Wake that ass up in the morning, Breakfast Club.
Morning, everybody is Steve j Envy, Charlemagne the guy.
We got a special guest in the building.
You know what's interesting, I was thinking about, you know, organically, who is going to be the first guest in the new Breakfast Club studio, Because to me, that's important because you're setting off a new generation, you're setting off for a new chapter.
So who would be the first guest?
And I'm on it, we should be on it.
Come on, man, grew up on them, Come on man.
Ladies and gentlemen, Malcolm Jamon want awake.
You know you said first guest. I didn't really register before you started. Yeah, but now okay, I got it.
You're the first guest that one new studio, Ye studio. Somebody you know them is still Huxtable. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome word, thank you, thank you. I want to for people that that don't know, I want to.
The most important question. Have you played the Mega millions?
I thought you gonna say how you feeling, how you're doing?
How you I guess I need to you need to Billy one.
Point three billion?
Okay, I did one? I did. I don't know the last one was in Billions a couple of months ago. How'd you do well? I thought I was doing good. Like I went there, I was like, yo, give me uh So, my wife has numbers that are like her lucky numbers, so when the numbers get real big, she wants to play those numbers. So and there's like three. So the car took her and I was like, you know what, play these And I was like, I'm a splurge, give me three more. And I think I'm doing good.
And this cat next to me and the next one he was like, give me two hundred. I'm like, it's like that. So I'm not you know, I'm I didn't win. I don't have my own breakfast club.
So clearly you went to Dolls, nothing nothing, so you didn't do good.
I might go back in though. I mean if it's in the Billions.
Against Billy right now, now, you're from Jersey City.
People that don't know how did you get your start in show business? Because we heard that you were a rapper at first. You were in a rap group almost signed by Deaf Jam at the time.
Are you true to that?
Yeah?
How did you get your start with show business?
I was doing basically community theater. My mother was always looking for me to looking for things for me to do outside of going to school and coming home and hanging out. Like I played basketball and that was my thing. I thought it was gonna be a basketball player. And then one season, one year basketball season was over, my mother's friend suggested this community theater and I asked him if I wanted to go. So I went down, auditioned, got in, and found myself doing theater and just absolutely
loved it. So like at nine years old, I was like, oh, this is this is what I want to do and what it was it was really it was the first curtain call. Like the first player I did was called Alice, Is that You? And it was basically, uh, a takeoff of the Whiz like Dorothy gets the Odds and everybody thinks she's Alice from Alice in Wonderland, right, And I
played the ten man. And I just remember the first opening night coming out for curtain call, coming out and people clapping and standing up, and I'm like nine years old and I'm like, yo, I.
Got that bug.
I can get into this. People stand up and clap for you. Yeah, I like this.
And at the time, Jersey City wasn't Jersey City now with these big skyscrapers and people dying.
To Yeah, it was different. It was a whole.
It was nasty.
No one was scrambling to get the Jersey City. But but but this was La. I left Jersey when I was five. My my parents separated, Uh, and my dad went back to Chicago. My mom took me back to California. So, uh, the acting thing started in La. But then when I, you know, years later, when I booked Cosby obviously moved back to New York.
How did you book Cosby? What was that? That process?
Like, that's funny. So my my well, my agent first submitted me. They were looking for a six to fifteen year old Jesus. Yeah, they all getting ready for the well because because you know, Innis was fifteen and was six two mister Cosby sun So in the original like in the original script, like there was this this running joke like you know, THEO would you know, get in trouble with something and Cliff would be like THEO stand up, and THEO stands up and he's towering over Cliff and
cliffould be like THEO sit down. So they were trying to get that they couldn't find that kid, and literally at the uh so, you know, she submitted me. They didn't want to see me, and at the last minute she re submitted me because they couldn't find the guy and they were doing network callbacks. This is crazy because it was good Friday eighty four. I auditioned at six thirty on Friday afternoon and the network callbacks were that Monday, so they were already flying in somebody from Chicago, flying
in somebody from New York. So I was literally the last person they saw. And when I went in for the network callbacks, I went in and I did the audition like you know, you see, you know, I was watching different strokes and whatnot, so you see kids being smart alex and talking back to the parents and rolling their eyes. So I was doing the scene like that, and in the room is you know network, you know, producers, studio,
and I'm killing. In the room, everybody's like, I'm hitting all the all the beats and everybody's laughing and I'm killing. And I finished, and everybody's like cool except mister Cosby, and he's looking at me and he's like, would you really talk to your father like that? And I said no, He said, I don't want to see that on the show. So you go back out and you give me something else and come back later. And because it was the network callbacks, like everybody was there, so they had, you know,
audition everybody for other parts. And finally I came back in and gave him one hundred and eighty degree turn.
Well clearly he saw something men.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And and you know they gave me a shot to come back and redo it, and that's how I booked it.
You know, it's interesting about what you said earlier. You said that you was in theater at nine years old. So people see these gifty young actors on shows like Cosby back in the day, and we don't realize the background because nowadays it feels like it's no point of entry to you know, get on these TVs anything.
Or social media or social media.
You actually went and were perfecting your craft before you got to that point.
Yeah, and I still do, like I've always every couple of years, I do theater, even when I was on Cosby, Like, I always go back to theater because that is the I mean, that's the that's the foundation, you know, So I always say like theater is my favorite platform. Television is my favorite paycheck, but theater is really like like that's I mean, that's that's that's the ship right there.
Have you ever just sat back and reflected on what you and The Cosby Show meant to black people in really the world from eighty four to I need to.
