didn't say.

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Speaker 2: That a lot of the praise and the credit that I've personally been getting for the Hip Hop fifty celebration, things that happened that the Grammys and that happened again with the special in December. I'm telling you right now, our guest today was show enough the anchor or a lot of that, Like I got the glory of just like, hey, this song and that song and call this guy up and clear that sample. But in terms of just like dealing with the headaches, not only as a creator and running her own squad, but you know, she damn near had to be a life coach just to keep certain group members from corn at each other's throats, because you got to understand, like, you know, a lot of these group members broke up. You know, most groups don't last forty years. So I have so many questions to ask our guest today. Please welcome to Quest of Supreme for Tima Robinson.

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Speaker 9: Finally, Oh yes, exactly all right, I'm gonna ask you the question now without giving it all away.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I've been kind of open on this platform.

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Speaker 2: You know, I mean, nothing I say winds up being headlines in any of the blocking sphere whatever. So we're even though we're award winning, like we're not gotcha journalism. But I've talked about how stressful these situations can be, and I've only had to deal with two of them, which you know, of course the Hip Hop fifty things. But you, on the other hand, have to deal with you know. I meant, Lord knows how many Super Bowl halftimes you've been involved in every award show that we've seen, and walking away from Hip Hop fifty, in which I will say that watching it on television, I said to myself like, oh.

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Speaker 1: But being there that night, it's intense. There was look, I'm about full transparency.

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Speaker 2: I personally was sort of a block away from depression really well, because the thing was, it was like I vowed to never subject myself to that level of stress ever again in this lifetime. The first time doing the fifteen minute Grammy thing, when I landed it in New York, I lost a tooth fell out. I went straight to the dentist, and part of my resistance to coming back to it for a two hour version was no, like, why would I ever want to do that to myself? But the thing is is that I only have to experience that twice. I'm almost certain you have to deal with that eight to nine times a year. Yeah, Ward show every So my first question to you why even bother, like, why why do you do this?

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Speaker 1: Why?

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Speaker 3: Oh, my gosh, No, it's the best. I love finding the solution to the problem. I get off on that. So because I get off on that, I'm like, bring it to me, Like I love when it's like a fire, and I'm like, oh, put that fire out, fire another fire, put it out, put it out. I love it. I live for that.

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Speaker 2: I was going to say, and I've shared the story about us having an emergency some six minutes oh yeah, six minutes before we're live on the air and everything's falling apart, and I looked at you and you just you did the zen thing that I've never seen before, and I was just like, I gotta know what Fatima is doing in her life because I was having a pan even after it was over. I had a minor panic attack at the end of the first Grammys thing.

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Speaker 1: Because I was unaware that Uzzi came on and saved us.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so well he didn't, Yeah he.

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Speaker 2: That was I mean not he put a nice cherry at the end of the But you really.

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Speaker 3: Fought for that moment to happen, which was really great. And you know the other moments I had ever experienced something like that, someone dropping out on live TV while we were actually in the moment of it that was new to me. But at a certain point it just with hip hop, nothing is surprising. And I have to tell a lot of these executives, like, you know, they'll be, oh my god, this is happening, and this is happening, and I'm like, it's hip hop. It's gonna be okay, just give it a moment. We're gonna figure it out, you know. And it's just I grew up with hip hop. It's what I know, It's how I've been trained, and you know, we always figure it out.

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Speaker 4: Can I just ask out on a number sense, we're talking about how many artists and how many dancers for the hip Hop fifty fifth the Grammy I.

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Speaker 1: Only had to deal with the artists. She has to deal with the artists and the dancers.

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Speaker 3: That's why I'm asking artists, dancers, managers, wardrobe, lighting, production design. I gotta answer all the questions.

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Speaker 10: Oh so that's hundreds of people, Okay, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: Started at the beginning. Where are you from? Where were you born?

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Speaker 3: I was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, and I moved to LA when I was five years old. Oh wow, yeah, wow, Little Rock, Arkansas And every summer I go back to Little Rock and be with my family there.

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Speaker 7: What part of LA did you move to?

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Speaker 3: I lived everywhere we first landed in Compton. I lived in Inglewood, in Harthorn and El Segondo and San Pedro, and I lived all over the place in La.

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Speaker 1: See, I thought you was straight up Brooklyn.

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Speaker 3: Everybody. Everybody thinks I'm from New York, but no, and I really not. Until like five years ago, I really rode for LA. But now I just ride for California because I love Ohi and I'm just out of city.

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Speaker 2: Can you sell me on that, because a lot of my friends are moving to Ohi and I want to know what's up there before.

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Speaker 7: It's light over there? Is that what you're about to say? That's what it looks like.

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Speaker 3: I was going to take you guys out to look at the mountains, and I was checking to see if the sunset. But the clouds are really low right now, they're covering the mountains. It's beautiful here, and it's just a wonderful war text of good energy.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 3: It's called the Valley of the Moon, and the moon hits really beautiful here. It's not that far from La only an hour and a half. But it's in nature and it's just gorgeous.

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Speaker 1: See.

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Speaker 2: My only concern is that as a person who insisted on getting on the first flight, and most of my flights are.

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Speaker 1: Five am flights.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and that basically means that I would have to leave your house at like one in the morning just to get the Lax by three.

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Speaker 7: Is that your airport?

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Speaker 1: That's not right?

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Speaker 3: Well, there's Santa Barber Airport, but there's not as many flights out, a lot of more connections, you know, so it's easier to just go out of.

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Speaker 10: Lax sacrifice the peace.

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Speaker 3: We in the peace time of life.

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Speaker 1: All right, you're selling me on it. Yeah. A lot of my friends just.

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Speaker 2: Up and left New York, LA and they all went to OHI, And I'm like, what the hell is that OHI that I don't know about?

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Speaker 1: Is it like more like a hippie commune or no?

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Speaker 3: I mean there were a lot of hippies that came here back in the day. It's really changing over. There's really great restaurants and stuff. It's just you know, you it's it's just being in the country. But there's also really amazing people here. So you have really great dinner parties at friends' houses and you know, you can you know, see horses walking down the street and go on hikes, and it's just a better quality of life, you know.

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Speaker 2: I would like to know if you can remember this, like, what is the first creative thing that you remember putting together?

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Speaker 11: The first creative thing I remember putting together, It would probably be I have two younger sisters, and so when my mom would have guests over, we were the entertainment.

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Speaker 3: So I would put together dance moves on my sisters. And that was probably the first creative because I would you know, I would dress us and we would put towels on our head because I thought I was Darsel from Solid Gold.

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Speaker 1: Away dar Way.

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Speaker 3: You couldn't tell me nothing, you know, so we get in her heels and we were the you know, the whole performance. And that when I did Dream Girls, it was such a trip because I felt like I was doing the poses that I used to do with my two younger sisters.

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Speaker 4: Yoh, that's so interesting. You just gave me a whole memory of like little Girls. We used to choreograph things on the playground, like I remember steps doing things to like Lisa, Lisa and colch jam and that was like the thing that just hit me with a memory.

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Speaker 3: That's yeah, totally that that was it.

00:13:07
Speaker 2: This this is the third time that someone's randomly dropped Darcel Wayne's name.

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Speaker 1: You gotta find this woman.

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Speaker 3: Because I'm in contact with her.

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Speaker 7: What of course you are? Oh, I can't wait to get to this list of dancers she's still in contact with.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I know that.

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Speaker 2: You know we we hold Sheryl's song of Soul Train up in high honor, but you know we we also had Darcel Wayne too, And she doesn't get enough props because she definitely carried all of solid gold on her back for a number of years.

