Black Hollywood

This is an extraordinary book because it took actors and actresses they are black, and he reimagined them in movies like Breakfast at Tiffany, Black to the Future, King Kong, and Charlie Chaplin and so many the others. I can go on and on because it's a beautiful picture art book with nothing but beautiful, colorful photographs of all the

people you see in all the movies and entertainment. I also have on this feature episode a continuation of the Bobby Shop Talks that I started about three episodes ago. So I believe this should be episode four, and so I'm gonna continue with these Bomby Shop talp because I really think they're raw they're exciting and they, you know, have someone's deep rooted opinions and beliefs, and there's no sugarcoat,

and there's men talking to men. So enjoy that. Part four, the Boby Shop Talks And the name of this episode is called Black Hollywood because we took over Hollywood with four hundred people in attendance at the big book launch of Black Hollywood Reimagine the iconic movies. Let me tell you who showed up because it was with list. I'm gonna tell you a little bit of who showed up because it was like about fifteen actors and actions in

the book they showed up. But Amber West, Tiffany Hynes, Rochelle Teach, Marla Gives ninety one years Older in the House, Eugene Byrd, Kelly Pratt, Jessica Rabbit, and so many more showed up. And it was the largest book signing I ever participated in. I mean, the table of thirteen people signing one book was amazing and they was only supposed to be an out, but they was there until the conclusion of the event, signed everybody's book and it was

just four hundred people having a good old time. Calling it Black Hollywood. So Hey, Episode forty four honored to have Correl Augustus, the celebrity photographer author of Black Hollywood, was just released today Imagine reimagining iconic movie moments. Well, I'm gonna have to interview him for what Malik's bookshelf bringing the world together with books, culture and community. Now that I got you in my space, Correl, I got the interview you from a podcast. The day is the

released day. How you feel and tell me the emotions and so forth that you are feeling the day that that your book has been released twelve year Journey right February ten, and uh, it just it feels surreal. If somebody woke me up from a dream right now would make that would make better sense. But it feels phenomenal. It's being received really well, and I'm just excited about it. I'm happy that the world's gonna chance to see it

and uh, hopefully everybody enjoyed of it. You know, to have volume two momentarily, Well, this is a wonderful and beautiful picture. Tell us about some of the pictures in the book and some of the actors and actresses that you have in this wonderful, beautiful book. Yeah, we got shamarrow More, we got Vivica Fox, we got Lauren London, and we've got both Vanessa Williams. We have the Deally they parted, Nelson Ellis and uh Blair Underwood, Michael J.

White or Mariy Hoddwick. You know, let's go on to j Ellis, who's in Top Gun right now, one of the most biggest grossing films of all time. Artist Hodge, Who's gonna be in Black Adam and a week and a half. So he has two premiers. He has Black Hollywood and he has Black Adam. And I'm happy to have I'm happy to have him, you know what I mean. So, yeah, it's just a phenomenal time and the time it is. Let's break it down because it's reimagining iconic movie moments.

So basically what you're doing, they describe what you did, and a little about some of the actors and actors and what pictures did you shoot them in? Yeah, yeah, yeah, So what I did was I I basically took all them a lot of the films and imagery that we know and love from watching TV in this country. And you know, we grew up with these characters just like

everybody else. But for whatever reason, they didn't look like us, and nobody thought it was important for them to look at us looked like us, and and you know, applied whatever lifestyle they had to our own. So what I did was, I just asked, you know, Vanessuatings to come back and do Cleopatra, because she's always been a Cleopatra of eyes. And you know, for the cover, we had the one and only Miss Amber Stephen's West and we know, for a fucking historically clear Patra was a black woman

from Egypt. That's what they That's what we know for a fact. Yeah, but when they casted it, different story, and then people go out believing that, and we never developed a sense of um self worth. Yeah, based on imagery. You know, we always get otherwise, other other rise and written out of our own stories. But that changed today. That changed today changed because we got black Hollywood reimagining iconic movie movement. Who else you have cash in the