Yeah, yeah, I I mean we it's something that we still talk about, right, So, I mean, you know what I'm saying, we like like worldwide the culture, you know, because it's had a an indelible, irreversible effect, you know on the culture. So I mean it's something I'm very proud, like, no matter what, I'm very proud to, you know, have been a part of that and part of that, you know, just to have that kind of I guess influence if
you will. And when I was younger, you know, it was always I was always trying to escape this role model you know title, because I was like, oh my, what use the role model? And my thing was always we always equate h perfection with role model. So I never wanted the pressure of being, you know, being seen as flawless because I just I didn't want that, Like that wasn't me. So I used to kind of kind
of shy away from that, you know, that title. But and now that I'm older, not that I want to be considered a role model, but I do understand the you know, having the platform. I understand, uh, having the ear of young people like you know. Fortunately, I'm still at a place where I'm still relevant enough where you know, what I say can still have influence on you.
Always listen to you because of that, sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And and and that's something I take seriously. So I was, I was really fortunate because we shot Cosby here in New York, and you know during during the eighties, man, you know y'all didn't show that was actually that was actually so we shot in Brooklyn, then we shot in Queens, but that that stupe, that front stoop was actually in the village, in a village.
Yeah, I was gonna ask the THEO you being, you know, always looked at it steal.
Does that ever bother you?
Because with certain characters that we always look at, whether it's Steve Verkle, he's always gonna be Steve Verkle and you're always steal.
Does that ever bother you?
No, it doesn't bother me. But there's you know there's been this. I guess this this this wave of interpretation that it bothers me because somebody caused me THEO. I'm like, no, one name is Malcolm, but I've always done that, but some people they misinterpreted as like I get mad when
people come to THEO. I think it's like no. And even when I was on Cosby, I wouldn't answer to THEO because as far as I was concerned, THEO was not going to be the end all be all for me, like at fifteen years old, to think like, oh, if this is going to be the height of my career, that's a depressing thought. When the show first aired and I'm fourteen, you know, the ratings are out the box,
and my mom sat me down. She said, baby, it's great that this show is the phenomenon that it is, but you know how this business is, this show could be over next year. What are you going to do when the show's over? She said, I can type, I can always get a job, but what are you going to do in the show's over? So she impressed upon
me the concept of longevity. So I wasn't you know, when I was on the show, I never answered the THEO and especially now you should know right like now, if somebody caused me THEO, they're being a dicky because they name.
And I also don't think people look at you as THEO.
Like I got get what I'm saying at this point, Like you've done You've done a lot other than THEO. I mean, you had a whole other show with your name in it. You know how long did it take you to it? Just to Life after Cosby show? Like how did things look in ninety two?
Well, I'd always prepared for it. That was the thing, like I was, you know, from that conversation that my mom had with me, we literally spend each year of that show as if it were the last year because we didn't know. So I had always paired for Life after Kazi. So when the show was over, I had my own show for a half a season on NBC and then from that I went straight to theater. So
I was, I've always I've always worked. No, there may there may have been, you know, longer stretches of unemployment than I would have liked, but we're talking like maybe you know, two three years, you know, But I always knew that the transition from being seen as child star to being taken seriously as an delt actor wouldn't necessarily be a smooth one. And that's why I started directing early. Like I started directing like sixteen. By eighteen, I was
directing Cosby episodes. I was directing music videos. I was directing Fresh Prince of bel Air. So when I came off of Cosby, I think it was episode with one of the Ravens and Owns episodes.
Yeah, I did you look at Bill Cosby as a father figure because you around him so much, did so much acting, like right, and and I mean you were a good actor, but it was believable. It seems like you admired him as a father when I when I would watch the show or even see you behind the scenes of the show whatever.
Well, I was doing theater. I was perfecting my job, right, No, because I you know, I my father has always been, you know, an integral part of my life. So I have a father. He was you know, Misconstus was obviously someone I worked with, someone I respected, but Innis was also you know, a close friend of mine, so he was also like Inness's dad, got so it wasn't I mean, I would definitely say he was a mentor because he you know, he schooled me on a lot of you know,
on a lot of things. But the I love the father's son relationship between Cliff and THEO, but that wasn't that wasn't our relationship. But you know, with Matt Coole, but it wasn't the It wasn't the father figure.
Now as a mentor, did he school you on to contracts and negotiations? Because that thing it's still on now And I'm like, do you still get paid? And was everything taking care of the right way? Or is it you're a new actor?
You got got?
Yeah, yeah, we got it and not once we got God, that's that's not that's completely unfair to say we got got. But I will say this, so, yeah, so we get residuals. Right. But the thing that that that people don't necessarily understand about residuals is every time an episode repeats, you get a percentage of what your original paycheck was. And that show has repeated forever.
Correct.
So let's say, to put things in perspective, about ten twelve years ago, I remember getting an episode check for sixty four dollars. I thought a residual check sometimes, Yeah, like I got at some point the sending the checkout costs more than what the check is correct. So for a period of time though, that lump sum was a nice padding. But then after a why you know, once
it just keeps airing. It's not a whole lot. But when you have points when you got back in, that's when you're forever making money because when they syndicate the show, however many times they syndicated, you have a piece of the show, So you're getting that kind of money. We didn't get on the ship. We had no no backend. We didn't know about back in, and even if we did, we didn't have any leverage to negotiate back You.
Said something that made me feel like I'm a fail of black history. Trivia question, Which show did you have on NBC for a half a season?
Oh man, it was trust me in that a failure? They they they dicked me on that too. It was a show called Here and Now. Remember that show. Yeah, it came on, so it came on, It came on Saturday nights. It was it came on after or came on before there was a show called out All Night with Paddle or so. Yeah, so we were with nut.