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Speaker 1: Yes, they even got a second black dancer, so they.

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Speaker 3: Actually created the in sag they created the principal dancer because of her. Oh, and principal dancers get paid different than the and so because she was so amazing and such an individual, and they kept giving her solo, they said, we have to figure this out, and she's she created the principal dancer.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, not knowing that you're from California, I want to know what your life in dance was before you became a professional dancer. So yeah, you basically just walk us through like where would you hang in California?

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Speaker 1: Like were you an Uncle Jam person? Where you Like?

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Speaker 3: Definitely I was too young for Uncle Jam's army, but I listened to all that Egyptian lover and all of that. I would go to, you know, at every high school they had dance competition, so I would enter the dance competitions and win there. But what really did it for me is I graduated high school at sixteen and I started going to this club Paradise twenty four where they would have dance contests and one year, girls from who danced for BBD straight Ahead they won. It was a five thousand dollars damce, so everybody would enter the next year it was it was they were called gt I at the time, and that was far side. Later on we won. We won my dance tree called a Feminine Touch. We won that year and that's where John John Singleton saw us when that year and came backstage and was like, I'm gonna put you all in my movie. I'm gonna put you all the movie. We were like, yeah, whatever, and he ended up putting us in Boys in the Hood Is Extras.

00:15:31
Speaker 1: What scene? What was it in What's scene?

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Speaker 3: The barbecue scene.

00:15:35
Speaker 1: Ah okay, yeah, okay.

00:15:39
Speaker 2: So the relationship with John obviously, let you remember the time later on correct, correct.

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Speaker 3: When he kept asking for choreographer. He kept coming up with my name, and he's like, I know that girl and call for that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And had you ever choreographed anything prior to that? Oh? Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So when back in the day, when you hooked up with the hip hop artists, you naturally just made up their steps. We didn't know that there was an actual job called choreographer. We you got with Big Daddy Kane, like I used to dance with him with Scooba and scrap, you know, we and we would we would kind of we had the market locked down because it was Big Les and Josie in New York and it was me and Titi in l A. And so they would call us be like, oh heavy d you looking for dancers. So we would fly out on fake tickets and then land in New York and then dance for he fake tickets is when you didn't have to have and show an ID and you can just be you can that, said John Moses, and you give them the ticket. Oh, back in the day, you guys didn't know that forget.

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Speaker 2: Huey Lewis once told us about just like sneaking on the plane and like, well.

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Speaker 7: I mean everything was hand written back then too.

00:17:03
Speaker 10: So everything.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we you know, somebody there was a guy who had a credit card scheme and we'd pay him, you know, one hundred dollars, he'd get us a ticket. It was just a whole It was the wild, wild West back in the day. But we would land there and then we danced for heavy and then we call them, you know, hey, so and so is looking for dancers in LA, and then they do the same thing and come to La.

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Speaker 7: So wait, so let me.

00:17:27
Speaker 4: Was this no conversation you said, you guys didn't know you were doing choreography, But like even for like the R and B videos with some of those choreographers, there was no conversation about in between the No.

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Speaker 3: They would literally I remember, like, you know, when I danced the big Daddy came, we'd stay at his house and the bodyguard would come and come on. It's rehearsal. We rehearsed his basement and you know, and we'd make up the routine and we'd go on stage and you know, we would do our number and we were happy, and no one questioned where the dance was supposed to come from, because there was no place for it to come from other than us, Because there was no unless you were in the clubs. You didn't know how to dance hip hop unless you were watching MTV or video jukebox and recording the steps and like learning at home. Like there was no place there was. All the choreographers were jazz. That was Michael Peters and Debbie. They weren't mess That's what I was wondering. They were not messing with us. Okay, No, it was just two different worlds. So by the time I got to Michael, he was so excited about this hip hop dance he had been seeing and hearing about. He was like, I want to learn it all.

00:18:47
Speaker 1: So dope.

00:18:49
Speaker 2: I sort of correlated with video directors. I mean, I would say that maybe Lionel Martin was the kind of the first generation of hip hop directors that would feature dancers and whatnot. So like we take it for granted now where I mean, it's not that I see dancers all that much in this environment, but who, in your opinion like really kickstarted the concept of like, okay, I need two dances in order to make my package complete.

00:19:21
Speaker 1: Like as far as you're concerned, Yeah, I don't know.

00:19:25
Speaker 3: Who who first did it. You know, it was dance. Was just part of the culture, like everybody had two dances with them. And let me tell you my Lionel Martin story. I auditioned for him and it was here in La and it was at his hotel. And when I got there, there were two girls there. One's mother had talked her and to being the choreographer, and you know, he explained the treatment to us. He then went she said, well, let me see you guys dance, and one girl kind of complained about the carpet and stuff, and another girl complained about the tape. Player was like, sped the song up and she said, oh, it won't be so fast. And I got up and just bust whatever I knew, and he stopped the music and he pointed at me and said, you're going to be the choreographer and you two are going to be the dances because you adapted to the situation the best. And I was like okay. And literally Rosie Perez had to tell me how she poked. She called me out the blue and was like, you have to call your sofa a choreographer and you have to charge for that, and I'm just like ah, So I went and looked up how to spell the words. I didn't even know how to spell it.

00:20:50
Speaker 7: Did she helped me figure out how much to charge.

00:20:53
Speaker 3: Well, then I got an agent to help me.

00:20:58
Speaker 2: How hard was it to navigate toxicity treatment in the late eighties and early shit, if I really want to keep it a but maybe up until until twenty nineteen, now twenty three, yesterday, yesterday, tomorrow and tomorrow.

00:21:19
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, I mean it was tougher when I was younger. You know, I got my shirt snatched off from a rapper while I was on tour with Big Daddy Kane and jay Z at the time was his hype man, and he had to calm me down and you know, make sure I was okay. So it was wild, but most guys, you know, most guys were respectful. I think when alcohol too much, alcohol and drugs kind of got involved, and that's where you just had to watch the room. You know. It was all fun and games until you know, someone drank a little too much and then you had to be like, okay, I think it's time to exit. I think I'm you know, so it was really just about being aware of your surroundings and not just not doing dumb stuff.

00:22:10
Speaker 7: You know, how does that translate as the mother hitting it?

00:22:13
Speaker 4: Because as a choreographer from the outside, it always it also feels like you're somewhat of a mother hen to all the other dancers.

00:22:20
Speaker 10: So how do you deal with I guess I want.

00:22:24
Speaker 4: Say, mentoring them in that way or protecting them in that way.

00:22:29
Speaker 2: I mean, the only way to describe it is like a Beth hand partisan, like someone a figurehead to make sure that you guys are okay.

00:22:38
Speaker 3: No, no, we've been looking out for ourselves, looking out for ourselves.

00:22:44
Speaker 4: Did you have to become that person? That's what I was asking, like, did you have to become that person for dancers at a certain point in your career?

00:22:50
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think I think we all look out for each other. And yeah, I mean there's times where the dance just do need someone to speak up for them. So I do you know, I often do that, But I think now it's such a well doiled machine. I kind of already have preempting the things that could happen, and I you know, we we have writers, we have things that you know, to make sure that they're comfortable in the room and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, but in the beginning, in the beginning, in the beginning of it, you know, we didn't have nothing. We were just figuring it out.

00:23:31
Speaker 2: Uh, were dancers unionized back then, No, they were.

00:23:36
Speaker 3: You were in SAG, but you had to do a certain amount of TV work to get into SAG, and eventually we all did because of great shows like the Arsenio Hall Show and in Living Color and stuff like that, we would you know, we would get put into the union, which was awesome. Yeah, but see music videos and stuff. None of those were unionized, so that was like a slide scale of a rate. You only got that union work whenever you did TV and things like that. But if you were on tour, you know, it was kind of you were fighting for what your weekly rate was going to be.