pictures that you cast me? Yeah, I got Kyla Pratt as Bewitched. So she's on the broom, flying through the sky. She's giving you that look because we all know what we're doing here. And that's why I want of the actors and actresses, because I wanted people to be able to emote emotions and emote you know, the fact that we understand what's happening, but do you That's what That's what the trick is. There's a couple of nuggets in the book that I want people to sort of figure

out for themselves. We're on the front cover. You have Breakfast at Tiffany. Who is it? That's Amber Stephen's West. She is beautiful and she used to be on a TV show called Greek and I only ever wanted her for this picture. I had no idea what the cover was ultimately gonna be, but chose wisely and I think it's a great cover. I think it welcomes you into what's happening, and when you flip through the pages, it will make all all of it just ties in together.

When I show the cover, just oh, that's Breakfast at Tiffany. You're doing instantly right then you got back to the future that I got black to the future. Back to the future, Yeah, that was actually written in the actual picture, in the same font as the movie poster. But we got a little freaked out about being sued, so we

we we took out we kept out the words. But you know, I got a special edition that's gonna come and I'm gonna add it back in the Okay, Okay, you got shiny, we got the shining with the Mr Mr Blair Underwood that he Blair Underweard for me is Hollywood. He's the king of stage, the king of movies and TV. Like, what more do you need? And I was floored when he said he would uh pose for me and do the book and I had some stuff to show him.

He actually just started following me on Instagram, which is actually big deal because now they see that I didn't waste the time and it was worthy of them participating. And so, um, I know somebody played King Kong. You know what I'm saying. When she when you know in the movie King Kong, you know the white woman, you know some dude, you know, the savage beast that yeah, that is the beautiful Rochelle Yates. And she also ended up on the calendar the color of the cover of

the calendar. And it was just certain people that had just a certain quality about them that made the shot make more sense. And when I asked her to be photographed, that was one we had to do sort of and post and I could see that, you know, she didn't quite it didn't like make sense, but she trusted the

process and it's one of my favorite shots. And that's actually my hand on the cover, in my hand because I looked and looked and looked in Hollywood at our houses trying to find a great replica of the hand, and I just couldn't find money. So we did the next best thing. Now, we did a launch party, the Black Hollywood Launch Party. Come on, just last seven, Come on, like, seriously, I do. I'm going to be high off that for probably a year. Yes, if I get down and out

about anything. Signing that you had about what twelve thirteen celebrities did you shot in your book Black Hollywood appeared. I don't even know how many we had. Um, I didn't even count, but I will. I don't know. It wasn't even it wasn't It wasn't a quarter of the people that's in the book, but it was a perfect amount. Because as you know, that signing took about three hours, and we didn't really factor that in or anticipate that,

but but we just tried to meet the moment. The crowd was so massive, four hundred plus and you had ninety one year old Mala gives in. Then she signed every book in front of her. She signed every book in front of her, and she smiled, and she took pictures and she's all over my friends Facebook and Instagram and my family members. You know, I wanted. I wanted to give people a moment that don't have those moments

that you that we saw our whole lives. You know, you know what you cast her and in the book I did, I did. It was an old It wasn't a very specific shot. I just wanted to do her because we have a legend like Marla Gibbs. You just want to on her her And I just said, let's do an old Hollywood throwback with the lighting and the clothes she had on. And it worked perfect And yeah, perfect, it worked. George Devison met his match. Yes, yes, yes, yes man, that I mean the party was off the chain.

You have a good time. We had a wonderful time. We party, We signed books, we sold books, we sold calendars, and the crowd was in wati boat. It was. They were beautiful people wore they sup red carpet of fair you know, we took tons of pictures. Videos in Hollywood is still buzzing from it. Articles now being written. You just had one come up to date today any time you wrote an article about the book, which I'm really

excited about. And man, it's it's it's cloud nine. We just we just make sure Oprah got her copy of the book. Yeah, you know, show you signed it though before you send it, right, we sent it direct, but hopefully she'll call me so I can sign it presence. Right. Yeah, I met Oprah. She actually had a wristband of mine and we have a great picture together. She goes, when you're ready, bring it to me, and I'm ready. You went through twelve years. You forged through doubters, you forged

through the naysayers, you forged through the controversy. Come on, tell us about Joe expirits because you didn't give up you purse theory. Yeah, well, I don't quit things. If I started something, I mean, that's that's actually a blessing and a curse because I'm sort of obsessive about it. So if I say I'm gonna do something, then then