Got it.
So disrespectful, but he's said he gets mistaken from you sometimes recently happened and you're the only one like that happened. Not only that, all right, I'm about all night. I definitely remember that.
So it was during that time. So this is something that's really interesting. So we had that show. The president of the programmer at NBC at the time didn't like the show, right, and didn't think the show was going to do well. And it was basically, you know, it wasn't THEO, but you know, my character worked in the community center in Harlem, and uh, the program of NBC didn't think it was gonna be a funny show, didn't
think it was gonna work. We shot the pilot and they do what's called pilot screening Week where they get all their pilots, they scream them, then they get raided and then that's how they decide what's gonna go on there. My show came in number two. So really the only question was do we put this show, you know, on Thursday night before a Different World or after Different World? Right? Because for eight years, if my face is you know, if the America's used to sing in my face at
Thursdays at eight o'clock. It makes sense that if my pilot does well, you're gonna put me on Thursdays, either at eight o'clock or eight thirty. The programmers still didn't like the show, and he put me on Saturday night, which is why nobody ever heard, because you know, my audience is not gonna be watching it on Saturday night. And then when the number one rated, the number one pilot they put in that eight o'clock slot, they canceled
after two weeks. Wo, so like, okay, cool, they're putting number two in that slot, kept me on Saturday night. Then they put out a night in that slot like NBC just they were not trying to hear that show, no matter how well it did. So we got we got canned half a season in.
I think NBC dropped the ball because you know how different world was Lisa growing up being in college.
They could have did that with all the kids, like they could.
Have did that with you growing up. I feel like your adult life should have been exploreding that way.
You know, it's interesting, different world. So let me go back this real quick. So, uh so what you don't know about that show?
Here?
And now, uh this cat named Dante Bizet was on the show, right, everybody knows himing as y'all seen Bay right now. Oh, Lauren Hill was on the show. What Yeah, Omar Epps was on the show. Yeah. Yeah, but they they NBC this did they didn't dig the show and so of course this is before they blew up. But yeah, but they were all on the show.
If they'd have made one little adjustment that made you THEO on that show and you older, now, I bet you would have worked.
You know what, it's possible.
I want I want to ask you know, out of all your episodes, I'll ask Alla, So, my most memorable Cosby show is of course the Going to Control season one episode, and of course that's not the most memory.
Maybe the two of them. That was episode eighth.
I think it was okay, of course the end. I did the same thing when I got my Eric. So what was your favorite.
All of those? But I think that at the top of this would be the pilot when THEO was getting d's in school and they did the whole Monopoly money thing, and you know, THEO gives that that was ther and you know, THEO gives this speech, you know, like you know, Dad, I just want to be regular people like I don't want to be a doctor like you. I don't want to be a lawyer like like mom. I just want to be regular people And why can't you love me? For me? It was like this beautiful heart held Remember
I remember that. I remember the audience collapsed and the whole nine and Cliff looks at and it's still It was the dumbest thing I've never heard in my life. And so for me that was significant because it's set the tone for the show. Like any other show at that point, the music would have started correct, the father and son would have but he, you know, he went left with that, and I just love that because that said the tone that this was going to be a different kind of show.
We're gonna talk to about other stuff other than copy As a fan, I gotta get the first time, no doubt.
Did you ever keep the Gordon Guardrail show?
I did not. I think it's in the Smithsonian if I'm not sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was. That was one of our That was that was definitely one of our our most fun and for me, most memorable episodes.
You never get approached about doing a Gordon Guarntrail clothing line, Malcolm Jamal warns.
Gordon, I'm surprised I have not, but I see there's a Gordon Guartrail like t shirt line out there. Yeah. Yeah. I was asking how much of.
The show was free, free done and how much was actually written? Like were you allowed to go off script because some of that stuff just seemed like y'all were going.
We we had to often go off script because it so it takes it typically takes five days to do a sitcom. We were doing the he got down to like three and a half days, and you know most of those uh storylines came from mister Cosby's monologues, right, So we were a very under rehearsed show. So when it was time to tape the show, oftentimes, you know, if mister Cosby had like a monologue or something, he wouldn't know the monologue, so he'd like he'd go left. And the fun part for us was when we when
he went left, we had to go left with him. So, you know, for me it was great because it was like, oh, this is theater. Now we just you know, we're you know, you follow you follow the leader, you follow the followers what we call it, so uh, you know, and and I love seeing those moments with him, and him and
Olivia were cool. But like those moments with him and Keisha, you know, because at the time, you know, Keisha was four, so she didn't know how to read, so she had to know she had to remember what to say, how to say it, and when to say it. Wow, and the wind was always based on the line before. So she's doing things with mister Cosby, She's waiting for her line and he's just talking and they would just make it.
It was just really cool to watch her and if you go back, you could just see her little brain processing how to maneuver through you know, what's happening. So so though stuff was written, you know, there was stuff that had to be kind of off book because we were we were following him and Felicia was the best at that.
You look at those episodes absolutely, do you believe Malcolm and Eddie gets overlooked when it comes to the conversation of like classic black scum.
Ah, I don't know. I don't know, because people do talk about it a lot, you know, and that was an interesting time for me, you know, having come from NBC, where you know, everyone was made to be ultra aware of the images of black people were putting across the airwaves, and then going to UPN, where their whole approach was the antithesis of that. So that was it was a difficult shift for me because I was thinking that I was of the mindset that they knew where I come from.
