All Hail the Queen! featuring Queen Latifah and Chip Hurd

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Speaker 1: Thank you. Hear ye, hear ye.
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Speaker 2: Let it be known throughout the land, from the mighty kingdom of Brooklyn to the faraway realm of Flavor Magazine, that we gather here to honor a trailblazer, a queen, a sister of the screen. The First Lady of Flavor, Khadija, once ruled the brownstone alongside her court, Sinclair the Sweet, Regine the Radiant, Maxine the Magnificent.
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Speaker 3: She who has conquered the realms of television, film, music, and yes, even the talk show sofa.
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Speaker 2: Supple of skin, ample of bosom, full of rhyme and rap, but she ain't no sap. A woman whose laugh can heal hearts, whose side eye can slay dragons, whose legacy still lives supreme decades after she first claimed the crown.
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Speaker 1: Who you calling virtuous?
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Speaker 2: Don't you ever do this!
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Speaker 3: No, wait, no, no, come on now, hold on. We already done, we ready, hold on. She's always been impatient.
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Speaker 2: Let's do this, okay. Okay, go ahead.
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Speaker 3: And so by royal decree, we present....
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Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, her majesty hath arrived, Queen Latifah! What the fuck? Go get her! Go get her!
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Speaker 3: Go get her!
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Speaker 2: Go get her!
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Speaker 3: Go get her!
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Speaker 2: Go get her! Go get her!
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Speaker 3: Go get her! Go get her! Go get her!
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Speaker 4: Go get her!
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Speaker 3: Go get her!
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Speaker 2: Go get her!
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Speaker 3: Go get her! Go get her!
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Speaker 1: Go get her! Go get her!
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Speaker 2: Go get her! Go get her!
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Speaker 3: Go get her! Go get her! Go get her! Go get her! Go get her!
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Speaker 2: Go get her!
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Speaker 1: Go get her!
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Speaker 2: Go get her! Go get her!
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Speaker 3: Go get her! Go get her!
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Speaker 2: Go get her!
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Speaker 1: Go get her! Go get her!
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Speaker 2: Go get her! Go get her! Go get her! Go get her!
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Speaker 1: Go get her!
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Speaker 3: Go get her! Go get her!
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Speaker 2: Go get her! Go get her! Go get her! Go get her! Go get her! Go get her!
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Speaker 1: Go get her!
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Speaker 2: Go get her!
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Speaker 1: Go get her! Go get her!
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Speaker 3: Go get her!
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Speaker 2: Go get her! Go get her!
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Speaker 5: Go get her!
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Speaker 2: Go get her!
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Speaker 1: Go get her!
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Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you.
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Speaker 2: You've been blessed in deep blue.
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Speaker 1: Stealing everything. Taking it all.
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Speaker 2: She's from Jersey.
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Speaker 1: She's from Jersey. Hey, hey.
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Speaker 2: So you all may see us or hear us referring to as Dana, Queen, La, Latifah. You got a whole bunch of names, don't you?
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Speaker 3: But you know what? There's only one Queen. There's only one Queen and you're a phenomenon. You're a phenomenon. You're a Grammy winning... award-winning Emmy, award-winning SAG, Golden Globe.
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Speaker 1: That's going to take a long time.
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Speaker 3: No, here, we got to say something.
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Speaker 1: I know how that goes.
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Speaker 3: Kick-ass equalizer, five seasons, first hip-hop artist to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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Speaker 1: Come on now.
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Speaker 3: I'm tired of talking about you. You're that girl.
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Speaker 2: We want to start with your origin story for Living Single. How did you come to Living Single?
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Speaker 1: If I can recall correctly, because these was many, many moons ago.
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Speaker 3: Many moons.
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Speaker 1: I was a rapper, as you know. Because y'all pretty much taught me everything I know about acting. I was rapping and it was, you know, Shaquem, me and Shaquem, we were on tour. We went out with Will Smith a lot. He headlined. So between Public Enemy and Heavy D and Will and Heavy D, they headlined the tours that we were on. So we became like family out there on the road for months.
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Speaker 2: At a time.
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Speaker 1: You know, you young teenagers making some money.
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Speaker 3: How old were you?
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Speaker 1: I was 17, 18. I was like 18. I don't know. 18, 19.
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Speaker 3: We were in this game a long time.
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Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
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Speaker 1: We've been all doing this a long time. We were babies.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: But when Will got his TV show, that's when it became like an actual possibility. Nobody really, I mean, I wasn't really thinking about a TV show until Will got one. And then when Will did it, we're like, Will got a TV show? If Will can do it, we can do it. So we just started kicking around ideas like, how can we make this happen? That was the next step. But then, still being on a road, on a tour bus, one of our favorite shows was Living Color.
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Speaker 3: Of course.
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Speaker 1: And this one was who we watched all the time. Kim Coles. We had been on the show. We loved everything about it. It was a phenomenon. And then we found out that Kim was in a holding deal. And Yvette Lee, who was, she was Yvette Lee at the time, she was doing Mr. Cooper. Oh, right. But she was like one of the first... woman writer-producers. So you had her ready to make a new move. Because you were already in a deal with Warner Brothers? We got a deal with Warner Brothers, Shakim and I. And then we found Yvette as well. So we all kind of locked in at the same time. And we came together with the idea of what the show would be. And then we found out she was in A holding deal. And we were like, yo, we got to see if we could get her. Because it's like supposed to be these two cousins. I'm like, can we please try to get Kim Coles? And then Kim Coles got down. Was available. Kim Coles got down.
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Speaker 2: In my meeting, they were like, what do you think of Queen Latifah? I was like, I like her. So like, you know, they didn't tell me what was going on, but it was like all forming. All forming.
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Speaker 1: It was kind of all happening. And then you, I mean.
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Speaker 3: I did an audition. You know, I was found off the street like an urchin. And you know, they just bring me in.
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Speaker 1: A professional maverick, kingdom, queendom urchin.
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Speaker 3: But you have to understand, I was becoming cousin Pam, which was nice, but there was no reason for me to be among the really cool, chillzy people because I couldn't No, really.
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Speaker 1: Yes, there was. Well, I appreciate that.
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Speaker 3: Your whole show was cool.
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Speaker 2: You was cool.
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Speaker 3: Well, I appreciate that.
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Speaker 1: And to get you was like, what? Well, that's kind. No, you don't give yourself the proper credit. Because first of all, you know, I want to like, actually, you shouldn't get the credit. Because you messed up my laugh. I had a cute laugh. I had a cute, sexy, girly laugh as a kid.
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Speaker 2: Oh, please.
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Speaker 1: And then somewhere along the line, it started going.
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Speaker 2: We all started laughing like Erica.
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Speaker 3: I was like, what happened to my life?
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Speaker 2: Your influence has been felt. Your influence is strong, girl.
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Speaker 3: Your influence is strong. We still going around acting like we own everything.
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Speaker 1: I remember one time I was like, I want to be a queen.
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Speaker 2: And like, you are a queen. You got mad at me.
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Speaker 3: What you talking about?
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Speaker 2: You are a queen.
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Speaker 1: Because I had to tell you that.
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Speaker 2: But thank you.
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Speaker 1: But you taught me great, amazing words. You're one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life.
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Speaker 2: We influenced each other.
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Speaker 1: We sure did. Kim Fields, who was Crossing over from Tootie, the whole world knew her as Tootie. But she had started doing Martin. She had started coming back with a whole different look, a different vibe. And then she got down. So we had the four girls. And that was kind of what it was. And then it was about getting the two guys. But it was really about locking in those four girls. And that was the four.
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Speaker 3: And actually.
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Speaker 1: Before the show was called Living Single, it was called My Girls.
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Speaker 2: Do you remember that? I remember My Girls.
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Speaker 1: I made a whole theme song and everything.
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Speaker 5: You did?
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Speaker 2: You made a theme song just for that?
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Speaker 3: I did.
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Speaker 1: I got a whole different theme song for my girls. And then they said, we're changing the show to Living Single. And I was like, okay.
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Speaker 2: Do you remember that we went over to Les Moonves' office to say that we didn't like the name Living Single? Like, that's a stupid name. Do you remember that we went to his office and said, you cannot change the name from My Girls to Living Single. Nobody talks like that.
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Speaker 3: See how you inspired her to go around and tell the head of the studio, but that's because you're hanging around.
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Speaker 1: That's right.
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Speaker 2: The queen. That's right.
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Speaker 1: It was just practice for stuff we would have to do later on. I'm glad I got that locked in already. We had to get up to... You know I wasn't used to TV. I didn't know anything about TV. I barely... I didn't know much about acting at all. You know, I did like a couple school plays. And so I was just the sponge. But the other side of me was like owned a company and was an artist.
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Speaker 3: And we're going to get into that. Because that's the whole thing with Shaquem and all the things. The thing that you built is pretty outstanding because it has everything to do with sort of linchpinning on your... God-given DNA abilities, which are astounding. And we can't give enough to that. But also, not everybody who wants to do things is an entrepreneur. You're a natural entrepreneur. And then you've been able to, you're going to look at it. I'm giving you a problem. You're a natural entrepreneur who learned how to do it, but you built for other people. And that's, to me, the real conversation going around there. If you go to Newark, y'all, don't go anywhere near there. see how much they love this girl.
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Speaker 1: She got some nerve with her Brooklyn self talking all of this Philly, Brooklyn. You don't hear me telling people don't go to Philly and Brooklyn. Newark is coming up. You want a house music festival? You know where to go. Okay. You want some soul food? You know where to go.
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Speaker 2: Newark.
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Speaker 1: You want some up and coming developments? You know where to go. Newark.
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Speaker 3: Okay.
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Speaker 1: You want an airport close? Closer than an hour? You know where to go.
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Speaker 2: Newark.
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Speaker 1: You want the train station five minutes away? You know where to go.
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Speaker 3: Newark.
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Speaker 1: You need a bus? You know where to go.
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Speaker 4: No.
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Speaker 1: You need more cherry blossoms than in Japan and Branchville Park.
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Speaker 2: Really?
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Speaker 1: In the whole United States, then you got to go to Newark.
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Speaker 2: Come on.
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Speaker 3: They can be pulled out for the commercial.
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Speaker 2: That's brilliant. Cherry blossoms, I love it.
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Speaker 1: I didn't know that. I love it. I didn't know that.
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Speaker 3: So listen, where are you off to go? You're off to the races. Here you were, a lead in the TV show, Kim and You, both headlining. We have Kim Fields, who's iconic, who's there as a third. I'm coming up on fourth. And then we have our two guys. Tell us a little bit, a little bit of what you remember about the pilot. Do you remember if you thought then it was going to be a hit?
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Speaker 1: I always thought it was going to be a hit. I wouldn't even have signed up. I only signed up and committed to things that I had. was fully committed to. And a lot of things at that age is not knowledge, it's your gut instinct.
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Speaker 2: You were what, 23 years old, right?
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Speaker 1: Yes. I was 23 when we actually started the show and moved to California. I was from Jersey. I mean, New York, New Jersey, but definitely not California. And this was like really early years of your life. But I knew we had something. I mean, that was the goal to create something successful. But once we got y'all, I mean, I was already like, okay, Kim Coles, this is crazy. Yvette was like on a come up. And then you and then Kim Fields. Kim Fields. Are you kidding me?
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Speaker 3: I can't say enough.
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Speaker 1: You know? And then... These two guys who I did not know. I mean, I knew John from his comedy, so I knew he was funny.
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Speaker 3: I didn't know.