I'm gonna do it. You know. You know how when you can see the progress and something like if there's a field of leaves and somebody gave me a rake, I would get so much satisfaction out of raking and watching my progress happen. And that's how I that's how I approached us. Every single shot that I did, and sometimes it was multiple shots, I could see the progress happening. So, you know, somebody said to me, hey, did you did you ever think about quitting? I said no. They said

you didn't have said it? Did not? They said, did you ever did you never woke up saying forget this, I'm over and I'm done. I said no. I said that all the time, but then I would have that moment and then go get back right back at it. Because one of my favorite addages is if you're quit, you are guaranteed to fail. Absolutely well, so absolutely And like I said Saturday night, they didn't know I had my grandmother's blood pumping through my veins. They didn't know that.

People who thought we were gonna stop, I never saw. That's a controversial book, you know, you know, we just coming off the hills of controversial about Black Mermaids, the Disney cash. Now you just popped in here with the new book. Hollywood. They're gonna think there was all time to be having at the same time. You know, they're gonna think it was calculating. Yea. I actually worked on

those shots with Ariel like three years ago. She was the sweetest girl on a back lot over at Disney and just shooting all of the test shots and she was singing. She was great, and it just so happened that all this stuff happened is coming at the same time at the same time. The rock that way because they say controversial sales. That's what I said, you some books. I'll ring the fuel with this biom. Yeah, it's from them in the dunker. Let get them. As long as

we register that sale, I'm good. I don't care it right, just register this ye right. Well, hey, I know you're working on part two, imaginally iconic movie moments. Yeah, and ads. We want to do ads from the forties, fifties, sixties, and we're gonna do like a Ryan Murphy thing where a lot of people from Volume one has already agreed to come back to volume two and do something cool and different. So I'm like, well, now they're trusting arms

strong around. I don't have to be strong around for a year like Shaka Khan did me, yeah that people don't want me to call people's names, and said, listen, I'm not gonna lie on anybody. I'm gonna lye on you. If it's not appealing, what happened, that's not on me, it's the truth. It's you know, I love s group Shaka Khan with Chaka Kan. Yeah, ain't nobody come on? We all love that song. Yeah, yeah, you know if the whole thing is that, you gotta pay it for it.

I mean you've already man, you don't gotta lag up. They're already there. So you up and coming. Why should we be controversy. We should be the first ones lining up? Oh yeah, you need this shot for that. Yeah. I think it's a beautiful idea. I'm there. I'm on board. Make it happen, Make it happen. And you made it happen despite and then you got the big, beautiful black Hollywood reimagining iconic movie moments released the date. We're blessed

to have you here signing. We got signed copies personalized right here at League Books. That's right. We got some stock. If you want to personalized signed copy, you gotta come to League Books. We got them. You gotta go nowhere, come to you know it's your neighborhood. That's right, yes, right, It's very important for me to have the book here. And I walked in here a few months ago and I just I was, I fell in love with because this is what we need this you you are the

manifestation this bookstore, of this book. You know it really truly honest list. Because why can't I walk into a bookstore and see mostly books about people that look like me and have the melanin And that's not against everybody else, which is what they want to turn into, not knock at all. That's only because people get uncomfortable and blackness and black art has to be explained, and I'm tired of explaining it. If you feel a certain way to

call your therapist. That ain't. I don't have nothing to do with how you feel. What show else? And I ain't explaining it because that is security on. Yes, so people are crazy, So my thinking I never want to miss anything out. So like, if you had to describe your new book in one word, what would it be? Fantastical? Fantastic that's right, that's the word that I because I think that's what it is. And I used to be real self conscious about being um uh complimentary of myself

because that's what society teach us. But the truth of the matter is it is not only because of the subject matter, but everything, the time it took to happen, the people that's involved, Like, that's what it is. I had a conversation with all this Hodge who's in here with his brother, and he was like, you know, because I was always concerned about seeing people I shot three, four or five years ago, and then like, dude, you

wasting my time and wasting my time. And he goes through the beauty is you have this body of work shot over amount of time. He designs watches, and he goes, I have been designing a watch for twelve years myself, and it's not any easier because I'm in all these movies. It's actually harder because I have to go I can't focus on it. He likes the little, intricate, tiny pieces and he's an amazing watch design and people don't know that.