They knew I was on the show that made history where black people, that showed that black people could be funny without being stereotypical. And you know, when I got to up and I realized they weren't interested in any of that. And you know, and for eight years I watched mister Cosby like all of the things that all of the stereotypical things that we did not see on that show was not because the writers were not writing. It was because mister Cosby is like, no, that's not
what we're doing. That's not the tone of this show. That's not who the hucksbles are, We're not doing that. So I saw him do that from season one to season eight. So I figured, Okay, I'm at UPN. I know how it works. But you know, I was not Bill Cosby, and we were not doing Cosby numbers, so nobody really cared about what I cared about in terms of trying to you know, not be you know, not
do the same typical black sitcom approach. And you know, I fought with writers, producers, Studio Network, and you know the show was not as you know, it was not one hundred percent what I wanted, but you know it wasn't as you know, stir it because they were trying to make it that.
I love talking to you know, people from that era. You know, we had Kadem Hardistan and Jasmine Guy here, Erica Alexander's been up here and I asked him all the same question. Do you think it was an intentional shift? I'm just gonna say by day because I don't know who it would be to change that kind of content, because when you think about that era, it was all positive black content, intentional positive black content. But then it
just seemed like it just shifted. You think that was purposely done?
Yeah, it was. It was like a like a reaction to like we had this couple of years of like you know, family and positivity and and and and not just in black sitcoms and sitcoms period, like you know, it was the it was the family values, was positivity. Then there was a Simpsons and there was Roseanne, right, so that kind of kicked off. It was almost like there was a backlash to the family values and positivity. So I I wholeheartedly believe it was it was intentional.
Now when it comes to when it comes to to black sitcoms, you know, I think the thing that everybody missed was, you know, people looked at the Hucksaboys and was like, oh, this was this is an upper middle class black family. So we can do black sitcoms and we can give these you know, black characters, uh, professions, but the execution of the comedy was still the same. Like the thing about what made cause me different is the the comedy wasn't predicated upon being black. Black sitcoms.
The comedy is predicated upon being black. So I think that's the missing piece that the you know following black black sitcoms missed out on. They're like, okay, well let's make them a professional. But it can still be you know, we can still jig. You know, you just never.
Understood how things went backwards because copy shows big as hell in a different world, all of you know, Martin, all these shows big, living single, and we go back to we go back to nonsense, like I feel like you would build U pun that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was, it was. I definitely hardly agree. It's a intentional I was going to ask.
Talked about it before, about the influence, but you know, looking back at it now, do you know, do you guys know that you guys and this was maybe what you were setting out to do, you guys, You guys raised so many families of what to do, how to act, how to talk to kids, how to have difficult conversations, how to you know, speak to each other. And then even with a different world, like I tell everybody that was the reason why I went to Hampton.
University because of a different world. Was handled yet to me? You know, so do y'all look back and say, damn, we raised the generation?
Yeah? But that was that was his intent. Like, he was very clear on what he was doing. He was very clear that he wanted those shows to be timeless. That was something he talked about consistently because there were times, you know, I'm fifteen sixty, I'm trying to use you know, whatever slang we were using at the time. He was like, no, that's going to date the show. Let's make up our own slang. So in twenty five years, when people are
still watching the show, the show is still relevant. So you know, our credit to him because that's what he that's what he set out to do.
How did you feel when, like I was said, a couple of years ago, they tried to take the show off?
It bothered me because although.
Everything that was going on the show was so positive for our culture. So how did you feel when they started taking the shows off of syndication and were threatening to pull the shows of different networks?
Yeah? Well, I mean, you know real, you know the real it hit us all financially because now we weren't getting those residuals. Yes, with that lump, you know you're talking about you talking about eight years of residual So that's still a nice little padding. So it's interesting. I did in twenty fifteen, I put out my third record, right and on that record, I mean I got I got Leila Hathaway, I got Robert glasper letacy No this that was that's this one that's out now. That was
called Selfless. So Layla Letters, Stokely, Rassam Patterson, Robert glasper Like the album is like it's a banger. I could not book any press unless I agreed to answer at least one question about Bill Cosby. It was the only way I was gonna be able to get my record covered. Wow, So I do this? Uh crazy? This this this interview with with ap Right. We spend twenty five thirty minutes talking about my career, talk about my music like it's
a dope interview. And then at the very end, the last question she asked me is what do you think with the Cosby controversy that the legacy of the show has been tarnished? So I said, well, yeah, of course it's been tarnished because they've taken it off the show, and whenever we talk about stereotopical black images on television, we've always had the Cosby Show to hold juxtapose against that.
But we no longer have that. The next day, all of the headlines read, remember, Malcolm Jamal Warner says the legacy of the Cosby Show has been tarnished. That's not even what she said. Yeah. So then I remember a couple months later seeing Keisha on some talk show and they asked her the same question, and she said, no, it's impossible to tarnish the legacy of that show, because there's a generation of kids who sought out higher education
because of that show. There are generation to kids who grew up and got married and had loving families because of that show. There's no way that you can reverse the influence that that show has had on the culture. And so now I'll always bite her, I always bite her response now, But yeah, I mean, it's it's it's it's undeniable and it's irreversible. You know, it's had a you know, a huge impact on on on our culture, and it had a huge global impact on how black people, you know, saw themselves.
I was going to ask you, you know, what's the pros and cons of having your name and the title of a sitcom and reference to Malcolm Andnetti.
But to me, it's the same thing with that. I think if that.
Show was called The Huxtables, it wouldn't even be a conversation. I think if it was called the Huxtables, people would easily be able to separate the art from the artists. So what do you think the pros and cons of.
