00:00Please tell me about the moments in your life when something that felt way beyond what was
00:04possible for you landed at your feet.
00:06I was on a date with Michael Jackson.
00:08Oh, you win!
00:10You win!
00:11You win!
00:11Wait a minute.
00:12Is it real?
00:13I sat in my dream, Erica.
00:19You've cursed somebody out for messing with your mama.
00:23My antenna is telling me that I need to ask Ms. Vivica A. Fox, say you haven't.
00:33Oh, Lord.
00:34Lord Jesus.
00:36I have.
00:37Okay.
00:38Yes.
00:38Of course, believe it or not, it was my own daddy.
00:40I believe it.
00:41It was my own daddy.
00:43I was like, Daddy, I'm getting tired of you coming to Mama sideways.
00:47And I think that was one of the only times in my life that I had mixed words with my
00:54father, but it was about my mom.
00:55You had to step in and mediate a heated situation between your parents.
01:01I do.
01:01I'm like, guys!
01:04Enough!
01:05And then also, so I was actually in elementary school.
01:09I was like the conflict mediator, actually.
01:12I don't know how I got this job, but I would basically sit down with the kids, usually
01:18my peers, and of all grades, really, but usually my peers, and sit them down and let
01:23them know, like, okay, so this is how it's going to go.
01:27You're going to speak first, and then you're going to speak next, and I'm going to tell
01:31you what I believe to be the conflict.
01:34Got an advice from your mom, ignored it, and had it blow up in your face.
01:41Oh, God.
01:44Say you haven't.
01:47Uh, yes.
01:49Everything my mother told me I've ignored to some extent, and it's blown up in my face.
01:54We always do.
01:55Because I think that I always thought she was a little, please, Mom, forgive me, corny.
02:00Ooh.
02:01And she couldn't be telling the truth.
02:04Uh-huh.
02:05Because it seemed so simple, the things she was saying.
02:07My mother is like a sage.
02:09She's like this old griot.
02:11And some of the things she says just seemed like, girls, because you ain't been out in
02:16the world.
02:17And then I found out it was true.
02:18Had to check a spouse of a family member.
02:22Have you ever, Erica?
02:24Well, it was a friend, and he was lying.
02:27He was a person who was a, what is it?
02:29Would you lie?
02:30Narcissist.
02:30Oh, pathological.
02:32Pathological liar.
02:34And he would go and make up stories about me, and tell people I was just doing things
02:38that I wasn't doing.
02:40So I had to say to him, not only can you do that, we're not going to be friends.
02:44Because I said, if you can't live the truth of who I am, if it's not good enough, then
02:48don't talk about me at all.
02:50Look, there's a saying I have, know your place, play your position, stay in your lane.
02:54Okay.
02:54I learned that one time, and it wasn't a family member.
02:58It was a friend that I got in the business trying to be, hey, check out what we saw, and
03:05you should be careful.
03:05And it totally backfired on me.
03:09I got made to look like the bad person that I was causing drama, like I was blind and
03:14didn't see what I saw.
03:16So I've learned to mind my business.
03:20Don't do it.
03:21Have a moment where you were proud of your anger.
03:27Yeah, girl, come on.
03:29I definitely have many moments when I'm proud of my anger.
03:33Usually when I'm fighting for my work, when I feel that people want to change it and aren't
03:42respecting, you know, the nuances of it or trying to, you know, disrupt the things I'm
03:48trying to do.
03:49I'm trying to be experimental.
03:50I'm trying to challenge ideas about how black people can exist in a narrative.
03:54I can get really, I can be ungovernable.
03:58And you can stay.
03:59Come on.
03:59I can get a little bit.
04:00You can get a little stay.
04:01Okay.
04:01That's what I'm talking about.
04:02I think those Baldwin was the same way.
04:05For sure.
04:05You have to be.
04:06Yes.
04:07You really have to be.
04:08Because if people haven't seen the thing before, can you imagine trying to describe
04:11Is God Is to people?
04:12No.
04:12They haven't seen it before.
04:14They get scared when they see you working it out and it's chaotic and it's always chaotic
04:17before it's good.
04:18So I'd be, you know, I'd have to fight and be like, no, I know what I'm doing.
04:22This is going to work.
04:23Can I tell you the best compliment that I heard from all of my friends last night?
04:28Original.
04:29Oh, yes.
04:30Yes, ma'am.
04:31Yes.
04:32You did that.
04:32Yes.
04:33Yes.
04:35Yes.
04:36Yes.
04:37Yes.
04:39Yes.
04:39Yes.
04:40Yes.
04:41Yes.
04:41Yes.
04:41Yes.
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