00:24:11
Speaker 1: I see.

00:24:13
Speaker 2: So again, like if you're with a I don't know who in the late eighties and early nineties was Jankie in terms of like did we get our checks yet?

00:24:23
Speaker 1: Did we get yeah?

00:24:25
Speaker 3: Brown?

00:24:28
Speaker 2: But this sort I'm asking though, would you have to deal with lou Silas or would you have to deal with Bobby Brown or his managers or yeah.

00:24:34
Speaker 3: We would have to deal with managers. I'd have to deal with I remember we he flew us out because he was really territorial with his dancers. And so we were in Atlanta and we were living in a wing of the house and you know, he was dating Whitney and I just remember like he gave us a three hundred z to drive. So it went all to all the clubs and it was great. But I was like, you know, cool, we'll come down, but we have bills, so you have the pair like our carnos and stuff. And he's like yeah, yeah, yeah. And so the card notes came around and he didn't pay, and I was like, we gotta go packed up those bags. And I was like, there's a certain mixed a lot of video we got audition for late we did missed. We missed the audition, but it was baby got back.

00:25:19
Speaker 12: What no, yeah, yeah, but yeah, it's it's all kinds of stories.

00:25:30
Speaker 3: Man.

00:25:30
Speaker 7: I'm sorry, quick dancer check in. You said Bobby Brown.

00:25:33
Speaker 4: Remember they kind of had the faid So that was that was That's who that wait, that was who there was, there was his dances.

00:25:47
Speaker 7: I was just curious about.

00:25:49
Speaker 2: I was gonna say with the Bobby album though, you guys said that Soultray in episode where it was like twenty on stage.

00:25:55
Speaker 1: Correct, I'm one of those.

00:25:59
Speaker 2: I just I can't even imagine the time period in which no one thought about budget or everything was just and gying and big and all those things. Yeah, well, what would you what would you say is your first real professional for ray into music videos?

00:26:21
Speaker 3: Definitely remember the time. I mean I was twenty one when I.

00:26:24
Speaker 1: Did that one, So that was your first video?

00:26:28
Speaker 3: No, that was my first, Like that was what put my name into a lot of people's mouths. You know, I was choreographing beforehand. But when I did that, because that was a event that people sat down with their families and watched together, you know, it was definitely something that was I didn't even I don't think going into it. I was so excited to work with Michael. I loved him growing up. Our birthdays were the same day. I wanted to send them flowers when his hair cut off fire, begging my mom please. You know, I was in love with him like that, and so to do this video was really I had to kind of, you know, grow up really quickly in that moment, and but it was really when it came out, was just like wow. But the wild part about it is I had to go back to dancing, you know, for the Mary J. Bliges and the R and B and hip hop artists that I knew of the past. I could have like had ego and then like, oh I'm at the top, where do I go now? And I went right back to hip hop.

00:27:34
Speaker 2: He described the whole process like how long did it take the phone call? And how how did you map out what what was it going to be?

00:27:43
Speaker 3: Well? John called me and you know, he was describing the video and how it's going to be Egyptian and he has a mom and Eddie Murphy and Magic Johnson and I'm like hmmm, and he's going through the whole concept. I'm like mm hmm, okay, wow, it sounds great. And we go to get off the phone. I was like, wait, wait, wait, who's the artist And he says, I guess he thought I read the trades or something or just happened, you know, I knew, and he said it's Michael Jackson, and I went okay, okay, and then I got off the phone.

00:28:17
Speaker 1: I was like.

00:28:21
Speaker 3: I was running around my house.

00:28:24
Speaker 4: Now when he ran it down to you, did he say that it was going to start with like the recreation of the Coming to America situation? Because I really want to know from the nitty to the gritty about this video that was.

00:28:34
Speaker 3: Already in there, and it's funny. I was cleaning out my storage and it was scripted and it had storyboards to it. You know, I have the original script of the Remember the Time video that I kept all these years.

00:28:49
Speaker 7: Did the John Singleton thing you see?

00:28:51
Speaker 4: That would have been so dope to see? So okay, okay, go Ahea'm sorry. I have major questions about remember that?

00:28:59
Speaker 1: So, like how many days did you have to prepare?

00:29:02
Speaker 2: Like how do you even figure out like what Egyptian moves to do?

00:29:08
Speaker 1: And the offer story.

00:29:09
Speaker 3: Well, because at the time I had been going back and forth working in New York, going to the clubs in New York, clubs in La I really I loved do to Stretch and Henry and like all those dancers, and I knew I wanted them to be a part of it because they brought a whole nother flavor to it.

00:29:26
Speaker 2: And so you know, we had auditions, by the way, they're from the Latin Quarter.

00:29:32
Speaker 3: Yes, we had auditions and it was hundreds of dancers down the street, and I just I couldn't believe it. I had never been involved in something so big. It was the first time I had hired so many dancers. I think we hired fifty dancers, and you know, you do the auditions from there, you whittle it down.

00:29:56
Speaker 7: Hold on, let me pause you.

00:29:57
Speaker 4: Right before you talked about the dancers, however, you made sure that there were specific dancers in the building for sure.

00:30:06
Speaker 7: Can you talk about it?

00:30:08
Speaker 3: Well, I definitely wanted all the hip hop dancers who were doing things at the time, you know, Josie and Leslie and Hitch, my dance partner, and then some of the girls who danced for Bobby was in there with us, and then Stretch brought his whole crew with loose joints and all the all the dancers you know, came because we wanted it to feel authentic to our our vibe, you know, and we just had fun. You know, Michael doesn't like to count when you dance. He likes to emulate the beat. He brings in this big speaker, so you really feel the music in your chest and so you know, you instead of counting like one, two, three, four, five and six seven, you have to like you have to you know, emulate the beat. And I love that. And he really set the tone for my professionalism. You know, he was just such a perfectionist. And you know we were urgos. You know how virgos are guys, Michael Beyonce, like, we're all we're like perfectionist freaks. So it was wonderful.

00:31:29
Speaker 2: I watched Michael work out with Casper and Jeffrey Daniels, Casper and I forget the third person that's in that that trilogy when they were working on the Bad Video, Like they all worked together.

00:31:44
Speaker 1: They were trying out ideas.

00:31:45
Speaker 2: Mich was set up with the tripod and they were just basically dance battle and piecemeal what was going to happen? Yeah, One, how are you putting that together? Two, the dancers that you're choosing, like, if I'm assuming what I call the five six, seven eighths, like anyone from like the Lester Wilson School of dancing, the previous Michael generation, Lester Wilson, Michael Peters, like professional Broadway choreographers. If you're dealing with dancers who are more in street oriented.

00:32:20
Speaker 1: How does the memory work? Because even when.

00:32:23
Speaker 2: I'm giving songs, like I gotta listen to that shit like at least twenty times before, Like are you videotaping it?

00:32:29
Speaker 1: Yeah? That way.

00:32:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, we didn't really have that back in the day. No, we we used to have. Gosh how many we may have had, like a whole week of rehearsal with that, whereas now I maybe get a week of rehearsal to do a whole damn show, you know.

00:32:49
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I know.

00:32:50
Speaker 3: Things move slower. Back then we were working with We were working with cassette tapes. You have to rewind the music play.

00:33:00
Speaker 1: Know.