Probably that, really, you know, I think probably anybody who's who's having their own show and their own sitcom, because because also, remember you know, so many sitcoms are usually based around the stand up and you know, either they can handle the job or they can't. You know, that's that's what the success of the show depends upon. So I think for any stand up to have your own show and have it be your name, like, that's the dream.
But I think to your point, that's that is that's a huge con But of course no one goes into it thinking that there's going to be the end result of that.
I remember they did that with The New The New Roseanne.
Relaunched all the Connors after when she got into the Earth situation. Now, are you still cool with cockroach called Anthony Payne.
We're cooler and we're cooler as adults than we were during that time. No, we didn't at all the young ego and yeah, yeah that's what it was. Yeah, and it was and it was yeah, yeah, it was. It was. You know, we talked about earlier the original callbacks for Cosby the so they flew in an actor from Chicago and flew in an actor from New York. Carl was the actor they flew in from New York. So had I not auditioned for the show, Carl would have played theel.
So look at you every day and see you took my part.
And then I got to come back and play your best friend. Damn. So you know, I think, on one hand, you know, that may have had something to do with it, That was part of it. And he decided he had a huge ego, you know, Yeah, he had a huge ego. So and I didn't come from that kind of place. And you know, the way and the way I felt then and the way I feel now, you know, based on my career, if anybody, you know should walk around
with a huge ego, it should be me. And if I don't roll like that, I don't really I have very little tolerance for people who roll like that. So we never really really we just never really got along back then. But you know, we're grown now, and you know, and Carl's been through a lot, like his journey is you know, it's it's been you know, he's had a journey, and as adults, we've been able to like sit down and have conversations and we're in uh, we're in a
very cool grown man place now. Uh. Then we were you know, then we were teenagers and you know.
I feel like you had to be broken up with something the way he signed it, I.
Had to be broken up before.
No, no, no, no, no, it wasn't that bad bad.
You just speak to anybody from the show anymore, and you know.
Yeah, Keisha, I mean, Kesha was my girl when she was four years old. It's always my lome. You know, we both live in Atlanta. Uh. Just Saturday, her and her husband over at our house. Her daughter is a couple of months older than my daughter, and our daughters absolutely love each other. So it's it's very surreal because like we'll look at at our darteris's player and look at each other like, yo, this is but yeah, dope, yeah. So she's when I talked to the most. But we're
all we're all cool. I mean, we had an experience that no one else in the world has had, so that experience has really bonded us forever. So even if we don't, you know, if we don't talk for a year, you know, whenever we talk, it's just always it's always love and.
Never will have again.
Because I tell people all the time that eighties and nineties celebrity was different, Like there's not too many people black all white that was that famous in the eighties and nineties. Who aren't icons you, Mike can run play an office.
Jo like you.
Possibly, what was the difference between now and then celebrity wise?
Social media? Social media changed the whole game. Like for me what I started to say earlier, growing up here in New York in the eighties, being on that show, for me, what it was the time of my life. And partially because I I'm you know, I'm fourteen, fifteen years old, I'm in the area, I'm in pseudient fifty four, I'm at Latin Quarter like, I'm in all these places I'm not supposed to be. So there was so much of the being the celebrityhood if you will, that I
enjoyed so much. But because of not just the success of the show but what the show represented. I also understood that when I walked through the world, I was not only representing my mother and my father, I was also representing the show and everything this show stood for. So it allowed me to not be a knucklehead, like be able to enjoy everything but responsibly and you know,
do stuff under the radar. But in whenever it was whatever I was doing under the radar wasn't like knucklehead stuff and you know, my parents had instilled a foundation. You know, my foundation of who I was was very strong.
I was gonna ask you you never got caught up in the drug world or alcohol because Studio fifty four Last quartersback then was.
No I could be around it. But it just wasn't That wasn't me. I mean, you know, look, my father named me after Malcolm X and the Maajamal like my father was not playing. So that's why I say, like, like before the fame, my foundation was so solid that I could be I could be around all that stuff and not have to participate in that, so to be able to enjoy everything that being famous had to offer
without being a knucklehead. And again, being in New York is different from growing up on television in LA because in LA, your best friend is on the same lot on stage next door, whereas here in New York there weren't other shows here, so I wasn't hanging out with actors.
Now.
I got to give all props to your parents though, because you know, even when you talk to somebody like Kim Field is the same thing.
She gives all her credit to her her mom. Because y'all had every y'all had every right to wild out. Y'all are the biggest things moving.
Yeah, but we also we also came on the heels of Gary Todd Bridges and Danna Plato, so like we overlapped their you know, their journey. So for I just felt like, well, we got no excuse. You learned from that, Yeah, like we're seeing like it's like you hear about stuff and throughout history, but this was happening right now, Like I'm looking at Todd Bridges, So there was really no excuse for us to wild out like that. But again I also say because we lived in New York and
not LA, we weren't hanging around other Hollywood kids. When we were shooting in Brooklyn the NBC studios on Avenue M and E's fourteenth Street, they didn't have a commissary, so at lunch we had to go out into the neighborhood and get whatever we're gonna eat. We moved to a coffin the story. Their commissary was whack, so we went out into the neighborhood and went and got we
would get our lunch. So it was just a very different experience that we had being able to grow up in New York rather than grow uping television.
And you said something earlier and I wanted to ask you about and you were saying that when you were promoting your jazz album. A lot of these outlets were saying that the only way that you can come up here is if you asked a question. If your answer question about Bill Cosby. How were you able to navigate all those questions? Because although you have your own stuff going on, you're doing plays, you're acting, you're doing movies, sitcoms.
You know, you have your music, but you almost gonna want to be like, I get it, but this is what I'm here for.
