Some personal context: Before being cast in this rap musical, for instance- I rarely, if ever, listened to rap (I know, shocker.) I grew up in Brookline, a trolley suburb of Boston, MA- my hometown, my heart, but not the LEAST racist city ever created.
My town was mostly white, so I was listening to the music that the white kids did, I came up on Green Day, Blink 182, Good Charlotte. And then I reached back and got into the Rolling Stones, Queen, The Who. And that’s how I finally found my way into my own culture, with the Blues and Soul- Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye.
But even then, I was the odd man out- the fly in the buttermilk- which is not to say I didn’t like it that way. If you’re at all familiar with W.E.B. DuBois and the concept of the Talented Tenth, well that mentality was at play for me, throughout my teen years. The internalized, eroding idea that only the best of the best of the most unique and brightest, rise to the top. That while many of my brethren were down in the dumps becuz of whatever fates (*cough cough structural racism cough cough*), I had been CHOSEN to rise and become something more, a shining example to the world, of what my people could be.
Yes, I literally believed this in high school, albeit subconsciously.
And I came by it honestly. You don’t escape being a Black kid in Boston without some scars. You either reconcile with them, or you don’t. I didn’t, for a long while- so those scars became a pressure. I was going to be the best. So smart that I could outthink any white kid looking for a fight. So nice and confident and eclectic, that none of them would even THINK to call me the N-Word. I believed that I could achieve my way out of racism.
And then, 8 years later, I got to Broadway.
Now, if your modus operandi is competition, Broadway is the place to be, we’ve already talked about how hard it is to get here. But, if prior to your Broadway debut, you’d subsisted on showing that you weren’t like “the others”, celebrating in your own little corner of the world where you were too “white” for most Black kids, and try as you might, way too Black for the white kids; if your only known life blood was standing out and being different, well—
Welcome to the ensemble of a major Black Broadway musical.
A major Black Broadway musical, where the point of the show WAS to be a cohesive part of the community portrayed onstage, in that case, 1960s Detroit. My mind was FRIED. Becuz all of a sudden, there were no white kids to impress. There was only Black people, and all different types of Black people- some raised in the church, some raised in the hood, some raised by the wealthiest, most prestigious parentage you could imagine. Some had their eye on an Oscar nom (and got it), some wanted Grammies, some just wanted to support their families. But all of us had to sync up on that stage.
And me, all of a sudden, I had no achievements to rely on. No way to stand separate in the system. Becuz I HAD to blend, I was being PAID to do so. I was being asked to dance in the Black vernacular- I couldn’t dance at all, let alone use my hips in any sort of syncopated, Black rhythm way.
It took a lot of tears, and a lot of struggle, to learn what it meant to be a part of that show. To tear down the voice in my head that was telling me “you’re either different or you’re nothing.” I wasn’t even able to do it by the end of that run, it took many many years- August of 2016, to be exact. That’s when I joined Hamilton. And despite the”lack of rap music knowledge” hurdle, that was my first time being in a production of kids, who looked and acted exactly like ME.
Who’d survived the same internalized supremacy I had. Who listened to my type bands growing up. Who loved Shakespeare, loved the same comic books and movies, who’d endured the same racist bull to stand on that stage.
And that’s not to say that prior shows didn’t have those same kids in the cast… I’m just not sure we all felt safe to find each other in prior shows. Cuz Broadway is largely reductive- if you’re a Black human, then this box is who you are, how you sing, how you speak- gospel number goes at the end of Act One, dance for the play-off, call it a night.
No, I’m convinced that it took a show that’s very concept was to defy convention, to allow us the space to be fully ourselves. There is no tonic quite like fully unhinged self expression. And Hamilton had that in droves.
So did Ain’t Too Proud, and by the time I got there, I was able to both be myself AND Black, and understand that they were one and the same. And I’m really happy about that, becuz that company was the actual best, and I would’ve missed that, if I’d still been compartmentalizing.
Now I’m back at Ham, where my journey started. And I can only look back at the kids coming up under me, who maybe grew up like me, and are having the same thoughts about B’way as I did, and tell them to breathe. And not try so hard. And do whatever they can to detach their value from achievement.
Cuz Black is beautiful, no matter what vessel it’s in.
And I largely learned that, from being on Broadway.