00:33:00
Speaker 3: I laugh at dancers now because everything is so digital fast, like you have to everything is quit like this instant, and so it was just a different pace. And what I loved is Michael was just down to learn, Like he wasn't trying to like do what he's done in the past. He wanted to get all of because he couldn't go to clubs to see where this dance was all being done. We turned the dance studio into a club so that he can experience that. You know, we put on other music and hang out and just have fun and dance.

00:33:45
Speaker 1: Well, y'all like dance circle battle and all that stuff, just.

00:33:48
Speaker 3: Dance yet all of it. He loved it.

00:33:51
Speaker 8: I wanted to ask for team, what your comment earlier about, you know how now everything moves faster. What effect do you see like took and social media having on a dance.

00:34:03
Speaker 3: I actually love it because it keeps dance alive. You know, it used to be, you know, dance steps were getting shared in the clubs, or dance steps were getting shared at barbecues, you know, as we were younger. But now I love that dance steps are getting shared on platforms like TikTok. It's definitely easier for me in my life. Like I can literally sit with my team and we can laugh and learn all life. It is so much fun to go through all the dances and what's happening right now, what the kids are doing. Like the fact that I have an insight to that through my phone is so amazing. So I feel like it allows me to stay current. No, and I love it.

00:34:51
Speaker 8: Do you have any in your in your personal life free time? Is there any particular style of dance that you like, you know, if it's salsa or you know, anything like ballroom anything like that.

00:35:04
Speaker 3: You know, I used to take different styles of dances to go with my natural movement. Like for the Aliya video, I took flamenco classes to go with that. I felt like argue that somebody. I felt like Timberland's beats had that flamenco sound to it. I did a tangle with doctor Dre before. So I've used to take classes right right, So, but now I'm not doing all that. I got assistance, I got, you know, people I lean on for I'm you know, it's like an athlete, Like my body is sore, you know, I like, I'm just too stepping. I'm like, I'm like, I'm telling people I'm gonna do this once. You better watch.

00:36:00
Speaker 1: Two steps.

00:36:01
Speaker 3: My sister's drill it and drill it and drilling. I'm not doing all that. But every now and then I get to go to clubs or especially if i'm if I'm outside of l A, I definitely still love to feel what's going on, what people are responding to musically and how they're moving in the clubs and stuff. So I still go out every now and then just to check it out.

00:36:26
Speaker 2: Like once you jump into that pool and the only I can compare it to is DJing Like I'm now realizing that I'm now three generations removed from the music that I'm used to. So it's almost like now I'm just studying, like I'm now the DJ I hate, where like I will go to a night club and shazam everything and study what the kids are listening to. That sort of thing. For you, though, how are you able to know what's ahead of the curve, Because I'm also certain that you're dealing with looking in your rearview mirror at like, oh, who's behind me? Like who might get that job or that sort of thing.

00:37:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I'm not worried about what nobody else is doing. And I actually train them and then they I train them and let them go. And so all my proteges are like, you know, AJ came from my camp, who did usher? Charm came from my camp? Who did you know does do on weekend? And all the folks and so Sean Bankhead came up under me, and so it's it's I love doing that, I love being a mentor and all that and go. But really for me, that's the I think that a mirror is like you're tapped in and you stay curious, and so am I. You know, I'm tapped in. I know when things are shifting, when culture is shifting. When like I see it, I can sniff it out, you know, and I'm like, ooh, what's that? Oh what are they doing? You know? And so for me even and I also I also hire specialty people in that. Like I just did Burner Boys, so I made sure they brought somebody in from Nigeria with them. And then I brought this girl in from New York who she's a young girl who's she's African American, but she came in and just knew all the afrobeat dances. So that was our warm up. Our warm up was all the afrobeat steps and I let her lead the warm up. And so really I kind of bring the club to me. And then that way all the dancers like show me what's new, and they you know, keep me, they keep me fresh.

00:38:42
Speaker 4: When did you really become the fan of dance to where you started exploring in your journey. I watched the interview where you were talking about doing one of the Black Eyed Peas videos, and you look into the Indian and Thai dance. But I'm curious because you mentioned that, like you didn't study it and you just went to work. So at some point you started opening your mind too.

00:39:03
Speaker 3: Yeah. One thing that I wanted to do from the very beginning is I went to an event. It's so funny, this is so wild. I just gave mister Copeland an award the other night, and when she came out into the stage, she did a bow to me, and I almost lost it because when I was younger, I would go to events like that and people would introduce me as a choreographer and someone would say, oh, where did you Where did you study? And I'm like, oh, I'm self taught. I'm a hip hop choreographer and they're like oh, and they walk away from me. And they just didn't see hip hop as a true art form of dance. And so I was on a mission of how that was my goal, Like people were gonna appreciate hip hop the same way they appreciate all these other dances styles that have been here forever. Because once I the minute I entered into the and minute I decided I was going to be a choreographer, I started going to African dance class and that's when I realized how close hip hop was to our lineage of African dance that actually we would do moves and I'm like, oh my god, it's the same thing, but it had meaning to it and all the things. So for me, exploring other styles of dance, other styles of street dance to me as well, just to mix with my version of street dance. And one of the reasons too, why I'm a choreographer is because I wasn't I'm self taught. I did not come up trained, so it was harder for me to catch on to routines. Tony Basil gave me my first audition for Young MC when I was seventeen years old, and.

00:40:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, was it bust the whole.

00:40:53
Speaker 3: It was. I believe I was auditioning for the tour. I did bust the move Yeah, but she was and all the hip hop clubs back in the day strong and so so I just really I wanted to venture out and learn new things, like I took belly dancing because hip hop is so you know, it's so hard and you know and tough, and you know the movement. I wanted to soften my movement up and learn how to teach a female artist how to be pretty and soft. So I took belly dancing classes where the arms and the hands were so elegant and beautiful. You know, I wanted to offset it with hip hop. So that was just something that I decided to do because I wanted to, you know, explore different ways of movement.

00:41:49
Speaker 2: Were you able to form any sort of bonding with like the Bill T. Joneses or the Paula Kelly's or the Charlie Atkins or the Jameson like.

00:42:03
Speaker 4: James When did they bow down and say you even Jeffrey Holder like Jeffree.

00:42:08
Speaker 3: Older, Jeffree Holder.

00:42:10
Speaker 7: Jeffree Holder, were you ever?

00:42:14
Speaker 11: No?

00:42:14
Speaker 1: Is it hard to penetrate that that club?

00:42:17
Speaker 3: It was it was the club and they were not feeling they weren't thinking about me.

00:42:21
Speaker 7: This is but you know, this is strange.

00:42:23
Speaker 3: No, I was gonna say, I see Michael Peters driving every now and then.

00:42:27
Speaker 13: I'd be like, you're taking their jobs away from the But did you know, like Michael Peters whole like hip hop connection, and then for sure in the whole Prodigy.

00:42:38
Speaker 7: Thing and Ben Veren and the things, I didn't even be Yeah, okay, so that's just it's just interesting.

00:42:44
Speaker 4: That they didn't connect me even with Debbie Allen in a different world and Jasmine Gott and all the things you would have.

00:42:49
Speaker 3: Jasmine was a friend of mine. Jasmin connected with me. Jasmine connected with me.

00:42:55
Speaker 1: You directed that Try May video. That's not try all right?

00:43:08
Speaker 2: We know you the smartest motherfucker filler cut man that that was the one.

00:43:18
Speaker 3: Let go. No. I was young, and it wasn't even like I was taking their jobs. They just weren't in the world of hip hop. I was going to jack the rappers and and making a real with my There was the host of this show called Putting on the Hits, yes back. He used to make reels for actors and I found him and I had n't make a Corey a Dancer reel for me. And I would go to jack the rappers and hand it out to the executives and stuff. These people weren't in this world at all. They do They didn't know anything about So.

