Authors: Rosie Perez
I couldn’t sleep that night. I put a butcher knife under my pillow, scared out of my wits. It took me forever to decide to go into work the next day. When I did, this fucker acted like nothing had happened. Just as I was about to tell the head manager what went down and that I was quitting, he told me the asshole had suggested that he give me a raise—a big fat raise—for being such a good worker. I didn’t know what to do. I needed that money so badly. I decided to take the money and keep quiet. I quit a week later, though, because I couldn’t stand looking at the piece of shit.
I asked Michael Stennis if I could have a couple of extra hours until I found more employment. I really liked working for Michael and his entire family. So much so that when there wasn’t a lot of work left for me to do, I used to watch their grandkids and their little friends, one of whom grew up to be the famous street artist Retna. (Can you believe that? I didn’t realize it until my husband, Haze, took me to Retna’s big opening in New York in 2011. “You used to babysit me and my friend Paris, Kevin Stennis’s son.”)
The Christmas holiday was approaching. After I came home one night beat and tired from work and school, the phone rang. It was my mother. I had not seen or spoken to her in probably six months, not since my last trip to New York. My mother never called or wrote to me, ever. Her explanation was that she hated talking on the phone and wasn’t into writing letters. Funny thing, I don’t like being on the phone either, but I still called her once in a while. I answered the phone.
“Ma?”
“Yes, Rosie … I. How are you?”
Her voice started to crackle. I could hear her trying to swallow her emotions, but she couldn’t.
“What’s wrong, Ma? Are you all right?”
“I … How are you?”
“I’m okay, Ma. How are you?”
“I love you,” she blurted.
“I love you too, Ma.”
“Okay.… So anyway, Merry Christmas. Bye.”
And she hung up, leaving me confused, excited, resentful, and depressed once again … but I kept it moving.
• • •
I began to enjoy Los Angeles. Well, its nightlife. I was having fun, like a lot of fun. Thursday night was my three-hour biology
lab class, seven to ten o’clock. I’d always sneak out ten minutes early because Thursday night was also ladies’ night at Florentine Gardens nightclub in east Hollywood—free before ten. My three girlfriends—Carol, a bubbly, intelligent Mexican American; Nia, a smart, sexy, crazy Filipino; and sweet Tracy, who was Latino and black—and I always went clubbing together. We all wore tight clothes, high heels, lots of makeup … like, tons of mascara and black eye liner … and, of course, hair spray—love it! The club was close by, and we knew the doorman—if we were under ten minutes late, he would let us in free. The girls would be waiting outside my class in Nia’s or Carol’s car—there was not a minute to waste. I would bring my club clothes to school, change out of my normal everyday school attire during our dinner break, and come back dressed in a tight-ass hoochie-mama minidress and a gang of makeup. First time I did it, my professor’s mouth dropped and the whole class went silent as I clicked my way back to my seat. It’d happen again when I’d be the first to leave a couple minutes early—hilarious.
A talent scout from
Soul Train
saw us dancing at the club one night. He came up and asked me to come on the show. “For real?
Soul Train
?!” Yay!!!! I told him I would go if my girlfriends could come too. “Well, I’ve gotta see if they look as good and dance as good as you do.” One look and of course we were all in! I couldn’t believe my luck! That’s when my life started to change again.
We arrived at the studio on time, but were made to wait outside the studio gate for over an hour with the rest of the
Soul Train
regulars and newbies. Finally the talent scout came out and approached the gate. It turned into a frenzy, like piranhas at feeding time. He proceeded to point out his preferred picks. The pushing and shoving and desperateness were heartbreaking. “Come on, girls. This is bullshit,” I said. As we began to turn away, the talent scout shouted at me, “Hey, where are you going? You can come in.”
“Can my friends come too?”
He nodded yes. That made a few of the dancers crazy jealous, which wasn’t very nice, but understandable.
Soul Train
created that circus of jealousy. Only the best-looking, sexiest, and most charismatic got in and got to be on the risers, the Scramble Board, or the main platform and received the most camera time.
Even I got caught up in it. There was this one beautiful girl with short red hair who got a lot of camera time, but that wasn’t the reason I was jealous of her. This stupid boy I liked, liked her, and blah, blah, blah. Of course my pride wouldn’t allow me to admit that—instead, I was a complete ass toward her. “She’s stealing my moves!” You know, all that stupid young shit. I remember complaining to Tia about it. “
Ay
, you sound so stupid, even. You don’t even know her, what her life is about, it might be hell—and over a boy?
