Authors: Rosie Perez
The show was pretaped in advance of some of the artists’ release dates. I had to be ahead of radio, ahead of Billboard, and ahead of the dance trends. The show would tape for two weeks and be off the third, then back the following two weeks, and so on. That third week, I’d fly myself back to New York (on my own dime, thank you) and go deep inside the hip-hop club scenes—clubs like Carwash, MK’s, the Tunnel, the Building—to scope out who or what was hot or not. I’d meet with Russell Simmons, Lyor Cohen, Tommy of Tommy Boy Records, Tommy Mottola, Andre Harrell, Puffy (now head of A&R for Uptown Records—believe that!), to name a few, and figure out momentum in the business. The best help I got was from Rhonda Cowan, who worked for Russell Simmons at Def Jam.
Rhonda doesn’t remember the first time I met her, but I surely do. Rhonda was at one of Eddie Murphy’s house parties in New Jersey. She was messin’ with Eddie’s brother, Charlie, at the time and was in the middle of a heated argument with him, yelling, “I know this motherfucker is not trying to tell me what to do! He better stay in his lane and shut the fuck up and buy me some new shoes.” I died laughing. She turned around, looked at me, and said, laughing, “I can buy my own damn shoes, but you know what I’m saying. Motherfucker better act like he knows.” Hilarious. I loved her the moment she opened her trash-talking, intelligent, and opinionated mouth—crazy as a loon and fly as shit. Without Rhonda’s help and friendship, I would have had a more difficult time getting what I needed to do my job well. And she made hanging out fun—crazy fun.
Rhonda Cowan, Tracy Waples, and April Walker—that was my hang-out crew in New York City. These were my girls! We went everywhere: pop clubs, ghetto clubs, lounges, Rucker playgrounds, house parties, premieres, dinner parties, you name it. Shit was mad fun.
I was hanging out at this pop-up club, Carwash, where I saw this new group called Leaders of the New School and was totally blown away. This gave me the idea of featuring acts on the show. I thought to myself,
If I book these guys, this is going to blow up like crazy, and
In Living Color
is going to look hip as shit
. Keenen wasn’t with it at first. The producers were worried about the cost. I wouldn’t stop asking, I was a pest. Then Keenen finally gave in, told me I had one shot. I couldn’t get Leaders on because the ink wasn’t yet dry on their recording contract. And the record companies weren’t biting with their established acts—too much of a risk on a new show was their thinking. I went with Def Jef, a rapper, who was only known locally in Los Angeles. That didn’t go so well with the response from the viewers. I begged Keenen for another try.
Rhonda introduced me to Shakim of Flavor Unit, who managed Queen Latifah—love! Keenen loved her too and let me put her on the show. After her performance at the top of the second season, every hip-hop act wanted to be booked. I mostly had carte blanche, but Shawn Wayans, who had a very different musical taste from mine, wanted a say-so. So I booked most of the acts, but there were a few I didn’t, which bothered me like hell, but it was a Wayans production, and they were very good to me, so I fell back out of respect. Kind of.
• • •
Wait for it … I got nominated for my first Emmy for my choreography—holla! The cast and crew got nominations too! Everyone was excited, kind of. Keenen called me up to his office. Oh snap. What the hell did I do now?
“Close the door.”
“Am I fired?”
“No. (
laughs
) Just wanted to tell you that the girls come up here almost every day asking me to fire you. Saying that you curse all
the time, are too strict, and push them to their physical limit. What the fuck are you doing to them?”
“Huh?” I eked out, tearing up. I thought we were getting along.
Keenen laughed in my face. Now, I wasn’t choking up because I was hurt—trust me—okay, I was a little bit, but who’s counting.
“It’s not funny. Yes, I’m strict! Yes, I push them! Do you see how everyone’s talking about these girls? Everyone! We got the damn nomination, for Christmas’ sakes! And the music guests that I have picked—forget about it!”
“Calm down. You’re not fired. I’ll take care of the girls. Get back to work, silly.”
“Thank you, Keenen. Oh, one more thing. Can I talk to the director? I hate how the numbers are cut. They don’t show off the dancing or the girls properly.”
“Tell you what, you direct the segments yourself. You can work with the editor too. Now, if you fuck it up, bullets will be flying, homie.”
Keenen and the show won big that year. But I lost to Paula Abdul—so I wasn’t too disappointed.