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Speaker 1: I knew a little bit about John from his comedy. I knew a little bit about TC.
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Speaker 3: Because he did Living Large. Right.
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Speaker 1: So they were both great. To me, it was also the success of Martin and Fox being this kind of burgeoning network trying to become the fourth network. There was space for us to grow and do our thing. I mean, it was a fight because we had to fight for everything. fight for the identity of the show, fight for the class of the show, to show four different kinds of women, to show two different kinds of guys, to show what black people look like who are upwardly mobile, headed towards success, struggling, to be entrepreneurs, like the.
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Speaker 3: Whole up and down.
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Speaker 1: We were all becoming. Yeah, we were all becoming. So we didn't want to become what we were not on screen. All the things we're explaining and sometimes fighting for. and locking arms. As y'all know, we've done it before many, many times. And a lot of it I learned from you. You know, frankly, I had to kind of look. And Ellen. Ellen Falcon slash Gittleson. Like she took pretty much.
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Speaker 3: You know I met her at Cosby Show.
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Speaker 1: And I met her on the Fresh Prince.
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Speaker 3: So there she was in our world until we lock in. What'd you learn from her?
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Speaker 1: I learned how to hit the mark. Just go stand right there. And when this one comes in there, then the camera's going to come to you. So I want you to point this way and face this direction because this is... She taught me everything, frankly. I didn't know anything about TV. I knew enough about shooting videos. I knew how to perform. I knew how to be in front of a camera. But as far as Being in a four-camera setup where it's just, you know, you have a fourth wall that's there. So it's just here, here, and here. So you kind of got to play out. I mean, I can look at the show and see where I didn't know where to put my hands. I wasn't sure which leg to cross or how to point myself out a little bit, you know, so that the camera would get it, you know. And she taught me a lot of that. And then Kim Fields told me, like, everything is about timing. It's all about timing. So timing I knew because I'm musical. So I hear things in timing anyway. So I was like, okay, I got this. You just gotta, and off of this line and off the rhythm of this sound of your voice or your voice or whoever's voice was coming before, I knew, da-da-da-da-da.
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Speaker 2: Okay, so, so, so.
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Speaker 1: I just knew how to like- And you brought your own rhythm to it too.
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Speaker 2: And I think what we had in, I always laud you for taking the sitcom script and adding your own musicality to it. And so you coming in as music itself adding your own, TC being musical, John and I doing our comedy thing, and then Kim Fields, who's the queen of all this. I think we had our own rhythm that was.
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Speaker 1: On the page in the words, but we brought our own thing. We had to figure this whole thing out because you are... very smart, super smart, you know what I mean? And you know a whole lot of big words, you know? And you know, I still remember taking things from what your mom would say to you. Like, what did you do to me?
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Speaker 2: So you remember Sue?
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Speaker 3: What? What?
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Speaker 2: You a little soon. My mother, there's a phrase she said, you're so-and-so's a little soon. And soon is like when- Came out too early. Yeah, came out a little too early.
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Speaker 3: Okay.
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Speaker 2: Not stupid, not slow, but just soon.
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Speaker 3: A little soon.
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Speaker 2: You remember that.
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Speaker 1: Oh, there's so many isms that your mom had that you would say that were fantastic, but- But we had to figure out with Yvette, you know, like, how do we make Sinclair Sinclair? Because some of these words can sound stupid, but they are, she's not stupid. She's actually, you, I mean, you've explained this many times.
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Speaker 2: I say childlike wonder and marches to the beat of her own drum.
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Speaker 1: But you brought that to it. You brought that to him. And just like John brought what he brought to Overton. And we, they're like... Really, they're heroes to us. That's like the mark of what a relationship is and what character is like and what people should be like. Because it's pure and beautiful.
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Speaker 2: Exactly.
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Speaker 3: And they say to play those characters, you have to be very intelligent. And they both are and were.
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Speaker 1: They sure are.
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Speaker 3: For sure.
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Speaker 1: For sure. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: So here you were adjusting to this new life, this new place, this new world. Mornings.
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Speaker 1: And morning.
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Speaker 3: And morning.
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Speaker 2: What time? And morning. You know, and I've said many times that, you know, you came from a world in which everything, nothing happened until you showed up. And this is a whole new- And a lot of it happened at night. Yeah, that's real. So when did you, when do you feel that you adjusted to this, this new morning? I I think we did push back the hour. Let's not even try to do 9 a.m. Let's just go do 10.
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Speaker 1: You know, 10 feels right. You know what I mean? 10 feels much, much better than 9. Fine with me.
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Speaker 3: Hey, everybody want to X the hour.
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Speaker 1: I was tired. I was like, okay, I've partied enough these past three years from 15 to 18.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:15:17
Speaker 1: Wow, New York.
00:15:19
Speaker 2: Wow, the world.
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Speaker 1: Let me go do something with my life now.
00:15:24
Speaker 3: But you know what? It was interesting that Kim always talks about the home that y'all made together in the quick change room. Because being on set is like being in another home.
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Speaker 1: Right.
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Speaker 3: So tell about the quick change room, please.
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Speaker 2: So remind everybody that on a set, so that you don't have to go all the way back out to your trailer, because we had trailers. We had these quick change booths and they are designed so that you can go in and quickly change to the next outfit for the next scene. You all were each separated, but for some reason they never separated our room. That was kind of weird. I wanted to make it a safe haven.
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Speaker 3: You think they would because you guys were the leads.
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Speaker 2: No, they kept us together. Fantastic. It was wonderful. I think I put a little rug. I went to Pier 1. She hooked it up. I had a little rattan sofa. A little table. A rattan. A rattan.
00:16:09
Speaker 1: See what I mean by the words?
00:16:11
Speaker 2: It was on a regular basis. And then if you remember, there was an ashtray. We were both smoking cigarettes at the time. Oh, man.
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Speaker 3: And if you recall.
00:16:20
Speaker 1: Kim Fields harassment.
00:16:22
Speaker 2: She would take my cigarettes and break them apart. Like, how dare you?
00:16:25
Speaker 1: Oh, my.
00:16:26
Speaker 2: I know. Kim Fields did the same thing to me. I was like, yeah, let me know. I provided a place where we could get a puff on real quick.
00:16:34
Speaker 1: Y'all made it look sexy.
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Speaker 2: We'd have a whole conversation.
00:16:36
Speaker 1: We'll be right out shortly. You made it look sexy. You did pretty good, though. I saw you practice one time. I was like, she don't smoke. But you did good. And I'm glad you did not smoke. Thank you, no. Yeah, you hooked us up. I wanted to make it good in striking up conversations.
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Speaker 2: So she'll be like, did you see this and that?
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Speaker 1: And I remember I was doing.
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Speaker 2: What do you mean? Good at striking up conversations?
00:16:55
Speaker 1: You mean I talk too much?
00:16:56
Speaker 2: Is that what you're trying to say? I wanted you to feel at home because you felt like you might be a little homesick.
00:17:01
Speaker 1: Oh, I was definitely homesick. I went crazy on Livingston. I mean, I.
00:17:06
Speaker 1: I needed to go home every three weeks. Every time we got a hiatus, which was every three weeks, I was out of there.
00:17:12
Speaker 2: You do three weeks on, one week off. Three weeks on, one week off.
00:17:14
Speaker 1: I was gone. You were gone. I was on a flight to New Jersey every time that we got a break because I also felt like California was a little slower. First of all, you got this whole group of friends and family and people and they just send you out to California. Okay, we're going to come out there. Nobody came. I was like, No one ever comes.
00:17:35
Speaker 2: Crickets, crickets, crickets. You're like, crickets, crickets.
00:17:37
Speaker 1: Is anybody out there? No one ever comes. It's like the silence is deafening. Are they coming to visit me? I got this big house for all y'all to come and nobody is coming out here. So I would go home every couple weeks if I could. As soon as we got a break, I was gone. And then finally, one winter, I think, I did not make it home. And that was the shift when I felt like, oh, okay. I'm going to make this work. I'm getting into California. I'm kind of, I started to become, I'm definitely bi-coastal at this point. Like I split half of my adult life in LA. So I feel like I'm from here and I'm from where I'm from, you know? But that was important to have those moments with you to just kind of be normal because you were from where I'm from.
00:18:23
Speaker 5: Right.
00:18:24
Speaker 3: Well, look, we have lots to talk about. We have lots to talk about.
00:18:25
Speaker 2: We got to get ready for the show.
00:18:26
Speaker 3: We do. We do. We do. Do this!
00:18:28
Speaker 2: Let's do this, queen. I'm here.
00:18:30
Speaker 3: I'm here.
00:18:31
Speaker 2: You're here, easy.
00:18:32
Speaker 1: I'm here, easy.
00:18:33
Speaker 3: Thank you, love.
00:18:40
Speaker 2: It's time for The Rewind, where we watch and relive living single with you.
00:18:45
Speaker 3: Okay, today we're watching She's Not Heavy, She's My Mother. And Khadija's mom comes to town for Mother's Day, and the gang is ready to celebrate until a surprise guest arrives, Regine's mother. Regine is instantly on edge, especially when her mom starts asking Kyle for advice. on why Regine can't keep a man.
00:19:02
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Overton goes completely overboard shopping for a gift for his own mom. It's written by Ellen Savco and Colleen Tabor, directed by our beloved Ellen Gittleson. We have some extra guest stars. Come on.
00:19:14
Speaker 1: We have Chip.
00:19:15
Speaker 2: Fields Hurd and Rita Owens. Who's Rita Owens?
00:19:20
Speaker 1: My mother. The real life mother to Kim Fields.
00:19:26
Speaker 2: So Chip Hurd, because she's married now, also known as Chip Fields Hurd, As Laverne Hunter, Chip is, come on, she's an icon. Actor, director, producer, master teacher who played the infamous Lanella Byrne, the baby face.
00:19:39
Speaker 1: And it was an iron.
00:19:40
Speaker 2: With that iron, remember? Also in Good Times.
00:19:43
Speaker 4: Yes.
00:19:44
Speaker 2: That's what that was.
00:19:44
Speaker 3: And the great Rita Owens as Mama James, the real Rita Owens majored in drama and was a high school teacher at Irvington High School in New Jersey. And in later years, Rita became a health advocate for interstitial lung disease, which she battled. She fought that battle until she passed away in 2018. Wow. We want to do.
00:20:03
Speaker 2: A special shout out to your father, who, by the way, you're looking more and more like your dad.
00:20:06
Speaker 1: Daddy-o.
00:20:08
Speaker 2: Oh, what a good looking man. Listen, shout out to your father, Lancelot Owens, a New Jersey police officer. Thank you for your service, who's still with us. We also have to send some much, much, much love to our beloved Winky, your brother.
00:20:20
Speaker 3: Interstellar love.
00:20:21
Speaker 2: Interstellar love. Lancelot Jr., who passed away in 1992, who was also a police officer. Salute. Salute.
00:20:27
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:20:27
Speaker 1: We do. We do.
00:20:30
Speaker 3: It's funny because this episode is heavy because of that reason. A lot of the episodes I think that we do, we're playing characters, but this is very meta. Your mothers, real mothers, are these characters. And in a way, they both have iconic daughters in showbiz that have made a huge amount of change and have been pioneers.
00:20:51
Speaker 1: My mother loved us so much. She was so very proud of us. And she did come visit me. She did. But as you said, my brother, I lost my brother in 1992. We started living single in 1993. So I was coming off of that.
00:21:08
Speaker 2: Coming off of grieving.