Ay
, please. Don’t be like that. It makes you look ugly.” I got over it quick after that lecturing.
When the camera came on, my body shook like crazy. All I kept thinking about was my hair getting all sweaty. This
Soul Train
regular, Ricky, kind of took me under his wing and partnered with me. We got picked for the Scramble Board! My first day! When I started to speak on the first take, Don Cornelius gave me an incredulous look regarding my accent. I lessened it; he gave a nod of approval. Instantly, I felt ashamed. I had made my first conscious effort not to sound ethnic. Ricky made me feel better, later telling me he thought that my accent was cute, that it set me apart, and to ignore Don.
My mind was spinning the first time I stood on the
Soul Train
line. I didn’t know what to do. Don Cornelius didn’t like hip-hop or house dancing. He kept telling me to dance like the other girls, meaning like a vixen. In fact, after my first day he suggested that I dress more appropriately—you know, tight-ass minis and high heels. I was cool with the minis, but three-inch heels? Yikes! I could wear one- to two-inch heels. Three was a whole other thing.
I couldn’t do more than stand there and gyrate. All the regulars
had routines; all the girls had their signature sexy moves. I didn’t have shit. When it was my turn, I started nervously pumping my body back and forth, trying to look like the other ladies, praying I wouldn’t fall off those damn heels. While pumping, I kept thinking to myself,
I look like a fucking idiot!
To my surprise, everyone started cheering me on! Even Don Cornelius told me to go down a second time!
We didn’t get paid, just a Kentucky Fried Chicken two-piece lunch box—not kidding. I didn’t complain, I was happy to be there, and my ass was always hungry anyway, living on cans of tuna fish. But I left the show after only being on it for maybe a year or a year and a half. I say “only” because most of the regulars were there five, ten years plus! All waiting for their big break into the entertainment industry, like Jodi Watley and Shalamar. (“Make that move, right now, baby”—love them!)
Dad finally saw me on the show, freaked out, and told me it embarrassed him to see me dancing like that. I honestly didn’t realize that I was dancing that provocatively. I was brought up so Catholic, I had no clue about my sexuality. (I was a virgin until I was twenty—true.) However, my decision wasn’t solely based on that. I had gotten into a fight with Don Cornelius during a taping. He didn’t like Keith Sweat coming over during his performance and dancing with me. But that wasn’t the real reason why he went at me.
Don was trying to form a new singing group and asked me to be a member. I was excited, even though I told him I couldn’t sing that good—“Your inability to sing is insignificant. It’s how you fill that dress and how the camera loves you.” Wow. Okay. But I declined the offer after he wouldn’t let me take the recording/management contract asking for 60 percent to a lawyer. I wasn’t anyone’s fool. Things were tense after that, but shit really hit the fan when an A&R executive from MCA Records, Louil Silas Jr.—who unfortunately passed away in 2001—had brought an act on
the show and saw me rehearsing some hip-hop moves with Ricky and his older brother on the side. Louil was African American and medium height and had a potbelly, scruffy aftershave; he was well dressed, arrogant, confident, and funny as shit. He waved me over.
“That’s hip-hop, right?”
“Yes, sir. But Don doesn’t like the girls doing it on the show.”
“Really? That’s weird. I want you to teach it to my new artist, Bobby Brown, from New Edition. He’s going solo. But don’t tell anyone yet.”
My heart went up into my throat!
“Here’s my card. Come up to the record label on Monday.”
“But I’m not a choreographer.”
“I’ll pay you fifteen hundred.”
“I’ll be there Monday morning.”
Of course news got back to Don. How dare I not sign with him and go off and make money elsewhere? That’s when he started to pick on me during the tapings.
So Keith kept humping, Don kept yelling “Cut!” and I was getting heated. By the time I went down the Soul Train line things were going from bad to worse. Excited that Louil liked and saw the future in hip-hop, I went down the line doing the Pee-wee Herman.
“Cut! Rosie, do it again.”
I went down doing the Roger Rabbit.
“Cut! Come here.”
I walked over. He pulled me in close and whispered sternly.