I started to ease up a bit on the girls and not take everything so seriously. Carrie-Ann Inaba and Deidre Lang were the first of the Fly Girls to come around. Cari French, I never had a problem with, no one ever did. She was hilarious too—made me laugh almost every day with her dry wit. Lisa-Marie Todd started to soften a bit too, but kept her distance. Michelle Whitney-Morrison, she was pretty cool, she was always respectful.
This was good because I started to see them differently. I started to see who they were as people and as dancers. I was so impressed with Deidre’s technique that she gave me the idea of giving the girls solo numbers. Carrie-Ann was a great dancer with great poise and a goofy sense of humor. When she would do her own thing, her lyrical, sexy moves were original and so freaking cool. She introduced me to the up-and-coming choreographers and dance
groups in Los Angeles and the different dance styles that were emerging. She may not know this, but she gave me the idea to feature different dance crews on the show, like the Soul Brothers and Two for Two, who later became the recording artists the Pharcyde. Lisa-Marie had style and inspired me to ask Michelle Cole, the wardrobe designer, to dress them even sexier. Gosh, she was so amazingly beautiful.
Michelle Whitney-Morrison was different. I liked her a lot, but she and Arthur would go at it. She had been antagonizing Arthur while I was away filming this television series that I desperately wanted off of. When I came back, tensions were thick. One day, while I was in the editing room working on the dance numbers, one of the girls came rushing in: “Arthur and Michelle are fighting!” We bolted to the rehearsal room. As I whipped open the door I saw Michelle fall backwards, like
timber
!
“Arthur!” I screamed.
“Bitch called me a nigga! Then tried to slap me! So I popped her ass!” Arthur shouted back.
Jeez. Out of pure shock, I let out an inappropriate nervous laugh. Michelle, pissed, ran up to Keenen’s office, demanding that he fire Arthur and me instantly. When Keenen found out the whole story, she was the one who got fired. Was it completely fair? No—not at all. I was very upset with Arthur. I told him violence toward women was not acceptable on any level and if he ever did it again we couldn’t work together.
Gosh, it was difficult watching Michelle pack her things. The whole situation was messed up. I truly felt bad for her. Dra-ma … on the high seas!
So we had to find a new girl. I hated every one of Keenen’s picks. He hated every one of mine, said they were not sexy enough for prime time.
“What the hell does that have to do with their talent, Keenen?”
“We’re not doing some ghetto show, Rosie. We’re doing national television,” he snidely answered.
“And? The Fly Girls’ number-one audience is prison inmates!”
“Exactly. What fuckin’ prisoner wants to sit there looking at some busted-looking chick?”
The search for a new Fly Girl was on. By the time we pulled into New York for our first round of auditions, it had turned into a media frenzy! Thousands and thousands of girls were wrapped around the block. Keenen, worried that it would take forever to see each one, decided that I should cancel out the “busted”-looking ones on sight. I told him that wasn’t a good idea—this was New York, and these girls were not professional dancers and would not, probably did not, understand the concept of typecasting. We’d get our asses beat in a hot second. Keenen wrote my warning off and decided to take charge. He got started: “Next, next, you stay, next.…” He got to this one girl:
“Next.”
“What, motherfucker?” she said, with her hand on her hip.
Keenen replied, “Girl, take that hand off your hip,” laughing in her face.
In quick, rapid ghetto-style punches, the girl started swinging. Bodyguards came rushing in. I cracked the fuck up in Keenen’s face. He couldn’t do anything but laugh with me—hilarious.
Second day, we still had nothing. Then I saw this curvy, heavy-set, big-ass, beautiful girl. She wasn’t the best dancer, but definitely had an immense amount of star quality and a stunning face. Keenen said no, said she couldn’t dance as well as the other girls, called her chubby and corny. We started to argue. I lost.
We went back to Los Angeles empty-handed and held more auditions. I gave in to Marlon and Shawn’s pick: this girl named Carla, a very nice, good technical dancer, but too virginal in her expression to stir the likes of prison inmates. Keenen knew it too.
After a few episodes, Keenen finally told me to fire her. Man, that was hard to do—she took it hard too, but was classy and dignified about it.
“Keenen, I say we call that Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx and offer her the job.”
“Who?”
“The one with that big ass and the star smile. We’ll hit gold, Keenen. I promise.… Please?”