00:21:10
Speaker 1: Yeah. Definitely wasn't through it yet. Definitely was not through it yet. But my remembering of these shows that my mother was on was a little nerve wracking. Because I was nervous for her. For her. I was nervous. It's like watching your... Child, play a sport. You know, you're out there like, or the dance recital. You're like, come on, you.
00:21:30
Speaker 2: Can hit this.
00:21:31
Speaker 3: You've been practicing.
00:21:32
Speaker 1: You're ready. And you're like, my body was so tight. And when that show was over, I was like, yes. I could not wait for it to be over kind of because then I could like calm down. And Chip was amazing. Chip was everyone's coach. She coached me. She coached my mother. She's brilliant. You know, obviously, you know, the brilliant Kim Fields, but She became kind of the coach of the show. So she would jump in on anybody who needed help, anyone who needed help along with their acting because this was the first time for a lot of us. And we introduced a lot of people to television, to sitcoms through our show. So it was good to have somebody like Chip to help them along if they came from rap, which we're already fighting for these years. roles which some actors were not happy with us doing this because it's a very competitive field. And to their credit, any trained actor's credit, we should have to learn and step up and learn the craft and really respect it and do our thing that way, but we had people Chip, who would help us along, so she coached my mom while she was on the show as well, and they just hit it off. I love it. They were the moms of us. They got to just be mothers sometimes, even though they were acting.
00:22:45
Speaker 2: How did your mother feel about it?
00:22:47
Speaker 1: She loved it. She loved it.
00:22:49
Speaker 3: She looked like she was having fun.
00:22:50
Speaker 2: My parents low-key hams.
00:22:51
Speaker 1: Both of them. Both of them met being hams in a doo-wop group on an army base. Born Ham. Y'all want to be in these things, but it's also, if it weren't for her, I wouldn't have been a rap artist because I would have never met DJ Mark, the 45 King, who she hired to do the high school party. She was a class advisor. So when they had to raise money for their field trips, they would throw parties. And they would tell her, hire the 45 King. So she would hire him. DJ Mark the 45 King went on to become my first producer, made my demos, and helped get me signed to Tommy Boy Records. So there goes my career. And so she was always behind us. She rooted for us. She knew we could do it. It didn't matter how young we were. She supported Shaquem. They have a whole different relationship. My partner is Slash Manager, if you wonder who Shaquem is.
00:23:48
Speaker 3: Shaquem Carey. You all went to high school together.
00:23:51
Speaker 1: We went to high school. He was a grade ahead of me, but I transferred into my mother's high school my sophomore year. So I'd taken algebra already. So we were in a geometry class together.
00:24:03
Speaker 3: Are you kidding?
00:24:04
Speaker 2: And still together today.
00:24:06
Speaker 1: He sat in front of me and we just talked the whole class.
00:24:08
Speaker 3: Putting the numbers together. Making math.
00:24:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were making new math.
00:24:13
Speaker 1: New algorithms. Go ahead, Shaquille.
00:24:16
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:24:16
Speaker 1: That's what's up. So it was fun to have her there. It was nice to have a piece of home.
00:24:19
Speaker 2: We're going to.
00:24:20
Speaker 1: Talk about that.
00:24:21
Speaker 4: We are.
00:24:21
Speaker 3: More going through, we're going to also be able to talk about how you built- Your hair? Please.
00:24:27
Speaker 1: How amazing it is?
00:24:28
Speaker 3: Doesn't it look good?
00:24:29
Speaker 1: It does. And how many different- Thank you, Janet Holmes. I really want to squeeze those balls. Yes. Can I squeeze one?
00:24:34
Speaker 5: Go get it.
00:24:34
Speaker 2: Go get it. Go get it.
00:24:35
Speaker 1: I'm squeezing one of the- A lot of balls. Ooh, it's soft, too.
00:24:38
Speaker 5: Thank you.
00:24:38
Speaker 1: And it's blonde. It's got braids. It's dimensional.
00:24:43
Speaker 3: I knew you were coming.
00:24:43
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a cat.
00:24:44
Speaker 3: Look, let me tell you something. I'm sitting next to two queens. You made this. You know, I make sure I get roped.
00:24:49
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? We can both get one. Come my way.
00:24:53
Speaker 1: Come my way.
00:24:54
Speaker 3: Double one.
00:24:57
Speaker 2: Let's watch the episode.
00:24:58
Speaker 3: I've got to do a little maintenance here because for y'all who don't understand, this is a very special episode because this episode was first presented in AromaVision during Fox's interactive Fox-O-Rama event in 1994. Viewers could buy 35 cent kits at 7-Elevens and that included 3D glasses for married with children. And two sealed scratch and sniff cards for living single. And the scents were.
00:25:22
Speaker 2: Cheese and cedar. We couldn't get no peppermint or eucalyptus or.
00:25:26
Speaker 1: Blue nile or jitima.
00:25:28
Speaker 3: Wait, look. It wouldn't have been A. It was Regine's stored outfit aroma from her mom's cedar closet. It was an abandoned gift. She didn't want it. All right, let's check it out.
00:25:40
Speaker 2: Let's watch.
00:25:40
Speaker 3: Roll them. Well, I just can't wait for you guys to meet Aunt Rita. She is terrific.
00:25:45
Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
00:25:46
Speaker 4: All the kids in the neighborhood wish they had Khadijah's mom, especially me.
00:25:49
Speaker 1: I remember that wig.
00:25:51
Speaker 2: But that wig was covering up a bunch of braids. Exactly.
00:25:53
Speaker 1: Whose wig was it?
00:25:54
Speaker 2: What'd you see it on the side?
00:25:56
Speaker 3: She looked like, to me, Darth Vader. You know how that's Darth Vader's hat?
00:26:00
Speaker 5: The hat.
00:26:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:26:03
Speaker 3: She had a front mask. She'd just have to breathe, and she looked just like him. Yo, look at Darth Vader.
00:26:10
Speaker 2: And the food just ain't no good. I mean, the macaroni's not gonna be so much.
00:26:15
Speaker 6: And the chicken tastes like wood.
00:26:20
Speaker 2: Here she comes, here she comes.
00:26:23
Speaker 3: Baby.
00:26:24
Speaker 2: Oh, you look great.
00:26:28
Speaker 1: I know.
00:26:30
Speaker 3: I know.
00:26:33
Speaker 2: Rita, Rita, Rita. And I have a little surprise. Really? Ta-da! Right, here we go. It's Mother's Day, and the gang is buzzing with excitement for the arrival of Khadijah's beloved mother, Rita. Just as the memories start flowing, Rita arrives right on time, and she's not alone. To everyone's surprise. And Regine's horror. She's brought a special guest. Regine's mother, Laverne. Chip's real name is Laverne. So I love that we named the moms their own real names.
00:27:15
Speaker 3: That's right.
00:27:15
Speaker 1: I think everybody loved the moms, though. Yeah. I mean, we knew who the moms were. And Yvette was good with She was.
00:27:23
Speaker 3: She put so many of my friends down to this day who have careers.
00:27:27
Speaker 1: Exactly.
00:27:27
Speaker 3: So to bring in two mothers who are capable of doing.
00:27:30
Speaker 1: It, that's the thing. That's the thing, exactly.
00:27:32
Speaker 3: That's when I realized, I said, oh, her mother acts, and I go, well, why shouldn't she? Got a creative child. The creativity usually comes from the parents.
00:27:39
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:27:40
Speaker 3: Right.
00:27:40
Speaker 1: I love it. I got double trouble on those. I love it.
00:27:43
Speaker 2: We got to play with her.
00:27:44
Speaker 3: And we know that you were nervous for her. How'd she do?
00:27:47
Speaker 1: She did great. Yeah? She did great. Actually, I mean, the parts were all built around, you know? So everybody, I think... Did great.
00:27:56
Speaker 2: I love that your mom let me ad-lib Aunt Rita, Rita, Rita.
00:27:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, how'd you do that?
00:27:59
Speaker 1: I was like, I just saw her. I just did it. I was like, can I do this?
00:28:03
Speaker 2: I think I told her, I said, no, if it's all right with you, I'm going to call you Rita.
00:28:06
Speaker 1: She's that polite. She really is.
00:28:07
Speaker 2: Because, you know, I hadn't yet established Woo Woo Woo, which is, you know, the comedy of threes. And so I was like, I'm going to call you Aunt Rita, Rita, Rita. Is that fine? She was like, uh-huh, sure, do it. Aunt Rita, Rita, Rita. Because I wanted to have something that my auntie and I would have. And so I thought she did. She felt warm and real, but I'm going to ask you, how close was the Rita to the real Rita?
00:28:30
Speaker 1: How close was that character to you?
00:28:31
Speaker 3: She seemed like she'd give you a lot of leeway. Did your Rita at home give you leeway?
00:28:36
Speaker 1: Enough to get myself in trouble. She'd be like, I told you once, I told you. No, she definitely talked to me. She explained things to me.
00:28:45
Speaker 2: She.
00:28:46
Speaker 1: There was a whole lot of talking before it became corporate around that mug. But no, my mom, she was very, very supportive and our house was very communicative. My parents sat down and explained everything to the point where when you were in trouble and you knew you were supposed to get a spanking, it was like, The half an hour lecture before it at five years old. I'm like, please, just give me a horse.
00:29:13
Speaker 3: Here. Can we wrap this up?
00:29:18
Speaker 1: My father talked in metaphors. He spoke in metaphors.
00:29:21
Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
00:29:22
Speaker 1: So I was trying to decipher what he was saying half the time. And then my mother was very clear, elegant, eloquent.
00:29:28
Speaker 3: You look like you'd have to be a free range child to be doing what you were doing at 17 and have a mask that kind of, you know, accomplishments. She, at some level, she trusted you.
00:29:39
Speaker 1: I think she did trust me. me and she trusted God more than anything and trusted her spies. My mother had a network of spies. This is what really happened. You know, you a teacher, you can enlist all these kids to report back. They was snitching on me left and right. My mother, oh yeah, they love Ms. Owens. So they like, so, you know, I was like, oh my God, when she found out I smoked cigarettes, I almost lost it. I was like, because I hated to disappoint my mother more than anything. It wasn't about getting yelled at. It was about the look on her face of disappointment. Like that would hit me in the heart. Like, dag.
00:30:14
Speaker 3: Wow.
00:30:15
Speaker 1: I disappointed my mother. And, you know, it was accidental how I even got into it. It was the industry that hooked me. No, no, no. I blame them. Shake tobacco. Good marketing in those movies. But she definitely, she was an artistic person. She was an art teacher. She believed that you could accomplish anything you put your mind to. It was always promoted in my household, like dream and do. And there was, here's art and here's how you write perspectives. And here's how you draw a horizon line. And here's how you make those buildings, like the art they sell in You know, in Times Square. So life was three-dimensional at least.
00:30:55
Speaker 3: Was she an art teacher?
00:30:56
Speaker 1: She was an art teacher.
00:30:57
Speaker 3: Okay.
00:30:58
Speaker 1: So every time she had to do a project, and my mother also got her degree while we were kids. So sometimes we went to school with my mother. Like we literally went to college when she couldn't find someone to watch us. And there was this janitor at the school, this older woman who would keep an eye on my brother and I sometimes while she was in class. So we would hang out in the rec room with the college kids. And that's why I was like, I can only really hang with people four years or older. Yeah, I don't know what y'all about. You can't tell me anything if you're my age. I need to see what's coming. I need hope for the future.
00:31:32
Speaker 3: No, that's right.
00:31:33
Speaker 2: We can tell that you absorbed that.
00:31:35
Speaker 4: I did.