00:43:51
Speaker 4: Could you talk about then your relationship with Rosie then, because you did mention her.

00:43:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Rosie was right before me, and you know Rosie, she before Paradise. There was a club funk what was it called reggae funk or funky reggae some so that's where Spike Lee saw her dancing in the club and put her in, you know, do the right thing. So we kind of had a little bit of the same journey in a way. And because she did in Living Color, like she was on the posts of hip hop and she was in it. So she was the one person that would you know, call me out of the blue or that person that I can you know, ask questions two. So it was Rosie for me.

00:44:43
Speaker 2: Have you ever been in this situation in which you're finding out oh maybe maybe like an hour before that your client might have two left feet?

00:44:56
Speaker 3: No, you have rehearsals, So you find that out in rehearsal, and then you just know how to build it all around them. But what I do best is pull out things that they just didn't even realize that they had in them. And I I'm really good at designing things around people. But some people don't you know, don't want to dance and don't feel it, you know, And so I don't push and make people dance. I kind of I'm focused on the entire show and not like trying to force you to do something you don't want to do.

00:45:32
Speaker 2: All right, My last Remember the Time question, because I always wanted to know how much leeway does the artist have to go freestyle because they also have to be the artist and stand out front.

00:45:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so you know, when.

00:45:44
Speaker 2: I watch Remember the Time, I'll see him do it for half a second, and then I'll see him going to his regular Michael Jackson stick and occasionally I remember specifically that point it was like half a second way Michael started doing the yeah, when he was doing like the prep or something, and I was like, oh, he knows modern dancing, because you know, again, like Michael Jackson is such a unique dancer.

00:46:10
Speaker 1: All of his moves are his own.

00:46:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, to be shocked that he knows how to do the rebok or the prep or.

00:46:18
Speaker 1: Him right, but he's there for half a second.

00:46:21
Speaker 2: I always wanted to know, is it a thing where you're just like, look, you stand in the center, do what you do and we'll dance around you.

00:46:27
Speaker 1: Or is he like, no, I want to do the dances that you guys are doing.

00:46:31
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, Michael wanted to do what we were doing, so he was pretty fully choreographed. He had a moment of we broke out into his thing, but he was pretty choreographed the whole video.

00:46:43
Speaker 2: You know it's it's him, So how do you get over just the inhale exhale.

00:46:49
Speaker 3: He's normal because you just know you have a job to do, and you know this is like a pivotal point in your growth and in everything. You just put all that aside, at least for me, That's what I did, and you go in and you do the job you were hired for.

00:47:08
Speaker 2: You know, it's going to be a hell of a pivot question that asked. But I have to know the answer to this question. Tell me, how were you not on airplane after Rock the Boat was finished?

00:47:24
Speaker 3: That is a really good question because we were pretty inseparable and I hung out with her a lot. It's funny there was a record label guy had the only phone that worked there. This was early, early on with cell phone, so when you were out of the country they didn't work. And I called my family this video had come up, so last minute Rocked the Boat that I was missing my grandparents' fiftieth wedding anniversary, and so I everyone was in Arkansas and I was going to go back to Atlanta, where I had a home, and I used his phone to call my family. And they were all still in Arkansas. No one had gone back to Atlanta, and we had had such a good time on the beach the night before the bonfire and all that that I just decided to stay.

00:48:27
Speaker 1: Wow. Wow.

00:48:28
Speaker 2: And but in normal circumstances, you would have been on that flight back.

00:48:34
Speaker 3: I was supposed to be on the plane.

00:48:36
Speaker 7: How long did it take you to answer this question with such ease?

00:48:40
Speaker 3: I mean, it's been so long's yeah, I don't, I don't. I haven't gotten asked some of Leah's stuff in a long time. But I'm I'm healed over that. It was a tough thing to go through, especially because I took the phone call of it all happening, and I had to call her mother, which was really and I had my son was one years old, and to have to call a mother and tell her something like that was just it was a lot.

00:49:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hype had to stop for a good period of time just to process.

00:49:25
Speaker 1: Like, how long did it take you to process.

00:49:27
Speaker 3: Just to Yeah? I think I kind of went heading to work and tried to like just suppress it. And I think it was later in life, but I also I started to realize how I responded to death I was very I would shut down when it came to death, and I didn't want to go to funerals ever, And I would just have this very cold, shutdown thing when it came to people dying. And so at a certain point I had to deal with that because I knew it was surrounded that situation. Is I like I shut off something inside of myself in order to like keep moving forward, because you know a lot of times, even too, people would come up to the street and want to give me a hug, and like I would see it in the eyes of so many people that I was around because I was, you know, just so close to her. They just they just wanted a hug. And I understood it. But it was really tough.

00:50:32
Speaker 8: You know, what was the working relationship like with the Leia when you said we mentioned Billy dance and that's what made me think, Yeah, so like yeah, what was that creative kind of partnership?

00:50:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, Lely was we were like synchronized swimming. If I could be an artist, I would have been her. Like I gave her everything, all of me because it was she was just so wonderful. Her voice was so incredible. She was such an amazing dancer, but such an amazing person, you know, And that's what was so hard about it. It's just she was really really great and just so young and had so much ahead of her, Like we were. I said goodbye to her and I was like, I'll see you in La because we were taking our meeting on the movie Sparkle that she was about to do.

00:51:23
Speaker 2: And wow, was going, oh wow, Yeah, I didn't know she was going to start in Sparkle.

00:51:29
Speaker 3: Yeah wow, No, it's just things lined up, and so it was. It was. She was truly a special being.

00:51:38
Speaker 7: What was your most favorite thing that y'all created together?

00:51:43
Speaker 3: I mean I liked it all. I really did like it all. Are you got somebody? It's so great? You know, try again?

00:51:51
Speaker 1: Like it just resolution was actually my favorite videos.

00:51:55
Speaker 3: Really you need a resolution, You need a Yeah.

00:52:01
Speaker 2: It was a new herd, not like your kid's sister, and like it was like a sophisticated snake and the whole.

00:52:08
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I loved performing one in a million. I love those beats, Like Timberland made you just dance in a different way, you know, when he when he produced Aliyah and came on the scene, it was like that's when Dan shifted. You know, the beats were so incredible and you have to figure out how to hit all those beats, and you know, so fly. But yeah, I was. I have all this old footage because I've digitized now some of my stuff, so I've been looking through and I have like rehearsal footage and audition footage. I have footage just no one's ever seen before of us back in the day. I know, a mirror.

00:52:58
Speaker 1: I had documented every choreographed no.

00:53:02
Speaker 3: Not everything, the earlier stuff. I had this video camera everywhere I went, and then I kind of dropped off and then you know, now my assistance and I we kind of try and document it as much as.

00:53:16
Speaker 1: But document everything.

00:53:17
Speaker 2: Yes, no, I know I'm assuming that your first pivot was directing. But is there a stop in between choreographing and directing.

00:53:26
Speaker 3: Yes, definitely. So for me, I always dance with the artists that I worked with, So when Alia's videos, I'm dancing, and a certain point I had to step out of being a dancer and just be the choreographer so I could see the bigger picture of everything. And that was hard for me because I love to dance, but also it was it was just a transition. And but once I did it and stepped out, it really allowed me to start understanding how so many other things make the choreography so much better, wardrobe and lighting and props and all of that. So I stepped out of there first. And then when I was twenty five, I you know, John would always try and get me in front of the camera. A lot a lot of people were trying to get me in front of the camera, and I just wasn't. I go on auditions and I just wasn't comfortable acting. It just didn't come from the heart like dance did. And but I loved being behind the scenes. So I went and took this course at New York's Film Academy, and that's when I decided doing that course. It was just an eight week, like ten hour a day course. I was the one in class who had been on so many sets and was like, Oh, that's what that means, and that Oh I understand now, Oh that's why that takes so long.

