 Welcome to Sister Power. I'm Sharon Thomas-Yarbrough. Today Sister Power is excited about having a conversation with Stogie Kenyatta. The world is my home, the life of Paul Robison. Having performed two sold-out audiences on stages in theaters and U.S. embassies in 16 countries around the world, writer, actor, comedian Stogie Kenyatta's acclaimed one-man Broadway style show will premiere in Honolulu for one weekend only, February the 1st and February the 2nd at the Doors Duke Theater, Honolulu Museum of Art kicking off Black History Month. The world is my home, the life of Paul Robison is presented by Sisters Empowering Hawaii, Hawaii's foremost women's empowerment organization. Stogie and Alan Bryson, welcome to Sister Power. I'm fine thank you. I'm joining you from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Fort Lauderdale, you were in Barbados recently, right? Yes, absolutely. I performed in Barbados. It's opening of my film, Joseph, that I did in Ghana and Jamaica last summer and the world premiered was in Barbados and on the 24th, which I believe is tomorrow, it opens in Ghana, Nigeria and Northwest Africa. That's fabulous and I want our viewers, our new viewers, to meet a new member to Sisters Empowering Hawaii and Alan Bryson is our marketing director. Welcome Alan. Oh, thanks for having me. All this well. All this well. All the new. Good, good. Thank you. We're so excited, Stogie, about the one man show that would be premiering here at Hawaii, February the 1st and February the 2nd. And, you know, let's just chat a bit about who is Paul Robison. Tell us about this superstar. Well, Paul Robison is America's first Renaissance man. He's the son of a slave born 1898. And was the third African American to get an academic scholarship to Rutgers University. He graduated 1919 Magna Cum Laude and valedictorian. And then went on to Columbia University Law School and passed the New York State Bar in 1922 and became the very first Negro attorney hired by Manhattan Law Firm. He spoke 15 languages. He performed globally. He was an actor as well. He was an all American football player, played football and basketball. And he was the ultimate Renaissance man because he was both left brain and right brain. And he was the paradigm for African American success, succeeding in all the areas in which made African Americans wealthy and famous, which was athletics, entertainment, law and social justice. He's amazing individual and way ahead of the sun. Wow, that's amazing. Alan, what questions do you have for Mr. Kenyatta? Well, the first question I want to ask is what led to this this play will lead to you becoming part of us and on stage? Well, the very first time I did it in the late 90s, it was on Broadway with James Earl Jones in the 70s. And I had a successful Broadway run there with James Earl Jones and Lloyd Richards directing it. And later on, the gentleman who played a man called Hawk, Avery Brooks, he did it as well on Broadway and Danny Glebrook. And they did a Broadway version of the show. When I was offered to do the show, it was because Robert Guillaume, who was supposed to do it at a university, he got Phantom of Diopera. He was on the study and they brought him in to take over the lead in Phantom of Diopera. So the job fell to me. I rewrote this play because it had 16 songs in it and is focused more on the politics of the time. And I knew for a college audience, you needed to tell the entire story. So I tell it chronologically. So if you come in knowing absolutely nothing about Robeson, you will meet him at five years old and you can follow the story from there. What's unique and what led me to it is that he's the most unique of all of our African American heroes. Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Frederick Douglass, the boys, they all made huge contributions, but they had lies that I would not want. It was too much work. It was too much sadness and too much suffering. Robeson played sports. He sang, he acted, and he did all of those things and he was just a combination. It was if Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali went to law school, became a lawyer and then started a Broadway play and became a great singer as well. That was what Robeson was. He was Joe Lewis, Nat King Cole, Martin Luther King, Jack Johnson, all rolled into one and Burger Marshall. And so he was, like I said, the paradigm for African American success. Yes. Well, you know, we're having it, your one man show at the Doors Duke Theater. Why does using theater as a vehicle for social change mean and why is that important to you? The question was why, why is it why does you why you why does using theater as a vehicle for social change? Oh, that using theater as a vehicle for social change is vitally important because education is changed. And right now, Robeson is not known to a lot of people. And the thing is the greatest influence on young people today has been the arts and culture and music. And so you learn more through that. And so introducing him this way and using we society is made easier to kill. You can learn how to blow up a bomb online, how to build a bomb. You have anthrax, which you can't smell or taste, but in 12 seconds after touching your skin, it'll kill you. You have poisonous gases. And so technology has made it easier to take human life. And so what happens is that we need to develop a new generation that instant in intrinsically understands that just because technology says you can doesn't mean you should. And to do that, you have to develop more than reading, writing and you have to develop soul. And what theater does is it forces you to laugh and to cry and to touch and become a part of this common yet shared man? That's one we were just looking at some of your performances. You're looking at your pictures. And I know this isn't as a laugh out loud funny as it is educational. This romanticized love story with a toe