00:31:35
Speaker 2: And you talk about communication, your use of language, not only in your writing and your music, but you are, I've always been really impressed with how well you are interacting able to communicate something. So there were times that you may or may not remember on the set where I would whisper, could you just tell them that this is what we feel about so-and-so? And you would be the mouthpiece because you could articulate in a way. And I think that you have this beautiful balance of understanding the emotions of the situation and the power in the situation and describing it and sharing it with people in a way that they can hear it and understand. And you're telling me now that this is what your parents taught you.
00:32:12
Speaker 1: They taught me that, and then there was that Mikey commercial. Give it to Mikey.
00:32:15
Speaker 2: Give it to Mikey.
00:32:16
Speaker 3: He likes everything.
00:32:17
Speaker 2: He likes everything.
00:32:18
Speaker 1: So you kind of pushing me up there was kind of me being Mikey, wasn't it?
00:32:22
Speaker 3: Okay.
00:32:22
Speaker 1: You set me up with that.
00:32:23
Speaker 3: All right, Mikey.
00:32:24
Speaker 1: No, honestly, I think you're right. I remember telling the writers, and I know they used to get, I would get on their nerves, but You remember us telling them they needed to go to Brooklyn over the summer? Sometimes we would walk into things and we're like, who made this? Y'all need to go to Brooklyn. Go to New York over the summer. Enjoy it. Go have fun and just check out the city so you can kind of be informed when you come back and write about it. Exactly because there was so much to write about and then we had to kind of stick up for for what we were selling. And we're like, this is actually what they wear in Brooklyn. This is actually, cause we, I mean, we brought clothes, we brought jewelry, we brought hairstyles. Erica's hairstyle, who was doing that on TV?
00:33:10
Speaker 3: Red Salon Brooklyn.
00:33:11
Speaker 2: Exactly.
00:33:11
Speaker 1: So you brought the hair. I mean, even the yarn, like that was so ahead of its time.
00:33:18
Speaker 3: Brooklyn was doing all sorts. I mean, New York, to be anywhere, you had to be in the tri-state area. To me, Pennsylvania, but I mean, New York. and New Jersey, it was just the place to be.
00:33:30
Speaker 1: It was the place to be. That's why we really wanted to write about, we wanted to play the place to be. So if anything felt like a little, we had to fight a lot, you know? To make it authentic. And I was happy to jump into those battles. There are times I was like, Justina, just say it like this.
00:33:46
Speaker 2: Explain to them what this is.
00:33:48
Speaker 1: Uh-huh.
00:33:49
Speaker 2: Okay. All right. So here's what we're going to do. But you know, you mentioned being.
00:33:52
Speaker 1: And that's what. What was that third line?
00:33:54
Speaker 2: Because I don't know how to say it. Because I'm going to say it. I'm going to be really emotional. I'm not going to say it. And one time you said to me, I said something. You were like, yo, you're going to make us lose our street cred, yo. And I was like, I went to private school. I ain't even got no street cred.
00:34:06
Speaker 1: But girl, you say it like this.
00:34:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. So you helped me out a great deal.
00:34:09
Speaker 1: Thank you.
00:34:10
Speaker 3: All right. So we got to get back to. Oh, yeah.
00:34:13
Speaker 2: I shall.
00:34:14
Speaker 4: I shall.
00:34:14
Speaker 1: Forget it. Khadijah, how about some hot chocolate?
00:34:17
Speaker 3: Okay. I'll show you where it is. Yeah, well, I'll take a double.
00:34:20
Speaker 4: Uh, baby, now you know how chocolate makes you hyper. Let me make you some herbal tea.
00:34:26
Speaker 2: Chocolate makes you hyper? Regine, your mother is a hoot.
00:34:32
Speaker 1: That was a real laugh.
00:34:35
Speaker 4: She was a riot upstairs, rifling through my underwear drawer.
00:34:39
Speaker 1: And thank God I hid my.
00:34:54
Speaker 1: Deja, you've been in such a good mood.
00:34:56
Speaker 4: I bet your mom being in town does that to you.
00:34:59
Speaker 1: Girl, it has nothing to do with me. It's her new boyfriend, Alonzo. Well, since we're on the subject, Regine.
00:35:08
Speaker 2: No.
00:35:09
Speaker 1: There is no man in my life.
00:35:13
Speaker 2: No, Regine.
00:35:15
Speaker 3: A little respect would be nice.
00:35:17
Speaker 1: I am the only mother you've got. Yeah, well, I didn't have much of a choice, now did I?
00:35:21
Speaker 6: Oh, boy, I think I may be having a heat stroke up in here.
00:35:28
Speaker 1: You know what, Regina? I bet they'll be a little nicer to me at Macy's.
00:35:38
Speaker 3: Aren't you going to go after her?
00:35:40
Speaker 2: Why can't she come back to regime?
00:35:42
Speaker 1: Because Laverne is her mother.
00:35:44
Speaker 3: So what?
00:35:45
Speaker 1: Laverne started it. Stop tripping. Stop tripping. Look at how you looking. I can barely watch you.
00:35:51
Speaker 2: Cute.
00:35:51
Speaker 1: Not too long for me to put.
00:35:53
Speaker 2: You over my knee. I ain't afraid of you. I ain't afraid of you.
00:36:06
Speaker 3: I love it.
00:36:07
Speaker 2: I love it. I ain't afraid of you.
00:36:10
Speaker 3: You look so cute, Dana.
00:36:11
Speaker 2: You said, stop tripping.
00:36:12
Speaker 3: Only a mother could do that, by the way. Okay, listen, let me tell everybody what's going on. The Mother's Day trip to the spa takes a turn for the worse when Regine's mom brings up the dreaded question, when is Regine going to settle down and have kids? Meanwhile, tensions flare between Rita and Khadija after Laverne storms off leading to a second blow-up that ends with Rita walking out to, ooh, Khadija, you are in trouble. And you looked like you were in trouble.
00:36:36
Speaker 1: I feel in trouble right now.
00:36:38
Speaker 2: Why you talk to your mother? Why you give your mother back talk like that?
00:36:42
Speaker 1: And there's no way on the planet.
00:36:44
Speaker 3: Stop tripping.
00:36:47
Speaker 1: I'm scared even watching that right now. Me too.
00:36:50
Speaker 2: And she kind of hits you with the towel.
00:36:51
Speaker 3: Yes, she does when she leaves.
00:36:52
Speaker 2: Snags you with that towel just a little bit.
00:36:54
Speaker 1: So you know I had a little flashback.
00:36:56
Speaker 2: You did.
00:36:57
Speaker 1: I was like, you can't talk to your mother like that. Did you feel it?
00:37:00
Speaker 3: Because the dynamic is very true when you start to do that. You can see her.
00:37:04
Speaker 2: You can see.
00:37:06
Speaker 3: Knowing she shouldn't say it. I know what I'm saying. Yeah, I know what I'm saying.
00:37:10
Speaker 1: But no eye contact. No eye contact. You better not look in the eye because you'll be stuck right there.
00:37:16
Speaker 3: Would your mother be the type of person who'd check you right there if you did something like that in front of people? Or you say she's a talker.
00:37:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, she would if she needed it. There's no way. It would never even get that far. It would never get that far because you'd get snatched through a wall. You know what I mean? You tripping?
00:37:33
Speaker 3: What?
00:37:34
Speaker 1: There's no way you're saying that in my family.
00:37:35
Speaker 2: It's fantasy. It's a TV show.
00:37:36
Speaker 1: If it's not her, then somebody's going to come for me.
00:37:39
Speaker 2: What she said? What she said? She said... Rita, you going to take that from her? Let me get out of here. Give me that baby. Who do you think was right, though, in this situation? We've got Regine and we've got Laverne.
00:37:52
Speaker 1: Who do you think was right in this situation? Well, none of the back talk was right from any of the kids because at the end of the day, the mothers are concerned for their daughters and they just want what's best for us. But I think you can't talk back to your mother like that. You just got to kind of take the L and Tell your friends later. Commiserate later.
00:38:14
Speaker 2: But she should not have talked to... She definitely should not have talked to Kyle. She was frustrated and she was hot.
00:38:20
Speaker 1: She shouldn't.
00:38:20
Speaker 2: She shouldn't have said anything.
00:38:21
Speaker 1: No, I don't think she should have talked to Kyle. You can't talk to Kyle about.
00:38:26
Speaker 3: She's your daughter.
00:38:27
Speaker 2: She's a meddling mother, though.
00:38:28
Speaker 3: What is she doing wrong? That's crazy.
00:38:30
Speaker 1: That part. About what you're doing wrong. So now you just criticized her. You're telling her she's doing something wrong. So she feels some type of way about that, I'm sure. And then you talk to Kyle... Maybe I needed to talk to a man about what you're doing wrong. Hold up. Wait, where's the girl power in that?
00:38:46
Speaker 2: I thought it was us.
00:38:48
Speaker 1: We're not us anymore. And then, yeah, Khadijah should have just went ahead and stayed about it at, you know, when you get low.
00:38:56
Speaker 2: What we're looking at is difficult.
00:38:58
Speaker 1: This is why you're so funny in these scenes.
00:39:00
Speaker 2: Because I'm like, whoo!
00:39:01
Speaker 1: It's hot in here.
00:39:02
Speaker 3: It's hot in here to y'all.
00:39:04
Speaker 2: Isn't that what we do? You're trying to break it up several times.
00:39:07
Speaker 1: Right.
00:39:08
Speaker 2: I was trying. Y'all weren't listening. You're trying to break that fight up. But this scene speaks to mother-daughter relationships and how they can be a little.
00:39:16
Speaker 1: Contentious.
00:39:16
Speaker 5: A little.
00:39:17
Speaker 3: Have you ever had a situation with your mom?
00:39:19
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:39:20
Speaker 3: And I didn't even know I had a thing about my mom because my mother was our protector. So when I think about my mother, I think of her as like almost a saint and yet I didn't know when I was going to therapy. And therapist says to me, I always know when you're going to be late or skip a session. She says, when we start talking about your mother. And up until that point, I had never even realized that I had a thing because my father was so visibly an obstacle. So visibly, you know, just difficult and complex and I love my dad, but he was a very hard person to like, not to love. We tried to love him. But she also, in my mind, I must have contained and didn't know that I... And so I'm still working it out. She's 83. I love my mother, but didn't know that I had that until I started living life a bit.
00:40:11
Speaker 1: You got to live life a little bit. I mean, as a parent now, the first thought that crossed my mind was, Oh, my God, Mom. Thank you. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
00:40:23
Speaker 2: It was like, what? I'm sorry.
00:40:26
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. Because the weight of it all, you realize how much your parents can care about you and worry for you. And you literally can just wake up out of sleep. Just the whole... It all runs through your mind, all the possibilities of what could happen and what should happen, but what could get in the way and what could go wrong. So your parents are carrying around all this in their minds all the time. So there's this proper stress that they're under that you just don't and shouldn't even understand as a child. Like as a kid, you're supposed to kind of be free and enjoy life. But there's a time when you have to work your way into adulthood and you're Sometimes, you know, some people have rites of passage that help them work their way towards adulthood and really responsibility and things like that. And some are thrown right into it from being, you know, at an early age when they're still too young for all of that. And since some people never grow up, it won't even matter. So, you know, we have to kind of heal our inner child, just like Erica's saying right now. We have to, as adults, we have to fix whatever or work on whatever we want. Whatever happened to us as kids that we weren't even necessarily aware of.