So how did you navigate through all that without you know, going down those those lanes by.
Turning the you know, by whatever the question is, answering it, you know, the best way I could, Like I didn't want to.
They want to know did you see him this?
Yeah?
What about this?
You know?
And the reality is I'm not in a position like whatever it is you're trying to ask. I don't know. I was. I was when I was a kid, and again I you know that was that was Inn's dad, you know, So I am not in a position to defend him at all. And there's no need for me to try to throw him under the bus because the rest of the world is doing that. And you know, like like you know, the real shit is I know what everybody else knows, and everybody else knows what the
press has told them. So I don't really have I don't really have a real ground to stand on to speak on it as much as anybody else does. You know.
So, and you might be biased because you didn't you saw a whole different side of him that none of us are privy too.
Yeah, yes, and and and I saw ah, I saw a very human side of him, like what everybody else is like, you know, he's America's famous, you know, favorite dad, and you know they they as people do with celebrities, you know, they put us on a pedestal. And again that's why as a kid, I don't want to be considered a role model, be perfect, cause I'm like, that's not me. But that's what we do to people. So while everyone is you know, I'm like, he's a man, he's got he's got his own got his own faults
and whatever. False I saw though, it wasn't that. I you know, like mm hmm, I saw a man. So it's a different It's a different experience for me, uh than it is for everybody else.
I've always loved how black your name is man, and finding out that you named after Malcolm Xican.
You said, I'm not familiar with Ma's.
He's a renowned jazz pianist, but he's a if you could be a jazz pianist and be militant as fuck, that's a ma. Yeah. Yeah. My dad was. My dad was I He used to go to Chicago during the summers, my dad, and during my summer vacations. He had this thick book called Great American Negroes and there, you know, chapters on Langston Hughes, Richard Riot, and Ray McLeod, film Mary Anderson. And he would make me read these chapters and write book reports. And this is during my summer vacation.
I'm six, seven, eight, nine, ten years old. I'm like, I don't want to, but it's my dad, so I have to. But he was he was hardcore on making sure that I under that I understood my history and understood where I came from. And also he was he went he went to Lincoln University and he was there with Gil Scott Herron and Brian Jackson Jesus, and my dad went to Lincoln because Langston went to Lincoln. So the whole poetry thing that I do like I was
really I was. I was a poet before I was an actor because my father was instilling all of these things in me, and he was doing it through the arts. Like my favorite book. I remember being in fifth grade and I used to carry around this book Poems on the Life and Death of Malcolm X. And I used to have it on my desk at school and kids would like laugh and tease me, like, oh, somebody wrote
a book about you. Ha ha ha. And I'm in fifth grade and I'm realizing, wow, these not only do these kids not even know who Malcolm X is if they're reading poetry, they're not reading poetry as sophisticated as I am. And it was then like that was when it registered for me what my father was doing. Like all those summers of not wanting to read these books and write these book reports, I understood what he was
instilling in me. And then when I was about fifteen, you know, you know, the show's popping, and now you know, I'm going to schools, I'm talking to kids, I'm in churches, I'm talking to kids, and it was that's when it hit me how my dad named me and what he was doing, because now I'm having this influence talking to young people. I remembering fifteen years old. I called my dad. I was like, yo, man, you set me up and he laughed. He was like, you're damn right for greatness. Yeah,
and he didn't even know. You know, he didn't know that I was going to have this platform or what my platform was going to be. But yeah, he set me up for great whatever my path was going to be, he set me up for that.
Why why when it came to musical expression, it was jazz because you you know you you're a hip hop baby, like you came up in the hip hop here, like.
You just heard you about a month ago. He was rapping, Yes, what was that the legends.
When he was naming all the names.
Okay, so put it spoken word for that, but that's a plan for DMX. But he was rapping that's not me, that's not me. That's that's what you mean. No, that was that's this this cat on Instagram cash flow Harlem. He put that video out right and I would see this video and people were doing these remix videos. So you see the video on one side and you see people just kind of yeah, nobody saying the names. They
just kind of nod. And one guy he was counting the names, but then he'd lose count, like that's it. And I was like that's it. So I was like, you know, I'm gonna take the time. I'm gonna memorize what he's doing, and then I'm gonna make it a challenge. Nobody took me up on the challenge, but the video went.
Viral because that's the first time I never I never eve knew somebody else made it.
I thought that was not me. That was not mean wow, No, but why jazz though? So the jazz. So it's when I started my band. You know, I was always doing already doing poetry, right, I was in the spoken word scene. I was doing spoken word with other bands and whatnot. But when I started my band, it was to I was playing bass. It was the kind I wanted to do, like this jazz funk kind of thing, and then ultimately I ended up infusing my poetry with my own band.
And neo soul you know, was big at the time, and you know, people because of the spoken word and what I was doing, they want to call it neo soul, And at the time, I was like, nah, neil soul is a fad. When that, you know, I don't want to be associated with a fad because when that runs out, you know, people might not be as interest as what I'm doing. If I call it jazz funk, then I could It's something I could grow into. So when I'm fifty sixty years old, I can still be doing that.
And at the time, I mind you, I'm twenty six, twenty, I'm like twenty eight. Now. At the time, I was like, besides, no one's gonna want to hear a dude rapping at fifty years old. Now, well, now, fast forward, fast forward. You know, cast is still dice. But at twenty eight, we get at twenty eight, we didn't see it. We couldn't see that, correct. But so the jazz funk spoken word was just kind of my way of having this lane.