00:54:51
Speaker 7: You know.

00:54:51
Speaker 3: It was such like, Oh, I get it. And from there I just went ahead, that's what I want to do. I want to do I want to be behind the camera. And my first video was mister Vegas headtime. That's the first video I directed.

00:55:12
Speaker 1: Wow wow Yeah.

00:55:15
Speaker 8: So about one thing you talked about, you know, when you turn twenty five, what is the average life span?

00:55:25
Speaker 3: Good question. Yeah, girls go to around thirty six, thirty seven. You know, some push it a little longer, but they have to really do a lot of repair on their bodies after sports. Yeah, it's the same way. And then guys can go to like forty to forty, you know, up in there in their forties. You know, there's something that go longer. But yeah, I definitely around thirty six. I was like, yeah, I'm good on this.

00:56:00
Speaker 8: Other question about one of your uh Mary j Blige, because you whatever?

00:56:05
Speaker 1: Are you responsible for the Mary jo the Mary? Yes? Awesome question.

00:56:12
Speaker 3: Awesome, No, that's Mary. That's that's all Mary.

00:56:22
Speaker 2: That's the greatest question to ask of this damn podcast, one hundred years of podcast. I wouldn't I wouldn't even thought to ask that question. Maybe two or three weeks ago, did you happen to see the Saturday Night Live clip in which Julius Styles came on Weekend Update to recreate or save the last dance?

00:56:48
Speaker 7: Oh my god?

00:56:50
Speaker 2: Oh yeah it was well, I know you choreographed that.

00:56:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I didn't even know that. Dude, every thing she's done everything president.

00:57:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, I did that one year.

00:57:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, they know, they like it's it's it was a thing in which one of the cast members, you know, was was doing an ode to it, and then suddenly Julia walked so next to her, and then they started doing it dance together and not stuff.

00:57:24
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:57:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well I.

00:57:25
Speaker 3: Can't wait to see that. I'm gonna look that up.

00:57:28
Speaker 2: Was that was that the first movie you've done? Your first feature film?

00:57:36
Speaker 3: What's that my first feature? I think so other than like dancing for stuff, uh, to choreograph, I think maybe that was my first feature choreographing. I was responsible for her having a little head wrap on.

00:57:54
Speaker 4: So we blame you for that that.

00:57:58
Speaker 7: Okay, you're lucky. It's twenty five I don't know.

00:58:00
Speaker 10: Okay, twenty five years.

00:58:02
Speaker 1: Don't even act like you weren't You weren't watching.

00:58:06
Speaker 4: Watch you know, I didn't watch that video. I was way too militant back then.

00:58:08
Speaker 1: I was the word you were mmmmmm.

00:58:11
Speaker 4: But I appreciated it for what it was. That was okay, washing fatima, There.

00:58:18
Speaker 3: We go, there we go. It also gave permission to a lot of young kids who were loving hip hop in their homes to like actually get out and pursue hip hop dance. You know, it was one of the steps that I had to take to get hip hop dance to be seen as a true art form of dance. And that movie was huge and made.

00:58:43
Speaker 4: For the reason to Hit the Suburbs. You're the reason hit the Suburbs.

00:58:46
Speaker 3: Suburb between that and the Bakshi Boys, I take you know, full responsibility. Oh, you did right, I did all that boys stuff.

00:58:57
Speaker 1: Yeh, don't don't know, dude.

00:59:05
Speaker 2: She also see I thought the first video she directed was My Humps.

00:59:09
Speaker 1: I thought that was the first video you directed.

00:59:12
Speaker 2: But no, I know that basically you're the go to You're the first step with anyone with a with a budget. Can you tell me three videos that you had to say no to that later became like sort of iconic level, like have you said notice something that.

00:59:32
Speaker 1: That you regretted saying no to? Well, she missed the audition for Baby Got Back. That was tough.

00:59:38
Speaker 3: But I remember I was not too long ago looking through for an email and saw something in my or from my agent, and I clicked on it and it said there's a movie that they want you to come take a meeting for something like La La Land, And my respond maris response was I'm way too busy. I can't do that right now. And I forwarded back to my agent like can you believe I said that.

01:00:13
Speaker 6: Yeah, can we talk about musicals for a second, but just can we parlay into the Color Purple show? I was just I was thinking, like the average music videos like three and a half minutes long, Like the Color Purple is three and a half hours long, Like what is the what is your mindset choreographically and or storytelling wise to make a complete arc of that whole thing. I'm always amazed at how choreographers and or composers under whoever just sort of make all of that sort of happen and conceive of it like one thing. You know, there's so many different numbers and so many different moves and so many different things, but it does feel like a canon in itself anyway.

01:00:50
Speaker 3: Speak to that, Yeah, I mean you start with the script, you know, and with Color Purple, because they had done it as a Broadway play, there was music, but Blitz really went in there and you know, worked with a lot of incredible artists and elevated the music so that it, you know, it had a little more modern feeling to it. And because in particular Color Purple is a period piece, there's not a lot of dance out there to even emulate like what would be done then. But I kind of took the creative liberty to say, you know, it all comes from African dance, and if we you know, you can look back and find bits of every modern dance that we do now in African dance. And so I just kind of gave each number, you know, a feeling, a mood, a joy of a kindred brotherhood for like uh huh, you know when they were building the house and all the working together, that was nice. That's going back to you know, step in when men are all stepping other and fraternity. I just kind of went through a bunch of different, you know, styles of Black dance. But then also I kind of we're so expressive as people, and you know, like when you get into hell No with Danielle Brooks and at the end when the ladies all kind of gang up on her and then they all roll ay neck. You know, when a black woman starts rolling her neck and she has had it up to here with your ass. So it was kind of you know, I took just our even natural movements that we do, you know, and made them into dances. And so it's a it's a journey when you're doing musical like that, because it's a lot of hard work and each number needs its own special attention. And you know, our goal for that movie, and I think we really accomplished it is like how do you get out? How do you start the music and start the dance so it's not jarring and it's not taking you out of library. So that that was the important for me. It was when I walked into the room, story led first, and then the dance had to support the story. And a lot of times, you know, people were just dancing to be dancing, and that's not what I was trying to do. The story it had to all make sense, you know, if we were it should was coming to town and what is that town gonna look like back in the day where that town should have a shoe shop and then it's gonna have a barbershop and then they're you know, they got the groceries stand outside like and I wal create all that stuff in the rehearsal studio with the skeleton crew of dancers and give them something. But where I am now in my career, even with this one, in particular for color Purple, we choreographed it and then shot it way I wanted to look, with close ups of the feet and overheads and you know, all the things and editor and then I gave it to the directors like here's russall. But you know, that's what choreographers, the good choreographers, that's what we do when we get hired. We're just natural directors really, and I love that I had a director who trust in that vision. But I have this great story to say. You know, Blitz told me and Ghana when he was in high school, they had a talent show and eighty percent of the people did for their talent Aliyah's are you That's somebody him and I know, and so he just vowed to work with me one day. And I just feel like Aliyah put us together, and it's so wonderful.

01:04:51
Speaker 4: It was wonderful to see your touch on that movie, because no matter what the dance was, you also still felt hip hop, always, always, always.

01:05:10
Speaker 2: I'm gonna play a rapid fire around with you. Okay, which client of yours is the fastest learner?