00:41:38
Speaker 2: And have the awareness that something happened. Everybody... I don't think anybody gets out of childhood, even if you had a great childhood. You don't get out of childhood without some stuff, some trauma, some perceptions that were given, some belief systems that were put on you.
00:41:52
Speaker 3: You talk about your mother. Yeah.
00:41:53
Speaker 2: I'm... The great thing about my mom is, like, we had moments when I was a teenager when I wanted to be on the twirling squad. You said, you got to get your grades up. And so I would sneak out the house with my baton and go twirl anyway until they changed the outfits on me. So I couldn't, like, twirl in the old outfit because they had new outfits. Like, she's going to have to know. But my mother established trust with me early on. And I'm so grateful because she said, now, don't, anything that happens out there, come and tell me first. If you come and tell me first, you will not get punished.
00:42:24
Speaker 3: Right.
00:42:24
Speaker 2: And so you got to test that out and see if that's really true. I will not punish you if you tell me first. And so you give it a try. And the first time I do something and she doesn't know, then I get in trouble. And then there was the day that... I told her first, thank you for telling me. And I didn't get in trouble.
00:42:39
Speaker 1: I was like, this is fabulous.
00:42:40
Speaker 2: So we have this cone of trust. And the bad news about that is she's 95 years old to this day. She said, you tell me too much. And she sends you her love.
00:42:48
Speaker 1: That part, please give her my love. I feel like every moment I spent with you, I was spending with your mother too.
00:42:56
Speaker 2: I bring her everywhere because I feel like I was given that gift of trust. And not saying that we didn't ever have our moments, but that sort of, you tell me everything And I'll tell her too much. There we go.
00:43:08
Speaker 3: Talking about these boundaries, unsolicited advice, love life, emotional. Some people don't have boundaries. And so you can slip into there. You've had them and suddenly the mother or the daughter's told too much and suddenly that trust you're talking about, because you've told them so much, they don't trust you. And then they start worrying maybe that thing that you're talking about.
00:43:26
Speaker 5: Right.
00:43:27
Speaker 1: Well, my mother, we established that cone of trust at 17 because I was just running the streets too much. I didn't realize how worried about me she was. My brother made me aware. He's like, yo, mommy's crying. I'm like, what? I couldn't make mommy cry? It wasn't even a reality in my mind. And then we had a talk and we basically agreed that wherever I went, she's like, I don't expect you to stop hanging out. You're trying to experience the world and you're adventurous. but I need you to call me and let me know you're all right, wherever you go. That was the deal with all of my friends. If I was in Brooklyn, if I was in the Bronx, wherever I was, that night I called my mother to let her know I was okay. She knew I wasn't going to stop doing whatever I was doing because I needed to do this. She knew her kids. She knew us very well. So once that was established, we were good. But she's the one who kept the boundaries, because her and her girlfriend, They would have these talks, and they swear they were talking in code, spelling words and spelling people's names.
00:44:38
Speaker 2: I'm too smart for that.
00:44:39
Speaker 1: I can spell. I know what that spells. Or pig Latin.
00:44:42
Speaker 2: Like, I figured that out.
00:44:43
Speaker 1: I speak pig Latin.
00:44:44
Speaker 2: A way A. Or how A's he cray? Right?
00:44:47
Speaker 1: Right?
00:44:48
Speaker 2: Right? Right?
00:44:49
Speaker 4: Right?
00:44:50
Speaker 3: Right?
00:44:50
Speaker 1: So, like, they would do that. And then, you know, as you get older and you're becoming a woman, and we're starting to have conversations about things. And I'm like, Mom, you know, my friends in California, they smoke weed. in the house with their moms at the first. And she was like, Dana, as we're having our first little drink together, she didn't really drink. She's having a little light Kahlua or something like that with a little cream. She's having a little, she likes sweet drinks and I'm maybe having a beer or something. I don't even like beer like that, but we're having like a little, you know, together. And I tell her this about my friends from California who tried these things at home where it was safe. She was like, Dana- There's never going to be a day when me and you will smoke together. It's never going to happen.
00:45:40
Speaker 2: Sounds like boundaries.
00:45:43
Speaker 3: She told you.
00:45:45
Speaker 1: She told me. She told you.
00:45:47
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:45:47
Speaker 1: And certain things, when her girlfriends came around, she would shut me down. She would turn back into... My mother who had her own life, who was a woman, a grown woman with kids.
00:45:58
Speaker 3: Exactly.
00:45:58
Speaker 1: You know, I just happened to be one of them, you know? So there was, she established some boundaries that I think were very healthy for us to have.
00:46:06
Speaker 2: Are you getting your boundaries set up for your little one now?
00:46:09
Speaker 1: I'm trying. Yeah.
00:46:11
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:46:11
Speaker 1: You ready?
00:46:11
Speaker 3: I don't know. No.
00:46:14
Speaker 2: I'm sure you have some.
00:46:15
Speaker 1: Now, but more to come.
00:46:16
Speaker 2: I'm sure I'm ready.
00:46:16
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm ready.
00:46:17
Speaker 2: More to come.
00:46:18
Speaker 1: God will fill in the blanks, as was done with me and the village. The village, you know, kicks in.
00:46:24
Speaker 3: I witness you, wonderful mother. Wonderful.
00:46:26
Speaker 1: I think likewise. Likewise. Your mother's amazing.
00:46:29
Speaker 5: Come on.
00:46:29
Speaker 1: Thank you. I appreciate it. You know, I got a star, but I ain't got no street.
00:46:34
Speaker 2: Get me one of them streets.
00:46:36
Speaker 3: Now Dana is going to get a ton of streets. I need some streets.
00:46:40
Speaker 2: She said, I got a star, but I ain't got no street. I ain't got no street.
00:46:43
Speaker 3: That's what's up.
00:46:44
Speaker 2: I got two.
00:46:47
Speaker 3: One in Arizona and one in Philadelphia.
00:46:50
Speaker 1: We got to get our streets up.
00:46:52
Speaker 2: I have a maple leaf on the Walk of Fame in the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.
00:46:57
Speaker 3: A maple leaf?
00:46:58
Speaker 2: It's a little maple leaf.
00:46:58
Speaker 3: And you're not even Canadian.
00:46:59
Speaker 1: This is what I'm talking about.
00:47:01
Speaker 3: We can take the cheering to see that. Absolutely.
00:47:04
Speaker 2: The Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. There with Harry Houdini and, you know, all the people from Brooklyn.
00:47:09
Speaker 1: We made it. We made it.
00:47:11
Speaker 3: We made it.
00:47:11
Speaker 2: We've made it.
00:47:14
Speaker 3: Kim, I do everything out of my car. I do everything. It's my office. It's my studio. It's my nap pod.
00:47:19
Speaker 2: And shockingly not where we're recording this podcast.
00:47:23
Speaker 3: Don't spoil season two. Oh, but seriously, I take my calls. I write scripts. I do table reads all from the car.
00:47:30
Speaker 2: I know. I do the same thing. My car is like my home, just with better acoustics and less judgment. You know I don't sing.
00:47:36
Speaker 3: I do.
00:47:38
Speaker 1: I do.
00:47:38
Speaker 3: And that's why your car can't just be functional. It has to fit Your whole vibe. That's right.
00:47:43
Speaker 2: And Lexus understood the assignment. I mean, I'm talking about the LX. Luxury to the max. There's poor wood trim, massaging seats, and wait a minute, retractable ottoman.
00:47:55
Speaker 3: Come on. A whole ottoman, y'all? Plus it's hybrid, so it's smart, sustainable, and the storage. Chef's kiss. I even have a table for writing.
00:48:05
Speaker 2: And it's a rolling sanctuary that helps you move through life with excellence.
00:48:10
Speaker 3: And you know, Lexus has always been excellent, even back in the 90s. Just like us.
00:48:14
Speaker 2: Because that's the standard of amazing.
00:48:19
Speaker 1: I can't fight with my mom.
00:48:21
Speaker 3: It's a no-win situation. Unless you use my foolproof method of winning a fight with mom.
00:48:28
Speaker 1: Go on.
00:48:31
Speaker 2: Here come the evil.
00:48:35
Speaker 3: All you have to do is apologize.
00:48:38
Speaker 1: That's so good. That's the method?
00:48:44
Speaker 3: Correct. Just say you're sorry before she even opens her mouth. She'll have no way of making you feel worse. It's the perfect sucker punch.
00:48:50
Speaker 2: Oh, man.
00:48:55
Speaker 1: Love it.
00:48:58
Speaker 3: I wear it all the time.
00:49:00
Speaker 4: Then how come it smells like the inside of your cedar chest?
00:49:03
Speaker 2: Why?
00:49:04
Speaker 3: You gave me that cedar chest.
00:49:07
Speaker 1: Therefore, it is where I keep all of my cherished belongings.
00:49:10
Speaker 4: Regine, I don't understand what I did to make you so angry.
00:49:16
Speaker 2: But I'm sorry.
00:49:17
Speaker 4: Lord knows I try to be a good mother.
00:49:21
Speaker 1: Rita? Let's just tell you what we've just seen.
00:49:27
Speaker 2: Max gives Regine and Khadijah a strategy for their moms. Apologize first and disarm them, right? It works. Khadijah and Rita quickly mend their relationship, but Laverne proves to be a worthy opponent, beating Regine to the punch by apologizing first and catching her off guard. Oh, yeah.
00:49:42
Speaker 1: She's a pro.
00:49:42
Speaker 3: Laverne's admitting to the pressure of being a perfect mother. Does anybody ever feel like their mother said that to them, or do you feel that now? You're the only one who can answer that question. No comment.
00:49:51
Speaker 1: Next.
00:49:55
Speaker 3: Have your mothers ever admitted to that? No. My mother never said that.
00:49:59
Speaker 2: No, my mother didn't claim. Well, my mother would say, I'm right. Even when I'm wrong, I'm right. I'm like, well, no. What? Just, you know, as a way of just hushing me up. Like, I'm right.
00:50:09
Speaker 3: Even when I'm wrong, I'm right. But people's assessment of her, though, that she should be not perfect. Because I think that that's, to me, you know what? I think that's some sort of TV. That's passive aggressive. No, but that's some sort of TV thing where you see Brady Bunch and all that and they seem like perfect. I think that black people have always had to manage so many obstacles. They're like, look, I'm doing the best I can here. Right.
00:50:28
Speaker 1: Exactly. I'm doing the best I can. That exact line.
00:50:31
Speaker 2: By the way, let's have a little moment of the Aromavision alert.
00:50:35
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:50:35
Speaker 3: The Aromavision alert, y'all.
00:50:37
Speaker 2: Here, take one. Take one. Cedar was happening in that particular.
00:50:41
Speaker 3: By the.
00:50:41
Speaker 2: Way, these are the actual.
00:50:44
Speaker 1: Smells.
00:50:44
Speaker 3: Like my bank account.
00:50:45
Speaker 2: Empty. This smell like my underarm.
00:50:49
Speaker 3: You supposed to lick it?
00:50:50
Speaker 2: I don't know. Scratch and sniff. It was in the scroll. Okay. All right.
00:50:56
Speaker 3: Okay, well, listen. That's what they were doing.
00:50:58
Speaker 1: That's very brave of you. Did you lick that?
00:51:00
Speaker 2: No, I did.
00:51:03
Speaker 3: Nope.
00:51:03
Speaker 1: Listen, little girl. That's red dye number seven. It's the aroma. Oh, right.
00:51:10
Speaker 2: That's right.
00:51:10
Speaker 1: It's not.