But it's really what I do is really it's you know, it's so R and B and hip hop at the end of the day, because I'm not though I'm a jazz student, I'm not. I wouldn't consider myself a jazz musician. But I just wanted to use that title because I didn't want to get lumped in in neo soul. I didn't want to just call it because it's not just R and B. It's not just and it's not just spoken word. It's not just hip hop. It's really a
combination of all of that. So when I describe it, I describe it as a jazz funk spoken word band, but it's probably more of a you know, R and B soul.
Spoken word and Hiding Your play View is Grammy nominated, right, Yeah, yeah, how I feel?
Yeah, it's dope. I got a Grammy in twenty fifteen with Robert Glasper and Laila Hathaway. I did not Yeah on Roberts Black Radio two album. He does a cover of Stevie Wonders, Jesus Children of America and Layla sings, and then I do a poem in tribute to the Kids from Sandy Hook And in twenty fifteen that one for Best Traditional R and B Performance. So for this album, Hiding and Playing View, which is my fourth album, for that to get Grammy nominated, you know like that, I mean,
you know, it takes it to a whole another level. Like, of course getting a Grammy, that's amazing. It means everything. But to have my own work record and my own work that I did most of the production on myself. Even though I don't do this for validation, it's so validating, you know, and it feels congratulations.
Now another thing that people might not know, The Magic School, Boss, Yeah, what made you get involved with the Magic School.
I've been trying to do voice over, you know, also my whole career. So I get voice over work here and there, but it's a nut. I'm still trying to I'm trying, still trying to crack. But but I would say, uh, you know, I know you catch a busy, but whenever you get a chance, I implore you to listen to Hiding a playing review.
I would love definitely because.
It's a it's a it's an album that I say, it's it's an album that can shift the way we raise black boys on the album I have featured throughout the album. Is an award winning novelist and he's the assistant Professor of African American Studies at Clark Atlanta. Doctor Daniel Black and I have this one piece after this poem, Sante Son it's a long music bed, and I knew I wanted to get a statement from him because he's
just a he's he's a beast. And we had this hour long conversation that I recorded, but he dropped so much knowledge that I had to put him throughout the
whole album. And I would dare say I would go as far to say that The Hiding a Playing View is one of the most important albums to come out in twenty twenty two, and a lot of that I attribute to him and the knowledge he's dropping, because, like the album opens, the first track is called love Song, and it's just him, and he says, the thing about a black boy is you don't necessarily want to beat a black boy. What do you want to do is
you want to love him so divinely. You want to love him so fiercely that your disappointment will kill him. You want him, you want to adore him so much that the last thing he wants to do is disappoint you. Like that's how the album opens. So this is an album, as I said, it has you know it. It's an opportunity.
It provides a shift in how we raise our black boys, which will then have a profound impact on how black boys relate to each other and black girls, which in turn have a even more profound impact on how black men relate to each other and how they relate to black women. And it can all be a significant step in our own self healing. So when I talk to people about the album, I say, this album is for us. It's for black boys, it's for black men, it's for
black people. It's for non black people who have the foresight to see that our self healing is an invitation for them to examine their own necessary healing.
Why do you call it hiding and playing view.
Because it's something that we all do. There's a there's actually a poem the title track on album's called Hiding and Playing View, and that's the only piece without music. I just do that poem strictly a cappella and I talk about, you know, hiding and playing with you with something we all do. We all wear these masks, right, because we're all trying to hide what we think other
people won't like about us. You know, like I spent you know, six years in a relationship, you know, halfway hiding because there were things I didn't think that you know, she would like about me, and and at some point I allowed myself to be disrespected, you know, but I look at it, I'm allowing myself to be disrespectable because I'm disrespecting I'm disrespecting myself because I'm hiding things about
myself that I'm afraid that she's not gonna like. And in a relationship like that's the last place you should fear being vulnerable. So that that poem hiding a playing view is all about vulnerability and how vulnerability. You know, vulnerability is a scary thing, even when you're on the men. Black boys boast bravado not to seem broken, and often so do black men. So that poem itself, just in itself, I get so many responses from people who aren't black
that that resonates. So it's an album that on the though on the surface it seems like I'm only talking about black boys, there is a universal reality to the album that, you know, the responses, like I said, I've been getting from non black people, it resonates with them too.
I know, I know you probably got to go. But when it comes to healing, what was it therapy? Was it a spiritual leader?
Was it just?
What was it uh, people who are called spiritual leaders. My wife is a you got a masters's American Family Family Therapy, getting her pH d in clinical psychology. Yeah okay, and not even andy, and not even that, and not that she's been doing work on me, but just I you know, just I watch her, you know, and I watch her with our daughter. Uh. So that's what's helped me, like presently, but even before she and I met, you know, once I got out of broke up with my six
year relationship, I spent like two years. I spent two years like a man who had been in the six year relationship. And then at some point I was like, I need to I need to stop, like I need to go on hiatus and not do any dating, you know, being in a relationship, not even dating, try not to have sex. But I had there was a space where I needed to get clarity for myself, and the only way I was going to get that clarity was by you know, sitting down and really dealing with you know,
whatever thing's in here. Sure that I was busying myself from dealing with you could.
Be keeping busy as a response to trauma a lot of times.
All the time the time.
Yeah, Yeah, all the time.
So we got to talk about Accused.
The reason you hear you got a new show on It starts January twenty second. Yeah, tell us about Accused, because it's not much on it. I looked at the trailers. We all looked at the trailers. We see you in an orange jumpsuit. So break down Accused.
So Accused is a courtroom anthology series, so every episode is a standalone episode like Twilight Zone or Black Mirror. My particular episode is I play a man who's daughter. It's sexually accosted in a park, and I choose to meet out justice myself.