“I don’t know. Girl needs to drop at least twenty pounds.”
“I’ll make sure she does.”
“And we’ve gotta cut her hair, give her some edge.”
“Are you crazy? I can’t ask a Puerto Rican girl to cut her hair! You ask her!”
“Fine. But you take care of the rest, and if she doesn’t deliver …”
“I know, I know, ‘bullets will be flying, homie.’ ”
Jennifer Lopez was hired. Keenen took all the credit—I didn’t care. Unfortunately, he did make her cut her hair! I was devastated for her. At first she charmed everyone—the girls, the talent, the producers, and me. I was very happy. But within less than two weeks, every day almost, all of the girls were coming into my office complaining how she was manipulating wardrobe, makeup, and me, all to her advantage. And they didn’t appreciate all the attention I was giving her. Huh? I had to give her attention so she could catch up—technically she wasn’t up to their level.
When I asked Jennifer about it, she told me the girls were cold, ostracizing, and jealous of her. Oh boy. I decided to let them work it out themselves. After a while, other departments started to chime in with their own complaints about her being pushy and opinionated. Hmm. Still, I didn’t do anything.
I saw how the constant pressure I was applying was taking its toll on her and didn’t want to add to it. Keenen was hard on Jennifer too, although she didn’t have a clue. He would always call me on
the red phone reserved for producers during live and pre-tapings, telling me to take her out of a certain number if he thought she looked fat that week or too clunky in her moves—true story, folks. And of course, I couldn’t tell her it was Keenen’s decision. I was the choreographer, he was my boss, and that was that. Boy, the hurt I saw on her face was hard to dismiss. She sucked it up like a pro for a while—then she finally broke.
One day during rehearsal I took her out of a number that was too technically difficult for her to execute, but she didn’t see it that way. She came into my office during break and went off on me like some ghetto biatch, screaming, pounding on her chest!
“You pick on me, me and only me, every fucking day! Every fucking day! I work my ass off, deliver, and you keep pushing me aside, treating me like I’m shit! I know I’m good! I’m better than any of these girls and you know it!”
Wow. She had put forth this sweet-girl act, and all this attitude was hilarious. I thought about the complaints against her. But, I took a deep breath, thinking about the fan mail from inmates that had increased because of her and how Keenen loved her as well, even with all his complaints.
“Look, I’m sorry if I’m too harsh, but I’m hard on you because I see your star quality, and I’m just trying to bring it to its fullness.”
She immediately calmed down, with a twinkle in her eyes. “I’ve got star quality?”
“Yes. Look, I’m just trying to help. Just keep doing what you’re doing, and I promise you, you will be rewarded for it.”
She worked harder than anyone after that. Came in early. Stayed late. Dropped about ten pounds in two weeks. Took a new subtle approach in working with others. I was impressed with her tenacity and ambition. And I delivered, rewarding her with more camera time.
Unfortunately, that didn’t make things easier with a few of the other girls—not everyone saw her efforts in the same light. Some
of the staff even told me they thought her intentions were truly self-serving and thought she had me under her thumb. Even so, I began to take a sincere liking to this girl.
“Why don’t you come over to my house for dinner?”
My roommate Tamla hated her. My sister Carmen hated her. Even my father, who liked practically everyone he ever met, hated her. I was so confused. Honestly. I thought she was funny, charming, and polite the whole evening. Carmen told me, “She’s a bitch. She’ll stab you in the back in a fucking second.” So confused.
Keenen wanted to turn the Fly Girls into a recording group. He positioned me as their co-manager. I didn’t want the job. I had too much on my plate: working on the show, still meeting and auditioning for movie roles, continuing the fight against HIV/AIDS. I was beyond tired. But I had such gratitude toward him that I accepted.
I hated the job. Especially when Keenen asked me to figure out who should be the lead singers. Man, I knew that, whoever I picked, the rest would resent me even more. I was right. Without any agenda, I told Keenen that Carrie-Ann had a voice but was too pageant-sounding. Deidre did too, but sounded too Broadway. Jennifer was very pitchy but had a commercial tone that the other two didn’t have. I also told him that these were just my opinions and felt he should pick the lead. Word got back to the girls through office gossip that I thought none of them could sing. Jeez. They were pissed, all of them. I didn’t take it too personally. Okay, I did a bit. Keenen decided that the three girls would share lead vocals.