00:51:11
Speaker 2: That's why she got it. It's not the flavor.
00:51:13
Speaker 3: Not the flavor.
00:51:14
Speaker 2: All right. That's what I want to ask you. Were you influential in naming the magazine Flavor? Was Flavor because of Flavor Unit?
00:51:22
Speaker 3: Of course.
00:51:22
Speaker 2: Of course. Thank you.
00:51:24
Speaker 3: Thank you.
00:51:27
Speaker 1: Oh, come on. Don't tell me. Now that's good jean fashion right there.
00:51:31
Speaker 2: Fubu-ish. Visa said no.
00:51:36
Speaker 1: Shouldn't have left me here all alone, man. Hey, but doesn't this whimsical garden gnome just say, mom?
00:51:44
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
00:51:47
Speaker 1: Clearly, this is not the crystal vase I ordered, man. How can I send that to the woman that carried me for seven and a half months?
00:51:55
Speaker 3: You were preemie? I was a breech.
00:51:57
Speaker 2: What's up, man?
00:52:03
Speaker 3: So Overton goes overboard on the spending channel, buying a slew of tacky gifts for his mom. Meanwhile, Sinclair drops in to escape the ongoing feud between the hunters. When Kyle's carefully selected vase for his mom fails to arrive, he's left scrambling and ends up bartering with Overton for one of his prized garden gnomes. That's what's going on. It's Mother's Day. These gifts are real suspect. What's the best Mother's Day you've ever been given or gifted?
00:52:28
Speaker 2: My mother moved.
00:52:31
Speaker 1: Moved.
00:52:31
Speaker 2: Back to North Carolina, retired from being a teacher and hadn't driven in years. And so I gave her a car. I gave her actually my Honda because it served me well. She needed to learn to drive again. I moved on to a Mercedes Benz.
00:52:45
Speaker 3: You gave her an old car and put yourself in a Mercedes Benz?
00:52:48
Speaker 2: No, it was only three years old. It was only three years old. But she was like, she said, don't give me anything fancy. I need to learn to drive again. And the Honda, and it lasted for like 100 years. It was beautiful. And then when it was time to upgrade, we upgraded her.
00:53:02
Speaker 3: Right.
00:53:02
Speaker 2: So that was Mother's Day.
00:53:03
Speaker 3: I gave my mother so many gifts.
00:53:05
Speaker 2: Of course.
00:53:05
Speaker 3: And, you know, I think it's me. I gave my mother me.
00:53:10
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:53:10
Speaker 3: Does that qualify?
00:53:12
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:53:13
Speaker 2: Yes, it does.
00:53:14
Speaker 3: It does. Happy Mom's Day.
00:53:15
Speaker 2: Happy Mom's Day.
00:53:16
Speaker 3: It's the gift that keeps giving. And I appreciate you for it.
00:53:20
Speaker 1: And she got the streets to prove it.
00:53:21
Speaker 3: No doubt.
00:53:22
Speaker 2: She got the streets to prove it.
00:53:23
Speaker 3: And I did give my mom a car in the house. I did in the house, but I gave her a car. And every day my mother gives me so much and I see what she put into me. The truth is I hope she sees my life as an extension of her own. And if I could give anything to my mother, it's just peace of mind that she did well. And integrity, not just with me, but I have five brothers and sisters that the sacrifices she's made were well worth it. Well worth it.
00:53:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I went deep and long. I love you more.
00:53:55
Speaker 3: I love you more. You're my queen.
00:53:59
Speaker 2: She threw that in.
00:54:02
Speaker 3: She threw that in. That's why she's laughing so hard.
00:54:06
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
00:54:06
Speaker 3: She's laughing too hard.
00:54:08
Speaker 1: You're like, uh-huh. Yes.
00:54:10
Speaker 2: Uh-huh.
00:54:11
Speaker 1: You're having a little bit too much fun at our expense. Oh, girl, face it. You two are freaks.
00:54:19
Speaker 3: I mean, look at you.
00:54:21
Speaker 2: You act like mothers and daughters are supposed to be best friends.
00:54:24
Speaker 1: Imagine you and me trying to be best friends.
00:54:26
Speaker 2: Oh, please.
00:54:28
Speaker 1: We have a hard enough time trying to be mother and daughter.
00:54:31
Speaker 2: When she says, the queen.
00:54:33
Speaker 3: She laughed too hard.
00:54:35
Speaker 2: She laughed way too hard. That was improv.
00:54:37
Speaker 3: Wait a minute.
00:54:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
00:54:39
Speaker 3: You can always tell when we are ourselves versus the character.
00:54:41
Speaker 1: Yes, I can see it.
00:54:42
Speaker 3: It pops out. You can see it.
00:54:43
Speaker 1: And I can see Chip turning to mommy right there when she was about to hug her. I was like, aw, you can see just a peek of it. It's true.
00:54:50
Speaker 3: Sweet. But they say a good compromise is when all parties leave a little bit frustrated.
00:54:54
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying? That's a good compromise.
00:54:56
Speaker 3: Like, you frustrated, I'm frustrated. Okay, this still is done.
00:54:58
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:55:01
Speaker 3: But you know, they bake up, but they still salty. But as you said, that's their thing. Yeah.
00:55:04
Speaker 1: That's their thing. That's their dynamic. That's their dynamic. That's their language. And then they actually thought about their behavior for a moment. I guess we are. And it was nice to just see them get a little mushy, you know? And Kim looking just like her mama.
00:55:19
Speaker 3: Oh my God. She really looks like her mama. Alexis. Kim has a sister named Alexis who's like, I saw her recently and I just even couldn't take it. Still? But still, even more so. It's actually freaky. I told her, I said, you're really freaking me out here, man. She looked like her, but she had the essence of Kim in her. So it was a weird dynamic. Gorgeous girl.
00:55:41
Speaker 1: I think it's because of that age, you know?
00:55:43
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:55:43
Speaker 1: She's kind of like the baby sister. Right, right. So she probably all the best.
00:55:47
Speaker 3: The bloom is still on the rose, but it falls a little off and you start to go into your maturity and you can see it and you go, oh God.
00:55:55
Speaker 1: Did y'all hear that shit? The bloom falls off the rose. This is what she does. Been doing it. The bloom falls off the rose. And then the movement. You saw the movement in it, right?
00:56:07
Speaker 2: The bloom fell off the rose.
00:56:08
Speaker 1: Okay, for those who are listening to this, she moved her hands in a certain way. That indicated. And her eyes got a little smaller as she looked off into the distance where we saw the rose. And the bloom falling off. Oh.
00:56:21
Speaker 2: There it is.
00:56:22
Speaker 1: You're welcome. I love it.
00:56:27
Speaker 2: I love it. Welcome to The Reverb, brought to you by Lexus. This is where we reflect, connect, and talk about how the episode's themes still echo in the culture. Because just like our stories, Lexus keeps raising the bar. That's the standard of amazing. I'm going to ask you, what was your favorite episode of Living Single since.
00:56:46
Speaker 1: We have you here?
00:56:47
Speaker 2: Since we have you here, what is your favorite Living Single episode?
00:56:49
Speaker 1: I have a few favorites.
00:56:50
Speaker 2: Oh, do tell.
00:56:52
Speaker 1: One of them is when we played the... When we played those singers. Oh, God.
00:56:56
Speaker 2: Flo and the Flavorettes. Flo and the Flavorettes.
00:56:59
Speaker 1: Up the ladder through the roof. It is so ridiculous.
00:57:01
Speaker 2: I love it.
00:57:02
Speaker 1: It is ridiculous.
00:57:03
Speaker 2: It is ridiculous.
00:57:04
Speaker 1: I'm with it.
00:57:05
Speaker 3: Perfect.
00:57:06
Speaker 2: We'll do the gig.
00:57:07
Speaker 1: Exactly.
00:57:08
Speaker 3: What I love is when you start, you take over.
00:57:10
Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh.
00:57:11
Speaker 3: And then when Max come on the stage, you're just looking like this, like, did that just happen? Like butter wouldn't melt in your freaking mouth. And I'm like, look at Dana just going like this, huh?
00:57:19
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
00:57:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you were so glassy. You were bugging that hole.
00:57:49
Speaker 3: Everybody was flowing into everybody.
00:57:51
Speaker 1: And I love the choreographer. She was fantastic.
00:57:54
Speaker 2: It was Demita Jo Freeman. Demita Jo Freeman came in there and whipped us into shape.
00:57:59
Speaker 3: Come on, guys. What are you saying? What are you saying? Bozo the Clown to me. We all looked crazy to me. I thought the only person that looked happy and decent when we got into the robes, you had a nice hairdo. I actually thought we all looked ridiculous.
00:58:13
Speaker 1: I thought we looked perfectly ridiculous.
00:58:16
Speaker 3: I was just, ugh.
00:58:17
Speaker 1: You wanted us to look better?
00:58:18
Speaker 3: I thought we would somehow when I looked in the mirror. I said, I look better. Like, I'm an insane asylum.
00:58:23
Speaker 2: I look perfectly ridiculous.
00:58:24
Speaker 1: You look fantastic.
00:58:26
Speaker 2: You do.
00:58:26
Speaker 1: One of my other favorites was with Jennifer Lewis, because she wore me out.
00:58:30
Speaker 3: Delia Khadija.
00:58:33
Speaker 1: I mean, you just, you could, I like the shows where we could, like, Cascade. Like, when we talked about the cat casket, there were things that turned into a whole thing behind the scenes that we could not let go while we were rehearsing.
00:58:47
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:58:49
Speaker 1: Oh, no.
00:58:49
Speaker 2: You with that little old lady.
00:58:51
Speaker 6: Your little old lady. I just wish, and you couldn't stop laughing. I just wish that Mittens would have an opportunity. I just wish Mittens, and you were like.
00:59:03
Speaker 2: I can't stop laughing.
00:59:05
Speaker 1: I can't stop laughing.
00:59:06
Speaker 2: Some of it was just, yeah.
00:59:08
Speaker 1: That guy was so ridiculous.
00:59:10
Speaker 3: Cat-cat.
00:59:12
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, because it was funny. You know, a cat-cat. Some of these words would evolve into whole things. I mean, we sang the love boat and it just turned into a thing. We could not stop. You remember the love boat?
00:59:27
Speaker 2: The love boat?
00:59:28
Speaker 1: We just started singing the love boat and then, you mean?
00:59:31
Speaker 3: We have to do the love boat?
00:59:35
Speaker 2: What?
00:59:36
Speaker 1: Love.
00:59:37
Speaker 3: Love.
00:59:37
Speaker 5: Love.
00:59:37
Speaker 1: Love.
00:59:38
Speaker 3: Love.
00:59:38
Speaker 1: Love.
00:59:39
Speaker 4: Love.
00:59:41
Speaker 2: Love.
00:59:44
Speaker 1: Exciting and new.
00:59:46
Speaker 2: Come aboard.
00:59:49
Speaker 3: We're expecting you and you and you and you and you and love.
00:59:54
Speaker 1: Won't hurt anymore.
00:59:56
Speaker 3: No pain, no gain.
00:59:57
Speaker 1: Come aboard.
01:00:00
Speaker 2: What's up?
01:00:01
Speaker 3: We're going to go.
01:00:02
Speaker 1: The love boat.
01:00:04
Speaker 3: Soon we'll be making another.
01:00:07
Speaker 1: A love boat.
01:00:08
Speaker 2: Promises something for everyone. You set our course for adventure.
01:00:14
Speaker 1: Your mind on a new romance.
01:00:15
Speaker 2: Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
01:00:18
Speaker 3: Stand up.