So I thought about it, and he's younger than me and he's had all this wisdom about it, and I just thought about, Wow, that's that's pretty phenomenal. It is, Yes, it is now your artists, you are celebrity photographer. How would you describe yourself in one word? Fantastical? No kidding, No, you know, I seriously I won I would describe myself as um just focused, just focus and despite the distractions and despite the hurdles, you just gotta you know, shake

it off and just stay focused. And so you're about to partake in your national book tour. Tell us all about that. What you got lined up? Yeah, tomorrow I'll be in uh d C. And then I go home to uh Columbia, South Carolina, and I get to I get to see people I went to high school with, people that made fun of me when I had a camera, and we're gonna talk about that. I get to see my old art teacher and people from the neighborhood and and just um old classmates. I'm actually looking forward to it.

So you're telling me that this you knew you wanted to be a photographer. I had a camera in the seventh grade, in the seventh films. Wow, so this was your passion at very early eight. Yeah, pictures of Janet Jackson when I was young made me want to be a photographer because you know, it's Janet Janet, and she always looked really really good and certain lighting. I just wanted to learn and know how to do it and understand myself. Yeah. Yeah, you know, before the pandemic, I

was taking the photography class. Let's come to set with me. Yeah, I'm gonna have to do that. Yeah, because you know, I take a thousand pictures. I'm a amateur, but it's always been my hearty. I took a class. I went to USC and I took a photography classes elective. Um at that time, you know, they showed us how to do the dark room and developed our pictures and um, you know, out of two hundred people, um, my picture

finished third place. I don't know, I don't understand judging art, Like okay, something one, but what like it's it's like it's like that saying that says beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Always. I never really entered photo competitions because I'm like, my grandmother will like it, she'll

choose minus number one, she'll choose the number two. But what are you have to know the person that's looking at it and what's appealing to them, because we all looked through photography books and we all know what we like. And if I'm judging something, chances are I'm gonna sort of gravitate towards that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. I didn't even know. I took a picture that could be turned any direction and it was up right. That was the crazy part. I didn't even know it ended up

like that because I took it shooting. He was laying on the track and I took him shooting down after the workout and he was all sitting, he was tired. I said, this is my picture right here, and I took it and I was standing on something. He was laying on the ground, and the and the and the instructive he said. He asked the class. He said, hey, tell me something unique about this picture. And I was like, and he was asking clold class. I didn't know. He said you and he said, look at this. You could

turn it this way. It's up right. You can turn it this way. It's up right. You can turn it this way. It's all right. And that got me third place. Thank you, my brother, Thank you. Fell a friend, Tell a friend, teller, friend, tell a friend, Come get it that league books, let's get it black Hollywood, remage your iconeg movie movements. Correll Augustus, a phenomenal photographer. Thank you, my brother, thank you. I know you've been enjoying the

Bobby Shop Toxic. Here come episode for enjoy. At what point do we take responsibility for our own actions? We don't take We need to look in the mirror. Man, Why would you say we don't? When is it when you're responsible? If you have a child to feed, you're responsible to clean yourself, feed yourself. Just you're grown man. Black friend ain't the same white, black, black and white. If I've done, you're done. It don't matter as much as if a white dude did well. If a white

dude gun you down there, they create a movement. But if a black man gunn you down, there's no movement. Don't say nothing. They don't say nothing. That man down. We're about to go in the neighborhood and shoot up all the other black people. We're gonna go. We're gonna ride tonight. We're gonna make sure these niggas feel so the reality is that is we're gonna make sure these niggas feel ups. You hear the verbose that we use.