01:05:19
Speaker 3: Aliyah was the fastest learner.

01:05:21
Speaker 2: Which client of yours is the most I won't say anal retentive perfectionist.

01:05:31
Speaker 1: Which kind of yours wants to rehearse their spontaneity?

01:05:34
Speaker 3: Beyonce is perfectionist.

01:05:36
Speaker 2: Meaning you have to go through over and over and over again to muscle memory or no, she.

01:05:41
Speaker 3: Catches on quick too, but she's just perfectionist. Like she goes back and like we go back and work on it and work on it, and you know she's still working on the show. Is renaissance was going on and she still had rehearsals.

01:05:56
Speaker 1: Wow like that, Wow, okay, superstar? Yeah all that I see?

01:06:03
Speaker 2: Which client who's not no dancing is so you like, is really under selling their talent of dancing?

01:06:11
Speaker 3: Buster Rhymes can dance his ass off?

01:06:15
Speaker 1: He can't.

01:06:16
Speaker 3: Yep, I don't. Eyes can see the last that last when they're in the black lights. See he's dancing and he came to rehearsal and he learned steps and he was like he threw his his two way across the room. Was like, I'm Michael Jackson up in here dances ass off and you know who else can dance good?

01:06:42
Speaker 7: Yes she can, she can't. We just wrapped these things down and we get to going well.

01:06:47
Speaker 2: I was going to ask, who is your shyest client? Because dancing is a that's that's a form of vulnerability that you know, because you're always worrying on like people watching me.

01:06:57
Speaker 1: And I mean, that's what got to give it up is about I'm afraid to dance in public? Client shy is really so no one ever held back.

01:07:14
Speaker 3: No, I feel like people, if you could dance, you kind of get shy. Isn't the word I don't know, shy, reluctant. I wouldn't even call it reluctant. Like I love working with Kendrick because he loves movement and dance and respects it. But he's not necessarily out there trying to do steps with the dancers. He's going to bring his own energy and vibe to it, and then I build around it, and then we sit and look at it, and then we build together. You know. I love giving him a little template to go off of for him to respond to and then you know, do something great.

01:07:58
Speaker 7: He can give us an example, super bowld.

01:08:01
Speaker 3: They gave me an image of all those boxes and it was then overhead shot of the boxes and it was like, that's kind of what we want to create. And so then from there I got to use my imagination or how do these boxes come to life? How do we get the boxes off the stage? Do we stay with the boxes? And we do it? Like where does he live inside of the boxes? And you know all of that, and so I love I love how his mind works and things, but I wouldn't call all right.

01:08:31
Speaker 2: So I always think of this the next time you watch jay Z's Can I get a I was absolutely amazed that he basically just stands in place in the middle and it only moves his arms in his shoulders.

01:08:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the entire world is dancing around him.

01:08:49
Speaker 2: And I always wanted to know what happens when you're giving a client that, like do you have to figure out the math formula? Like how much to supplement? Like okay, they're not given me much in terms of because the thing is, we do tend to think of jay Z as a charismatic, but it's almost like in that DeNiro level where he holds back from that charisma.

01:09:14
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, yeah, some people I respect that. Some people just don't want to dance. You know, I'm not here to make everybody dance, you know.

01:09:25
Speaker 1: So what's your favorite medium?

01:09:27
Speaker 2: Then, Because you've done commercials, on videos, you've done half times, you've done award shows, Yes.

01:09:35
Speaker 1: What is your favorite medium?

01:09:38
Speaker 3: Age performances like concerts and why concerts are my favorite? Like, you know, when I the Renaissance was was amazing, and I love the way you can manipulate the arena, stadium, whatever you're in theater, with the new with the dance, with the way the songs are laid out. Like I just love watching people have such a wonderful time live and it always takes me back to my childhood of Jackson. Five was my first tour, and I remember like laying out my clothes a week in advance, and like just the preparation to it. And I remember having the seat way up, way up there, and that was my seat and they were super small, but I was up there screaming and jamming and dancing and my heart out and it was just the best experience for me. And so I just always whenever I do live shows, I think about those people that are way up there, and it's something that I do with every concert that I work on, I look up to see and if those people are jumping and screaming and dancing the same way the people who have front row seats are, then to me, I've done my job right. And I just love live. It's unpredictable and it's amazing and people cry. I cry, and it's just you go through the gamut of emotions at a really good live show, and I just love it.

01:11:17
Speaker 2: What's the biggest scale concert that you put together? Having seen that, and subsequently I saw Taylor's thing, and my whole takeaway was that was extremely like h overwhelming for me to even take in.

01:11:38
Speaker 3: So well, yeah, and.

01:11:40
Speaker 2: Especially with Okay, So I've seen Renaissance three times and it wasn't till the second time where I noticed I didn't know that she had injuries and had to sort of figure out how to you know, like work her way through that. But I actually like the fact that even though she was doing moving, but it was done in such a nuanced way that I actually said, oh, wow, that's that's really weird, Like like I would expect a prime Michael Jackson to go from zero to one hundred in one second and used all the hours of that and there was such a it reminded me of I'm sure you're familiar with it. Have you ever see the Dinah Ross Las Vegas concert? Remember like the guy's carrier, Like through the videos, how long do you have to even figure out the lay of the land and what to do?

01:12:37
Speaker 1: Because that was, Yeah, I've never seen a stage like that ever.

01:12:43
Speaker 3: Well, that that was Beyonce sitting in a pandemic and with a lot of time on her hands and coming up with the most incredible creative stage that I had ever gotten to work on. I mean, that woman is amazing. And she also has quite a few choreographers across her span of music. You know, it's just people who had worked on some of the songs, her original choreographer Chris Grant, and then just so many people that we actually we had to come up with a title for me that has never been created before. We called we gave me the title director of Choreography because there were I was the point person that all the choreographers worked under and with and brought in my team and it was like it was such a big boulder to get up a heel that show.

01:13:38
Speaker 7: But we how many did you have it to.

01:13:43
Speaker 10: How many choreographers.

01:13:47
Speaker 3: We had Me and my team I'm team fatimas three of us, and then Chris we joined him along with us, and there were around four others that came in and would do numbers here and there, and so we had twenty two dancers with us.

01:14:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you've got new names and oh all of it.

01:14:19
Speaker 3: And I mean it was she's she's just such a beast of a dancer and all that, and yes she was dealing with some injury, but also you know, a mirror. We were having a lot of conversation around when is enough enough? You know, you have nothing to prove, be like you are. You are our Michael Jackson of our time, and you know, at a certain point you have to We're like athletes, and at a certain point you have to just say, Okay, I'm gonna do it, but I'm gonna also take care of myself and be mindful of what my body is telling me right now, because look at how Prince was when he passed away, and he passed away, you know, he got those hip replacements, you know, because of all those splits and stuff, and look where Michael is. It's like, babe, like, come on, let's let's have we want you around performing so true, you know, for years to come. So let's not put that kind of pressure you build all this fanfare around. Let's ease into it and let's like stand there and be powerful and step into just a different kind of power. And guess what they're gonna come with you?

01:15:42
Speaker 1: Your fan base?

01:15:44
Speaker 2: Whose idea was it to start with her on the piano and just slow because that is the most genius shit ever.

01:15:51
Speaker 3: Listen, that is Beyonce's idea. And guess what when I turned to her and was like, you know, this is really fly starting with ballots, and she laughed and she went, I'm opening up for myself and open yourself.

01:16:05
Speaker 7: Okay, I would love to voice I'm opening up for myself.

01:16:11
Speaker 3: I was like, that's some fly ship right there.