01:00:20
Speaker 1: Won't hurt anymore. No pain, no gain.
01:00:23
Speaker 2: I'm on board. What's up?
01:00:26
Speaker 3: The love boat.
01:00:29
Speaker 2: And that's it.
01:00:29
Speaker 3: Y'all just got a piece of history. Come on.
01:00:33
Speaker 1: Hey. What?
01:00:35
Speaker 2: That's what's up.
01:00:36
Speaker 3: And you have to understand, we drove the freaking crew insane.
01:00:40
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. There came a point where they created a sound effect, that sound they were shooting us.
01:00:45
Speaker 3: It was horrible. But we didn't matter. We were a family. And you know what? That's the thing about people need to understand about sitcom. You spend a time waiting so long and also being yourself. You have to find a way to play. And we found a way to play. That was our warm up.
01:01:02
Speaker 1: Boy, did we.
01:01:02
Speaker 2: That was our warm up.
01:01:03
Speaker 3: That was our warm up to do what we needed to do.
01:01:05
Speaker 2: And I think that's how we learned to trust each other. I always say that we would throw, I would throw something at you and you would throw it back at me and you would know that you could catch it and play with it and make it something new and then create accents to go with it. And that gets infused. Even, you know, that scene where you go, ahem. It's not like, yo, what are you doing? It's like, you know, you get to be yourself and bring yourself to the world.
01:01:27
Speaker 3: Let's close out this thing just really quick to say, what's the best advice that your mother ever gave? And, you know, you have your values instilled in you by your parents. You talked about that. What's the best advice?
01:01:37
Speaker 1: I think, you know, all the things like, you know, you are loved. You're beautiful. You know, you can accomplish anything you put your mind to. All those good things she told me. But she would hit me with The joy of the Lord is your strength. Sometimes before I walked out the door, Dana, remember the joy of the Lord is your strength. And I was like, what? I'd be mad. Like, I got to walk out. Why would you say that? And then I would think about that. And I was like, wait, joy is my strength. Joy is my strength. Oh, joy. When I feel joyful, I feel stronger. Okay, let me find some joy.
01:02:17
Speaker 3: I think we need somebody, a mother. To give us some more mother energy. It's a mother energy. Yeah.
01:02:25
Speaker 2: Where can we get some mother energy? Do we have any mothers in the house? Ladies and gentlemen, Chip Heard has entered the building! AKA Mama Laverne. And now, sitting here right now, another queen has entered the building. Ladies and gentlemen, Chip Heard, also known as Chip Fields, Heard, who is the real mom of Kim Fields and played in this episode. Hello, Chip.
01:02:54
Speaker 1: Hi, baby.
01:02:55
Speaker 2: Are we clapping for her? We're clapping.
01:02:58
Speaker 3: What a delight.
01:02:59
Speaker 2: What a delight. What a delight to have you.
01:03:00
Speaker 3: Chip, I met a moment where here on this show, you're playing the mother of your real life daughter and you have your fake name, real name, you're playing Laverne, which is your name in real life. And then we have Rita James, played by Rita Owens, the real life mother of the great Queen Latifah, known to us as Dana Owens. But you will be the only one to be able to speak to what it's like to be a mother on set and also have a daughter, but also the debut for you. You're a vet, but you can speak to.
01:03:36
Speaker 1: That's so good.
01:03:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, you are.
01:03:37
Speaker 1: Kimmy told me I was also an influencer.
01:03:41
Speaker 2: You are. You are.
01:03:43
Speaker 1: Are you kidding?
01:03:45
Speaker 2: I know that's right.
01:03:46
Speaker 1: I had to say, what's that?
01:03:48
Speaker 6: And you are.
01:03:49
Speaker 3: You are. But you can tell us now and sort of give testimony about Rita.
01:03:55
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
01:03:55
Speaker 2: Yeah.
01:03:56
Speaker 4: Well, I'll tell you this, Dana. She came the first day so nervous. She was sweating bullets. And she was like, Chip. And I was like. I know that I'm scared and I'm nervous, but I couldn't be because I had to be.
01:04:11
Speaker 1: Strong for her. Oh, thank God. So I put on this happy face. I was like, oh girl, this is nothing.
01:04:17
Speaker 4: Just look at Dana and look at her like you'd be looking at her in real life and let that make you not feel nervous. And I said, I'll be right there for you.
01:04:27
Speaker 1: And I was thinking, who's going to be there for me? I'm scared. Why were you scared and nervous? I never really liked acting. I did it.
01:04:38
Speaker 4: I really, I never did. I didn't think I was very good as an actress. And so Rita made me have to take another step up. You know, I have to look out for somebody. And you were nervous for her, which was funny. Kimmy was sitting in the background going, you okay?
01:04:56
Speaker 1: You okay? And I'm like, shut up.
01:04:57
Speaker 2: You're making me more nervous.
01:04:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was probably.
01:05:03
Speaker 2: The.
01:05:03
Speaker 4: Sweetest part of working with Rita, though, was when she would come to me and she'd go, did I do okay?
01:05:09
Speaker 1: Did I do okay?
01:05:11
Speaker 4: And I'd go, girl, you slayed that. I probably didn't say slayed back then. I probably said something like, you were awesome. Don't even worry. But it did make a difference when you would look at her or you'd hold her hand sometime.
01:05:23
Speaker 1: And you made her feel safe. And then once it became.
01:05:28
Speaker 4: fussing me and Kimmy against you and her, she turned into a beast. Talking about my daughter, I don't care if it is in TV. She was just fun, but a real gentle spirit, very gracious. She'd give everybody else the kudos and never take any for herself.
01:05:52
Speaker 1: Yes. She had a problem with that. Yeah, she's very humble. Very humble.
01:05:57
Speaker 4: But I do thank her because she made me really step up just because I felt like I was protecting her as a mom, you know, to another mom.
01:06:06
Speaker 1: I love that.
01:06:07
Speaker 4: Can I just tell you something I've never told anybody but my husband? When we would rap on any of the episodes, or anybody's episodes, We would rap and he would be there because Irvin and I had just either, I don't think we were dating. I think we had just gotten married. So he'd be at the set. So he'd be in his own car coming from work and I'd.
01:06:29
Speaker 1: Be in my car.
01:06:30
Speaker 4: So he'd get behind me and he'd get home and he'd go, babe, you were going like 75 miles an hour, 80 miles an hour.
01:06:37
Speaker 1: What was happening to you?
01:06:38
Speaker 4: This is going to get a little emotional. I used to watch Lucille Ball. And Lucille Ball, after I heard her story, the real story behind the camera, it was painful. And I kept feeling like I just got married. I'm getting married in my 40s. I'm trying to be cute. And then I have to act like this clown on this show. And it was very hard for me. So when I go to wardrobe at the end of the night and I take off that stuff, all I could think of was, He was watching me. He was watching people laughing at me. And I felt for Lucille Ball because I said, oh my gosh, how does she feel? And then, you know, knowing what was happening behind the scenes, it was painful.
01:07:22
Speaker 1: So that was like, this is the first time I've ever said this ever. But it was painful.
01:07:27
Speaker 4: I didn't want to look like the clown when I just got this man in my 40s. And God was so generous to give me such a wonderful guy. And then I, so I, from that, time on, I was backing out of acting because I did not want to be, because I know I can be funny, but I can also be dramatic. And when y'all were talking about talking back to your mamas and stuff, I said to Richard in the green room, see, that's why I burnt Penny, because she knew not to talk back to her mom.
01:08:04
Speaker 3: Okay.
01:08:07
Speaker 1: So anyway, there you go.
01:08:09
Speaker 3: Trauma. Thank you.
01:08:10
Speaker 2: Trauma. There's so much trauma.
01:08:14
Speaker 3: You know we're going to have you come back and just do me.
01:08:18
Speaker 1: An entire episode.
01:08:19
Speaker 3: No, she is.
01:08:20
Speaker 2: Very much so.
01:08:21
Speaker 1: Of my new show. What Living Single had did to me. I'm still in recovery.
01:08:31
Speaker 2: I'm still in recovery.
01:08:32
Speaker 1: Live in recovery. Me and my four therapists will all come and sit here.
01:08:35
Speaker 2: Thank you for being so generous enough to come and to come and share a piece of that story. We want to hear even more.
01:08:41
Speaker 3: Thank you.
01:08:41
Speaker 1: Thank you.
01:08:42
Speaker 2: Thank you, Chip.
01:08:43
Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing, for being that mom when you had that going on.
01:08:49
Speaker 4: Yeah.
01:08:49
Speaker 1: Because you rocked that mom. Thank you, Dana. But being with y'all is.
01:08:59
Speaker 4: different because y'all are different kind of ladies. You're what I like. You knew how to reinvent yourselves. You knew how to keep going. You didn't stop.
01:09:10
Speaker 1: And you also didn't die out soon.
01:09:14
Speaker 4: We got a lot of our friends who are not with us.
01:09:18
Speaker 5: Right.
01:09:20
Speaker 4: And you guys have stayed strong and stayed in the game. I'm so proud of you.
01:09:26
Speaker 1: Thank you.
01:09:27
Speaker 3: That's Mama Chip, y'all.
01:09:28
Speaker 2: Mama Chip!
01:09:29
Speaker 1: Oh, Lord.
01:09:30
Speaker 3: Thank you. We actually have not talked about, in the very serious way, we haven't talked about your mother's passing because it snuck up on her. And I want to make sure that we talk about the disease and the signs so people don't know that this happened. I had been coughing, just so you know, and had to talk with you. And I know. And you said you need to go to her pulmonologist.
01:09:54
Speaker 2: Yes.
01:09:54
Speaker 3: Because this is something that actually, and I applaud you because you did a documentary that I looked at. Scared the hell out of me. Yeah.
01:10:01
Speaker 1: Scared the hell out of me. This is scary stuff.
01:10:03
Speaker 3: But please, can we talk so people understand what that is? Interstitial lung disease. And the great Auntie Rita, unfortunately, had a battle with that.
01:10:12
Speaker 1: Yeah. She had some things going on. So she had.
01:10:16
Speaker 1: Something called scleroderma, which kind of went undiagnosed, which can cause you to get scar tissue in different places. And it can show up in different places in your body. For her, it showed up in her lungs. And what happens is it creates fibrosis, which is like a hardening of the tissue. Our lungs have to be soft and supple so they can receive oxygen. And so it was kind of like, trying to breathe in something hard, you know, and you can't really get the oxygen that you need. So she just passed out in class one day. And that was the beginning of this journey of trying to figure out what was going on because we didn't know. And then finally, you know, we came, she finally got a diagnosis of, a for sure diagnosis of the scleroderma. Her heart was being treated and it instantly started to come back. which made the blood pressure go down. Everything is connected. So you got to really check into it. If you're not getting your full oxygen, it's going to affect your heart, which is going to pump harder. I'm no doctor, so don't take this from me. Do some research. It took a minute, but you could see it. And eventually my mom had to be on oxygen. And there are drugs that are now created to help a lot of these things that she was fighting. So I think that people should definitely see their doctors and not play around with it because, I mean, Erica, I know you, when we were doing Live and Sing, you were running five miles a day. I was like, she is wilding. I was power drinking five miles a day. I drank five to get in. I was power eating.
01:11:53
Speaker 2: I was partying.
01:11:54
Speaker 1: Exactly. We was all doing something. We were going in, but you know, um, I felt like, you know, it's something that you should check up on. And here, take this guy. He's great. He knows what he's doing. And so it's important that people check into it.
