Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: This is to take away I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. Emmy-nominated actor and Grammy Award winning poet and musician, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, has spent over 40 years sharing aspects of himself with the public, and he's yet to show any signs of slowing down.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner: As I travel backwards through time, I search to rescue all my heroes, all my heroes. And I find myself in the Underground Railroad standing side-by-side with Harriet Tubman as she decides whether to go left or right tonight, right tonight.
Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: His latest offering Hiding in Plain View, is nominated for a Grammy for Best Spoken Word and Poetry Album, and it's some of his most vulnerable work to date. In it, he shares reflections on his journey to radical self acceptance, and explores his hopes and dreams surrounding Black masculinity and Black futures.
Yo, 'cause in all honesty, I've always feared the few people who counter with nope, nope, nope, note, note. I could be in full bloom, in a full room full of fans who I prefer to call friends, and I gravitate to the odd one at the end, who I know specifically is there to hate. I mean, you don't really have to be famous to relate, right? How much love in your life have you overlooked and taken for granted simply because you couldn't stand that it that that the one you want to love from the most didn't love you the way you hoped? It's like dope, right? Addicted to what you can't have.
Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: For folks who haven't heard it yet, can you walk us through Dope a little bit?
Malcolm-Jamal Warner: Yes. Dope is about my journey being comfortable in my skin. Over a couple of years ago, Erykah Badu said, "Humility is overrated," and I've spent so much of my life playing the low a little bit, not letting my light shine as brightly as it can. A couple of years ago, there was an Instagram challenge. it was a poet, they put on this challenge about dope about, write a poem about how dope you are. It was during the pandemic and I was like, "You know what? Let me just go all out," and I went all out.
It's also inspirational, in terms being comfortable in your own skin, but I talk about-- is my personal experience, but I think it's very much a human condition to how you can be in a room with 10 people and it's that 11th person who is not giving you love, or seems not to like you, and you gravitate toward that person. Overlooking the love that you have from everybody else, it's like, "Well, how come that person doesn't like me?" Getting to the point of shedding that and realizing, you know what? Haters are opposed to hate, they're actually doing their job, so let them do their job, and focus on the people who focus on you.
Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: Yet, I suspect that for many listening, they'd be surprised to hear you say that you weren't letting your light shine as brightly. After all, part of how we know you is, or at least how we think we know you, is we feel like we've been watching the shiny light of you, basically since you were an adolescent. I know you're not Theo Huxtable, I know, but you always will be for so many of us.
Talk about what it means to be in public to be shining, but somehow not fully yourself.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner: It's a really weird space because as an artist, you want to not care what people think about you, yet the success of your art greatly depends upon what people think about you. It becomes a really interesting dance like, "I'm going to be totally free." Then this person, if I say this, this may turn someone off. Then I think you get to a point like, "You know what? It's okay if I turn some people off. I have enough people who love me. First and foremost, I have a wife and daughter who loves me, so everything else doesn't matter as much."
Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: Malcolm, take a quick pause with me here. Back with more in a moment, right after this. Emmy-nominated actor and Grammy Award winning poet and musician, Malcolm-Jamal Warner.
Throw your hands in the air,
Wake them like you just don't care, care, care,
Throw your hands in the air,
Wave then like you just don't care, care, care,
I want to talk about Blackness because so much of Hiding in Plain View feels almost like a love letter to who you're becoming, and that in that sense of you're becoming, it's also around Blackness and Black folk. Talk to me about love and Black people.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner: Oh man, yes funny, the album is a-- I'm known for being-- a lot of my poetry is about love and relationships and, of course, social consciousness, here and there, but this album, for me became an album really about my love for my people.
History proves that we know how to outlast inhumane conditions placed upon us,
From the African Holocaust to young Black lives lost at the hands of those meant to protect us,
To the systematic intent to misdirect us through mis-education, unemployment as the inflation of poverty. [unintelligible 00:06:09]
But the joke is that this racial divide that divides us, well, it's magic too,
For it allows classism to continue to hide right there in plain view.
I believe that music has healing powers, and not to sound new age or whatever. The music we listen to heavily influences how we walk through life, and I think being able to have that space is crucial to our well-being.
Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: What I feel you moving towards is your vulnerability, right?
Malcolm-Jamal Warner: Yes. Well, that's what I love what Dr. Black says, "Asante sana."
Dr. Black: We've not ever really had the freedom to include vulnerability as part of the Black father-son relationship. We've been so consumed with survival, we've been so consumed with trying to just keep Black children alive, but what does this mean? What this means is we're still doing survival mode as a people. We see vulnerability as extra, for the most part, unnecessary.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner: What gets lost in the Black father and son relationship is vulnerability because we're about survival. We're in a society where vulnerability is seen as a weakness. We see vulnerability as subtracting from masculinity. When you think of masculinity, tenderness is not one of the first things that come up. Vulnerability is important.
Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: Grammy Award winning, Emmy nominated Malcolm-Jamal Warner, thanks so much for taking the time with us today.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner: Melissa Harris-Perry, thank you for having me.
[00:08:18] [END OF AUDIO]
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