01:16:14
Speaker 7: Okay, wow, wow, take time so.

01:16:18
Speaker 3: Fly, I don't need to open it that.

01:16:20
Speaker 8: I want to ask when you're casting and stuff like you know, what separates a good dancer from a great dancer?

01:16:26
Speaker 1: Like, what what are you looking for?

01:16:30
Speaker 3: I'm really we we dancers have to learn a combination really quickly. So we teach it, they learn it, We break them up and pieces. You know, a lot of times it's it's it's their danceability, but it's also like their height and their their size and if they fit with the other dancers and they create like it's a whole you know, tetris game of things we're playing around with, and but what really makes I think a dancer? And I always even though they learn the choreography and they have to do the combination, I always ask them to freestyle afterwards because to me, there's where the gold is when they start freestytling and they move their body in a way no one else moves. They dance with such joy on their faces. You know, we look for that, and that's what really makes a great dancer when you can just tell their love of dance, but also they've worked and found the things in their body that's so unique and that they're going to inspire me when I'm in the room working.

01:17:38
Speaker 2: You know, for me, your best gift is de escalating any potential disasters.

01:17:49
Speaker 1: And the way that I seen you.

01:17:53
Speaker 2: Literally with like I'm telling you my stomach was it not because I'm waiting for this fight is set off. And you know, because a lot of my questions in our group chat was like, yo, what happens when blah blah blah s he's blah blah blah blah. And you were like, Okay, don't worry a mirror. I'm gonna bring out coach Coach Robinson. And so what what is your You've always seemed like a zen person to me, but you you are extra zen in the last four years that I've seen you.

01:18:27
Speaker 1: So, yes, what is your more? What's your morning routine?

01:18:31
Speaker 2: How did you get to this zen place where you can handle a renasce You were handling renaissance and hip hop fifty at the same time. And this is coming from a guy that has ten jobs in meditation and edited movie.

01:18:49
Speaker 1: Right now, So like, what is it? What is your secret?

01:18:54
Speaker 3: I think I've always been a pretty calm person, you know, when I up in the morning, sometimes I do this tea ceremony as a meditation. Sometimes I do that. I mean, living in Ohi, I live down a road where there's no other houses and there's no power lines and there's no neighbors, and so I get to wake up without like the home and noise of the city. And definitely moving to Ohi, I've kind of re wired my nervous system to just I There's there's places that I go and holidays that I take where I remember that that piece that I find there, and I just kind of like take it and and so I release little peace like that I've captured and in those moments. It's because I've seen it so many times. Everything is gonna work out. It's just the process. And every has a process of how they get to point A to point B really everyone, you know. It's like Shakira's processes like like this, and the Kanye's processes like you know, you know like that, and some people's process is just a little easier and you're like okay, But it's like knowing there is a goal and that finish line what we're trying to achieve. And I always kind of try and make too, like what am I try and achieve here? Like what's the goal? So that I always give myself like something to you know, to thrive to, you know, and achieve. That really helps me. And yeah, but I just I mean, it's all gonna work out. And the beauty about even you know, doing live TV and stuff. I just love the unexpected and what could happen. I don't love an artist dropping out, you know, an hour performance the show. No, I do not like that. I think it's highly disrespectful to their peers and everything. But you know, I've seen it all with hip hop, and you know, we accept that hip hop is is unique and and I just know how to deal with all the temperatures of the attitudes and stuff. I'm like, somebody in the room has to be calm about it.

01:21:26
Speaker 4: And so that's what I classroom scene was like perfection. That's why I was just perfection. It was organized, beautiful chaos. Yeah, yeah, your show with me I was talking about.

01:21:38
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, what classrooms?

01:21:42
Speaker 3: I mean, that was really that classroom scene. I'm like, that's my you know that, that's my tribe. And so I wanted to see them as much as possible, and I didn't want to do the traditional like you come out, your song, you go away, you come out like let's support each other and and you know a lot of I do a lot of work on myself as well a mirror, and it just in that work on myself, I'm able to bring you know, that zen and peace and all that to the performances. I Mean, I love Rick Rubin's book The Creative Act. Did you listen to that one.

01:22:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got it.

01:22:22
Speaker 3: It's so amazing. I find myself I listen to a lot of audio books because I have that hour and a half drive, But I find myself kind of going back to that book right as me if I don't have anything to listen to. He's just he just drops some gems about where how the creative comes about and how you find it and all the things. And so you know, I listened to a lot of books that actually helped me in how I communicate with people too.

01:22:52
Speaker 1: I can learn from that. Look.

01:22:55
Speaker 2: I started with the question, and I guess you gave me the answer.

01:22:59
Speaker 1: And I'm glad you care. Yeah, because you.

01:23:03
Speaker 2: You have such a thankless, highly stressful, a very risky job where you have to be a people person and manage expectations and egos and not now but right now, like you have walked through the fire man and more and more power to you. And I'm glad we finally have this conversation. Yeah, do we ask everything about that?

01:23:33
Speaker 8: We talk about your director directorial debut that's coming. What can you share about it?

01:23:38
Speaker 3: Yes, Oh, well it's a film and universal you know, it's still my deal is done. But you know it's going through its little rewrites and this and that, but that'll be my first feature film and I'm ready. That's the hopefully the next step for my career and still producing. I actually, you know, Jesse and them got me into this producing world and executive producing and.

01:24:04
Speaker 1: I love it. Yes, Mom and Dad.

01:24:12
Speaker 4: Yes, tell us a couple of your projects we should look out for that you executive produce.

01:24:17
Speaker 3: Oh well, I was one of the executive producers along with the Mirror for Hip Hop fifty. I've produced the Grammys before them. I produced this Taking and Taking the Stage, the Obama performance that it was a while back, and so I'm enjoying it and I'm stepping more into it and I think more and more opportunities. But you know, I want to do my story. I want to do my life like I'm the new thing. It's like everyone I was thinking it was too young.

01:24:46
Speaker 7: I didn't know I was. It was interesting because I was thinking, she's so young.

01:24:50
Speaker 3: I haven't done the story yet, and I think it's like someone needs to do the I grew up in the clubs, clubs with my classroom. That's I learned, like all that the story of hip hop dance he.

01:25:05
Speaker 2: Gotta we gotta find you a movie producer that can actually make that happen.

01:25:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, somebody out here.

01:25:13
Speaker 7: He's got to add to Honting out there, Honey was the last one.

01:25:18
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, make it happen. Fatima, thank you so much for joining us.

01:25:25
Speaker 2: And and I'm not even like acting like it's good to see someone that works harder than me, Like I feel like I'm lazy compared to to you.

01:25:36
Speaker 4: So she knows how to relax though too looks yes, she knows how to do that.

01:25:42
Speaker 1: I don't know what that is anyway.

01:25:45
Speaker 2: Thank you very much on behalf of Sugar Steven New Bill Brand New Bill Monte, your Steve, you and of course our guests with Steven Robinson.

01:26:01
Speaker 1: This Quest Love, Quest Love Supreme and we'll see you on the next govern Now. Thank y'all, This is Sugar Steve.

01:26:09
Speaker 5: Thank you for listening to Quest Love Supreme. This podcast is hosted by a Mere Quest Love Thompson, Liah Saint Clair Fonte Coleman, Sugar, Steve Mandel, and Unpaid Bill Sherman. The executive producers are a Mere Quest Love Thompson, Sean g and Brian Calhoun. Produced by Britney, Benjamin, Jake Paine and Liah Saint Clair. Edited by Alex Conroy. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown.

01:26:36
Speaker 1: West. Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

01:26:43
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.