Handle things on your own.
Yeah, and we know how that typically goes, which is interesting because we always talk about, man, somebody touches my daughter. I remember saying that like ten years ago, before I even really thought I was ever going to really have kids. I remember saying, I'm like, man, yeah, man, you know I have a daughter. Man, I go to jail for my daughter. And they said yeah, and what good would you be to your daughter? Then? Right, And that's what changed my whole Like I was like, you're.
Absolutely right, Like we talked that, but I still feel like that though I got four daughters.
I still feel like that same.
I got four daughters.
You know, no matter how much therapy you do on yourself, no matter how much healing you get, you know, no matter how high you're emotional like you gets, I.
Don't know what you're doing right right, And and but his point was when you're what good are you gonna be to your daughter when you're sitting there in jail, that facts like you're now you really cannot protect your daughter. Hey, you know like that that's what I'm saying, right, And he told me that like like ten years ago, and I was like, ah, that kind of changes doesn't make it any easier, but I mean, the feeling is still there, but it makes you really go like.
Yeah, so you're only on one episode.
It's only one episode, one episode, but it's a it's a it's it's a powerful episode. It's it's hard to watch because of the subject matter. And I think it's that's what it is with all the episodes. They're they're they're tough to watch because the subject matter is really tough. But the show it's really good and I'm I'm very proud of the work on the show. And again, it's
just another side like with the resident as well. It's just another side of me that people don't normally get to see because of you know, most of the roles I get.
I was going to ask before you get about of here, would you mind doing a poem?
Why don't we just play one from you can do one?
You can do one.
Actually I'd like to do when you play.
One morning, I appreciate it.
Okay, this piece is Santa Sona about a guy and comrade. But you're still on that freedom ship word. Well you know what I mean, it's poetry. Well, still be on that weedam ship, that birthing inspirational couplets and breedom ship that I spit cats should heat them ship that words can't break my bones, but if you cut me homes, I bleed them ship atonement for the masters of hard asses and heads that tread on civil libertys in the most uncivilized the fashion is said to be dead. Can
we afford to be dumb for free? See? That's the question I'm asking as I beg for an ounce of truth amongst the aloof surrounding me. My vices are proof that these demons keep pounding me. Reality keeps pounding me. Almost astounding me into the strange hypocrisy. You see, I preach the same hope that I'm losing daily. Like my religion, people are deep, I bear my soul. I stand on the precipice of this crossroads. It's like I want to give my life to the cause, But which one ignorance
is running so ridiculously rampant. I can't tell if I'm hating or merely debating just for fun. But I do know my heart heaves heavy upon hearing the fluttering hum of the feeble footsteps of fear, stamping out the ferocious flames of our dog at desire and determination to outpace the haerldless prophecy our captors have programmed to be our
faith and thus our fate. I know my soul soul rise with anxiety aches lies no longer need disguise when they start looking like the truth, Like how do we ignore cries of ill guided youth spitting dope bars of self hate overbeats that bang harder than strange fruit hags. Meanwhile, her breast hang and her booty bangs harder than the gun collapse of rival gangs fighting over territory they don't
even own. And in magic cities everywhere. She feeds her babies based on her ability to shake what her mama gave her, because her pops was too busy breaking in his disappearing act to save her from these mean streets that eat the milk in one swallow. Lies no longer need disguise when the truth is viewed as hollow through
the eyes that need it most. We descendants of stolen legacies, children of ancestors who cannot be broken, birthers, and bearers of a culture that has been repeatedly robbed and ransacked to feed the spiritually famine like a black woman's bosom. We who become a pre existing condition simply because we pre exist. We who realize we are worthy. We are the guardians. We are the gardeners. We are the soil,
We are the toil. We are the protectors of our sieves who need to be protected, who need to see true love and black excellence redirected not through fame and fortune, but redirected through character. Indeed, and indeed, it is those who stand on the front line fighting for the minds of our young, black and gifted. It is you who are in inspiration to me because you are the revolution we do not see on TV. Sante SNA.
Nice ladies and gentlemen, Malcolm.
This interview, this whole conversation just is a reinforcement to just be intentional about your art.
Yeah words about everything you've been.
Talking about on the copy show to your spoken word. Just be intentional about your art because this.
Is the way we reach people. Yeah yeah, and especially now, like you know, especially in the music business, you know, or really any art no one is making the money that they were making before and now with streaming, we don't make money off streaming, right, so this is an opportunity for artists to just really be about the art, you know, that's really all we have. Like what what legacy can you leave? And I'm just I'm just really big on you know, there's so much nonsense out there.
We talk about the part of hip hop that's that's just trash, and I'm of the mindset of, you know, let them have that, Let's provide something else. Let's show let's show that there is another way, uh, you know, to express yourself through poetry. Let's show let's highlight let's highlight the dope ship you know, and if people you know, see enough of the dopeness. You know, they can make a choice.
We appreciate you for joining us, brother, thank you for.
Having me want to get into ah Man. I should have done hiding and playing view because that has doesn't have music. Sante Sona has music. What's your what's usually your timelinth on?
We can't play a non minute song if you got a no, but like.
This Black Blackfists beautiful, that might be like six minutes. Uh, we can play something dope, dope, we can play something we play it, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. See the thing about my you know, at least this partical loub it's hard to do snippets history. But you know what though, but honestly on the real what would be dope for me?
Uh?
If you'll listen to it and decide which one? Okay, it resonates with you enough to play enough? Yeah, I appreciate you, and gentlemen, I definitely appreciate it. Malcolm, welcome.
This club.
Good morning,