We don't make sure these niggas feelers, right, we we we speak very vile to each other, and we do we degrade ourselves. So isn't isn't that our responsibility to change our reality? Is it really the white man's responsibility? You know? Is it ours? I believe it's so if we so we can complain about white supremac we can complain about all this and all that, but in reality, we were responsible to change our condition and reality. And goes back to self. We know better, but we don't

do better. Absolutely, we got more information that we're the most educated black people today and yet wet, yet we got more knowledge than any black people on the planet. But yet people come over here and they do for self. They create a reality, they create their own community on neighborhoods. We got were most were the most educated black people on the planet. But yet we we don't leverage that member that one point five trion dollars to come through

our hands. Working in America, we still are dependent and we're consumers with that money. We don't make taller paper, We don't make our clothes on our back, you know, we don't. We don't develop hospitals and schools and neighborhoods. But we got all this knowledge, we got all these degrees, we got being there's we got all that, So who's

really responsible to change our condition? Because it seemed like we complain all day and all night about all the problems that go on in our community that we don't have respect from my woman. We got teenage pregnancy, we got fast food on every corner, we got all of these issues it's plaguing us in our neighborhoods. But yet nothing has changed. Black on black crime is still high,

police brutality is still high. Nothing changes, and it don't seem like we gavinize our energy, our strength and our brotherhood. And I said, to make a real, real change, all right, we'll look look at it and look at what what what's the root of that though, the root of us not taking responsibly for ourselves? Because I believe this is

my personal things. I believe because we have been made over certainty of the time to hate self, and we've been caught self hate so long that it is automatically and stuff in us to just hate, you know what

I'm saying. So at what point, because because when you think about it, life for example, where that's why I use books to change the conversation about this some ration industry right videos, I'm throwing videos that that that dealing with black history, black culture, black religion, all of these things. This is what I'm teaching. This is what I'm showing people. It don't even move the soul, it, don't you know? I, like Jesus said, and the Bible said, I have been

piping onto you all day long. You have not dads me, and I've been teaching you all this beautiful knowledge and don't even move your soul. But the moment a Caucasian or in the History channel say the same exact thing that I've been telling them, they come running in here like it's the gospel news, like it's the gospel truth. Who my God about? Did you hear it? Is? So the point is we have to get out of self hatred. We only want to accept things that come from other races,

and we reject for come from our own self. We don't move towards our history unless some Caucasian or some big government organizations. That's my point. So we have to get back with educate each other. We have to educate each other. We don't educate each other because we're too. We don't. We don't want to accept the reality of what we live under, because to accept the truth means you have to now make a change. And according to the society we live in, they have made us comfortable

being with the change of being ignorant. So it comes back, it comes back that we we know the problem. Like you said, you your root is self hatred. The self hatred, which is real. I mean that's why we, you know, exist. Well,

I think there's a reason why we have games. Uh, this don't necessarily stem altogether because of self hatred, because some of us look for a brotherhood and sisterhood, some of us look for a family because our families have been just decimated, you know, the drugs and our communities have affected us. You know, see what happens. But what's that? Yeah, that's just that's the self hatred, know, like, oh that's that.

Ain't that? Ain't nothing but that. But we see what a Where you from, niggah, where you go, where you stay at? Well, I gotta tell you all that. I don't even know you, bro, but you but you got yours. What he lift, it's still in the fact we're stuffing from black inferiority and self hatred absolutely goes down. Now some black people are out here, that's just say, oh, I don't self from black inferior I don't see from

self hatred. Alright, peace, brother, thank you, thank you. But the reality is enough of us do if this, If the shoot don't fit, then I'm not talking about you. You know, if you throw a bone at a packet dogs, the only one in holler is the one that got hit. So you might need to examine, you know, whether or not you one of them dogs that got hit. Because the reality is that we have to move together enough of us, that is, not all of us, enough of us have to move together in order to achieve a

desired result. That's called the nurtia. So we don't have enough of us to change this reality, but we gotta find a way to do so. So this self hatred, this black inferiority, the question is what do we do amongst our own selves to try to change this. Stay tuned next week for Part five or bottom Shop Talks. Thanks for listening to Malik's Bookshelf where topics on the Shelf, our books, culture and community. Be sure to subscribe and leave me a review check out my Instagram at Milik Books.

See you next time.