01:12:06
Speaker 3: Because it took a while for you to find out. And the reason I'm asking is because that time could have been time where she could have taken maybe some therapies or remedies.
01:12:14
Speaker 2: That could have helped.
01:12:15
Speaker 1: You just didn't know yet.
01:12:16
Speaker 2: Didn't know yet.
01:12:17
Speaker 1: No, she didn't know yet. We didn't know. And it was by that time, other things had kicked in. So it was a few different things. I don't know how long my mom had been feeling symptoms before she... I could hear certain things in her voice. I could hear her... She had a whole... She had a lot of patience. And I could kind of hear her... When I would call her in her classroom, she had a phone in her classroom. So sometimes I would call her at school to check on her or say whatever. And I could hear her patience grow. being a little short. So I'm like, are you okay, Ma? Are you tired? I wanted her to retire. I'm like, I'm doing my thing. I made it. You can take it easy now. So my mother actually retired at 50, but she had to. It was like she couldn't keep that pace of what she was doing and figure out what was going on with her own body. At the same time, it was like, we have to figure out what's going on. So then we got down to a real diagnosis of it and we were able to get treated. And I think it really extended her time that she had here. This is very weird to talk about because I don't really talk about this.
01:13:26
Speaker 3: Thank you for that.
01:13:26
Speaker 2: Because you shared her with us so beautifully on the show and in our lives. And thank you for sharing that.
01:13:32
Speaker 1: I shared her my whole life. I shared her my whole life. She belonged to me.
01:13:37
Speaker 3: Thank you. And she did a great job because if you're here, that means she's here.
01:13:41
Speaker 2: Yes.
01:13:41
Speaker 3: So she doesn't go anywhere. That's one thing about it. We are speaking to her now. I have to say you talked about being a court jester for Dana after her brother passed. Right.
01:13:51
Speaker 2: Well, I wanted to say... Well, so we'll go there.
01:13:54
Speaker 1: I felt.
01:13:56
Speaker 2: We were talking in the beginning about you moving to California and getting into this new rhythm. I felt sort of the... joyous responsibility of being your sort of court gesture, which is one of the reasons why I made that space.
01:14:10
Speaker 1: I needed that.
01:14:11
Speaker 2: Why I made that space nice for us, because to give you sort of a grounding. And I didn't understand, like, I'm going to create a grounding, funny space for Queen Latifah. It just seemed like the right thing to do. And it was an honor to have little jokes and little songs that we can never sing for other people and sit there smoking our cigarettes and have a place of... caring for you in a way that I felt that you needed because you were going through a grieving time.
01:14:36
Speaker 1: Oh, I was definitely going through it. I was definitely going through it. And you definitely created that. And I just remember doing Set It Off because I was doing Set It Off at the same time as I was doing Living Single. You go there and shoot.
01:14:50
Speaker 2: At night and come and be with us during the day.
01:14:52
Speaker 1: I was like, how are you doing this?
01:14:54
Speaker 3: Fantastic.
01:14:55
Speaker 1: Fantastic.
01:14:56
Speaker 3: Fantastic.
01:14:58
Speaker 1: Thank you. You were actually supposed to be my acting coach on that. You wanted me to be, but you couldn't. And so you passed me off to Richie, your boyfriend at the time.
01:15:08
Speaker 3: At the time.
01:15:09
Speaker 1: He was like, Rich will do it. He'll be great. He'll be great. I was like, oh man. I was like, I got this big audition. And something had happened. Your family had to go away.
01:15:20
Speaker 3: You had already had it.
01:15:20
Speaker 2: It was yours to lose.
01:15:22
Speaker 1: It was your role. I braided my hair up. I got a prop gun from Stevie, our prop guy on Living Single.
01:15:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would have helped her with the audition. Don't go around saying that. But she already had the role.
01:15:32
Speaker 2: Okay.
01:15:32
Speaker 1: No, and then something happened. You weren't even in town. You had something else happen that you weren't even available to do it. So you were like, let Rich do it. Oh, man. And then I just remember I got the role, but I had worked like 30 days straight at one point. Yeah, you did. because I couldn't get the time off from the show and do the movie. So at some point I had to like literally just go back and forth. And I remember being in a quick change booth with Kim. And she checking on me, so how's that lesbian movie going for you? Just titties out, just changing. Titties, titties.
01:16:07
Speaker 2: How's that lesbian movie doing?
01:16:08
Speaker 3: You doing all right? You doing okay? All right.
01:16:10
Speaker 2: I feel good about that. She was just. Because I need to check.
01:16:14
Speaker 1: Oh my God. To make you laugh. You got to make me laugh. So the levity that I needed was right there. Because you weren't getting sleep, but I could make you laugh. You could definitely make me laugh. This is crazy.
01:16:27
Speaker 3: What we had in common that I didn't know until we started talking is that you came in the door grieving and I did because my father passed away three months before. You know it's funny because you can be like ships passing in the night and it would have helped my understanding of a lot of things, frankly. if we knew each other better, but you can't.
01:16:47
Speaker 1: No.
01:16:48
Speaker 2: You get to work and you're in it.
01:16:49
Speaker 3: But suddenly, if you do know, you just shift and go, oh, click. And wherever you get that information, it's almost a relief to go, thank you.
01:16:58
Speaker 2: Or thank you, I'm not the only one. I'm not the only one, but.
01:17:02
Speaker 3: Also because I dealt with it differently. Dana is more communicative. But I didn't know how. I actually think about all that time and see myself as being an outsider. But I was more inside if I had known, you see what I mean, what we were both dealing with in different ways. And so I'm just telling you that I'm glad I grew.
01:17:25
Speaker 1: I'm glad you grew, but you were a maverick and you were a force to be reckoned with because whenever it was time to, I mean, you fought for things that made everything better for everyone. And what you brought to that show and just you as a person, just you were a fighter. You're a fighter. So it was like, but it was perfect. We all fighters. Maybe we punch it the wrong thing sometimes.
01:17:51
Speaker 3: Sometimes. But we have six very strong individuals. Yes, indeed. And yet we got along and loved each other in a way that I think is deeper than even we can understand.
01:18:00
Speaker 1: I think so as well.
01:18:01
Speaker 3: We needed to live past it. Dana, the theme song. We can't let you get out of here without talking about one of the most iconic theme songs there is. It's played all over the world. People redo it. Other people do it. It's all over the theme song. Tell us how you wrote it and what happened.
01:18:17
Speaker 1: Obviously, I come from music, and this is a show in my mind. I'm like, I got to do this theme song.
01:18:24
Speaker 3: It is your show.
01:18:25
Speaker 1: These theme songs are like what? resonate in your minds. Like you hear these theme songs, you take the good, you take the bad, you know, right. Good times, all of these songs play. So I'm thinking I got to do the theme song. And like I said, there was a, I did a whole theme song for the original name of the show, My Girls, which was totally different, completely different, but very soulful, just vibey. And I like to sing and rap and mix it all together. So then they changed the name of the show. The other reason I was auguring in that office. I'm like, yo, man, I just finished that show. Damn, like, okay. Got to take it back to the lab. I was just thinking about living single. I'm thinking about what we're doing. Like, what is it like? These four girls doing their thing. So a producer I know named Def Jeff, I needed him to come over and help me flesh this idea out. So I was like, I want this beat to feel like this. So he did the beat on a machine for me. And then I wrote the rhyme and then chopped up, check, check, check it out. So then Stu, we went over his house with the beat and he added like the keys, some keys to it. Because I like pretty things like that. The opposites of what I'm Latifah, delicate, sensitive, and all that.
01:19:44
Speaker 3: Come on.
01:19:45
Speaker 1: So that we are living, hey, single. I'm hearing that in my mind. And it was longer. Yes, we're living the single life.
01:19:56
Speaker 3: So I'm thinking of that.
01:19:57
Speaker 1: Your voice is so pretty. But then I'm also like, keep your head up, boy. Keep your head up. That's right. So I wrote the rhyme to it as well because of the We're mixing, rhyming, and singing. So I wrote the song, and then he played the song as I wrote it, and Jeff did the beat. And then he was like, can you do this at the end? So his part, which was a clutch part, he played that. Can you just put this on there? Like, forget the whole song. That right there.
01:20:32
Speaker 3: I was like, whoo.
01:20:34
Speaker 1: Can you sing this note? So I sang whatever the notes were. He put that, it was like the button on the end of the song that made it perfect.
01:20:45
Speaker 2: Wow.
01:20:46
Speaker 1: It made it perfect. So it was a mixture of this hip hop beat with these beautiful notes and a little bit of jazz at the end. That was perfect. Big Les is dancing in the visual to the opening. She's one of hip hop's best dancers at this time. It's shot in New York. It's all of these cuts. We're all dancing in it. So the energy of us matched with Les and New York and that song just all went together perfectly.
01:21:17
Speaker 3: All hail the queen. All hail the queen. Ladies and gentlemen. Queen Latifah. Thanks for coming.
01:21:31
Speaker 2: This is True Blue, the segment where we hear from you, our friends. Take it away, Amber.
01:21:39
Speaker 5: From a bunch of people, and they have asked, they've noticed that in the credits, we see your name, Kim Coles, and Queen Latifah's name alternate. Can you tell us that story?
01:21:51
Speaker 2: Sure. That is what is called most favorite nations. So since Dana and I were there, or Latifah and I were there from the beginning, our contract stated that we would have not only the same pay, but the same star billing. In order to share star billing, we had to flip our names every other week. So some weeks it's Kim Coles and then Queen Latifah, and then some weeks it's Queen Latifah and then Kim Coles. That was negotiated into our contract so that we could share the space. Well, that's our show.
01:22:26
Speaker 3: That is our show. Thank you very much. Thank you, Queen. Thank you for doing it. We love your team. Thank you, Chip Heard, for hearing us, for coming in.
01:22:34
Speaker 2: What a nice surprise.
01:22:35
Speaker 3: We love you.
01:22:35
Speaker 1: And thank all of you for watching the show, liking, subscribing, as we know that you do. And you're going to be back next.
01:22:40
Speaker 2: Week, aren't you?
01:22:40
Speaker 3: Yes, on all the socials, Spotify, Apple, wherever you subscribe and watch all the way through. If you watched here, you did. Okay, we'll see you next week. Bye. Reliving Single is hosted by me, Erica Alexander.
01:22:51
Speaker 2: And me, Kim Coles.
01:22:53
Speaker 3: Reliving Single is a production of Heartbeat in association with Color Farm Media.
01:22:57
Speaker 2: Executive produced by Kevin Hart, Jeff Clannigan, Eric Eddings, Leslie Guam, Erica Alexander, and Ben Arnon.
01:23:05
Speaker 3: The show is produced by Kim Coles.
01:23:07
Speaker 2: Amber Watson is our senior producer.
01:23:10
Speaker 3: Our associate producer is Kenny Jackson.
01:23:12
Speaker 2: Our other associate producer is Elektra Tellesford.
01:23:15
Speaker 3: Our sound engineers are Eric Hicks. and Cedric Wilson.
01:23:19
Speaker 2: Production supervision by Razak Boykin and Brett Calkins.
01:23:24
Speaker 3: Additional production support from Alex Atkins and Z Taylor.
01:23:28
Speaker 2: Special thanks to BK Augustine and Dr. EJ Johnson.
01:23:32
Speaker 3: We dedicate this episode to our beloved mother-auntie, Rita Owens. And for more information about scleroderma, please watch the documentary Beyond Breathless.
01:23:47
Speaker 2: Thank you.