“You walk back down that line nice and sexy like you’re supposed to.”
I walked back to the head of the line, paused, then strutted down as if I were Naomi Campbell on the runway, continued walking past Don to my seat, grabbed my things, and told him I was out. Don grabbed my arm, pulling me back.
“You don’t quit until I tell you you can quit!”
Wrong move. I grabbed the first thing I could get my free arm around, which happened to be one of the two-piece KFC chicken lunch boxes, and threw it at him. A chicken wing smacked him dead in his forehead. I was escorted out by security.
I was fuming, sitting in my broken-down Datsun B-210 that I had bought from a base head at college—ha! I was hurt too. This was
Soul Train
! Don was an idol to me, and this was how it went down? I wanted to go back inside to make amends—I
did
hit the man with a greasy chicken wing. And he
was
Don Cornelius! He was still a legend to be respected. Unfortunately, I was too angry, too filled with pride, and too embarrassed to go back.
THE BIGNESS of it all started to kick in when I pulled into the MCA Records parking lot. I was on time, but had to wait over half an hour for Louil, which made me even more nervous. I kept looking down at my outfit, wondering if I had made the right choice, constantly checking my hair. Louil finally came out of his office. He played “Don’t Be Cruel” and “My Prerogative.” As we listened I got excited. I instantly knew these were going to be hits!
“That’s dope! Especially ‘My Prerogative’!”
“Really? Well, we’re going with ‘Don’t Be Cruel’ first. It’s gonna be a bigger hit.”
“Nah, I think the other is gonna hit bigger.”
“Look at you,” he chuckled. “Lemme see what you got.”
“What?”
“Your ideas for the routines.”
“Um. Okay.”
I didn’t have anything. How was I to know? I made it up on the spot—fake it until you make it! Thank goodness I already knew how to formulate routines from upstate and hanging in clubs. Upstate I was the manager of the cheerleading squad, so I understood form. And, let’s not forget the nuns! They did teach me tap and how to perform on a stage. Down in the city, I was a club head, especially a hip-hop head. I would go to jams, sneak into hip-hop clubs—the Roxy, the World, Latin Quarters—and go to Afrika Bambaataa shows, watching break-dancers like Crazy Legs, Fable, and Mr. Wiggles of Rock Steady Crew in awe. I loved to see dancers
Cliff Love and Doctor Ice—who later became a member of the hip-hop group UTFO (“Roxanne, Roxanne! I wanna be your man!”)—tear it up behind Whodini or Scoob and Scrap behind Big Daddy Kane, all doing James Brown, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, and the fabulous Nicholas Brothers moves, making them their own while coming up with original steps that are still used today.
Hip-hop moved me in a way like never before. I never was a “street” kid, but I was part of the post-Vietnam generation who grew up with the residue of inflation, parents’ broken dreams, poverty, and heroin-cluttered streets; who watched Reaganomics and crack tear at souls; who had something new and more innovative to offer than the prejudiced world around us predicted for us. Hip-hop was so incredible—mostly poor, West Indian, African American, and Puerto Rican kids from the Bronx created it, but white people and other various racial, social, and economic backgrounds throughout the city also contributed. (It always bothers me when people in the industry state that it was solely a black thing.) With other types of fun either unavailable or unaffordable to them, they all craved something new and found it in creating hip-hop.
The routine wasn’t great but Louil liked it, and liked the style because it was New York. He made some tweaks, told me that Bobby wasn’t up on hip-hop but was a quick study. He also wanted sexiness in the routine. “We’ve got
Soul Train
and a music video. I need two routines. On each, I want him to fuck the air, like this.” Louil pumped his pelvis back and forth. I died laughing. “Fuck you, Perez,” he said playfully. “I want him to pump his shit hard. I want him to be sex, want every girl to think he wants to fuck her. And I want him to have background dancers like the rap groups. I want Bobby to be the first R&B guy to do that shit.” “Okay! Got it. And please don’t pump your stuff like that again. You look hilarious.” “Fuck you, Perez!” We clicked instantly.
He also told me that before they made their final decision to
hire me, Bobby would come over to my place to check out the routine and the dancers. My place?
“Uh, I live in the Jungle. It’s not really safe for Bobby Brown to come there.”
“You live in the damn Jungle?” He laughed.