tapping jazz and bebop soundtrack features music from the Harlem Renaissance. This is exciting for Honolulu and the Harlem Renaissance. Tell us more about the 12 characters that you would be playing with colorful props and wardrobe changes. Well, I play 12 characters because throughout the piece, even though it's about ropes in the people like Cat Calloway, Fats Waller, Jack Johnson and people that all share in it because they were part of his life and they're part of the soundtrack of his life. And so no one lives in a vacuum. And since Jim Crow and segregation forced black people only buy from and sell to each other and play and party in a segregated society, we were into mixing. And so the talent became really concentrated. And so they were all influenced by each other. And so it becomes vitally important because without the Harlem Renaissance, you learn through the Harlem Renaissance that indigenous Africans and descendants of enslaved Africans invented and created every single form of music on the planet Earth except opera and classical. That's a tremendous statement for one ethnic group, a minority equity group to lay that cultural claim on not just America, but the globe. So whether it's jazz, which is the father of blues and soul and fusion and rock and roll and R&B and soul and gospel and country and reggae and soka and Calypso, all of those have their origin. The exception of opera and classical. Everything ever created that you ever sing is created by the genius and the creativity of the African in America and around the world. That's just moment. This is just absolutely wonderful. This gives me all kind of chills and I'm so excited for this one man show. And I want to immediately think some of our sponsors for the one man show. I would like to think Evolve Theater, the Doris Duke Theater, of course, Jim of events, Dr. James McCoy and Dr. Joanne Williams, LaZoya and Aqua Aston Hospitality. And we had a Lulu is excited about this one man show that will be happening. Tell us the dates of the event, Alan. Mm hmm. The events going to be February 1 and second at the Doris Duke Theater Honolulu Museum of Art, located at 900 South, Barentania Street, very close to the Bladestell. If you ever been able to see Janet Jackson or any of the greats perform at the Bladestell, it's it's a few minutes walk. Absolutely. And so we are there and the tickets are $35. And what I like about this Stoge, this event is suitable for our ages. So talk about talk to the parents to bring their children and aunts and grandparents. Yes, absolutely. From ages 14 and up, it's suitable for all ages. There's no profanity in Israel. It's a PG cut. Now, some people have said, will the content be too extreme for young people? And I point out to them that that's a luxury that no one has. Whether 9 11, which is one of the most traumatic things for the generation where over 3000 Americans died in 9 11 when the towers came down. And the violence, school shootings, all of these things are way more injurious to young people than anything that will happen on stage. What what bringing young people do is they will get to see Paul Wilson at five years old. I play him as a young boy. He deals with some of the young people, the things that they deal with right now. And tragedy Greek suffering loss of a parent loss of a loved one to war or police shooting or anything that is a part of this milieu called life. It's a price we pay to be here that we're going to feel. And it gives you a chance to learn how to deal with it. You can't dress for her strategy, but you can, to some degree, prepare for a compassionate response to tragedy because that's what it is. And there's an old Shakespearean quote that says, it's only when nature touches the face of mankind that we all become kids. Anytime there's a hurricane, a tornado, a huge fire of volcanic eruption or something, which does not discriminate. It takes a rich and a poor, the young and the old, the good and the bad. It doesn't matter. It takes humanity as it is. And only then do we realize how fully connected we are that we are one people. One of the themes of the show is if we accept the fatherhood of God, then we must accept the brotherhood of man. It's a simplified version of saying if he feeds your father's son, and she's your father, he's your father's daughter, then she immediately becomes your sister. And we say that if we all call God, the father, then all of his children are brothers. And that is the thing that, you know, that to try to get men to live with brothers. And so that's the universal message for Brogson. And it is clearly and still our only hope for humanity. Well, that's wonderful. We're about to take a quick break. But we're talking about the young people coming in and Paul Robeson spoke out against racism and became a world activist. And he was a star athlete and academic and third African American to attend Rutgers University. So when we come back, we're going to talk about him being an athlete and you being an actor and comedian and writer. And I this is the place February the first and February the second that anyone who has a passion for acting has a passion for comedy. This is a place to be at the Doris Duke Theater on February the first and February the second. And we'll be right back. Stay tuned. Hey, hello, everyone. And welcome to the Think Tech Hawaii studio. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Pretty Matters Hawaii. We air here every Tuesday at 10 a.m. Hawaii time, trying to bring you issues about security that you may not know issues that can protect your family, take yourself, take our community, protect our companies, the folks we work with. Please join us and hope you can maybe get a little different perspective on how to live a little safer. Aloha. Aloha, my name is duration. You are watching Think Tech Hawaii. I will be hosting a show here every other Wednesday at one p.m. And we will be talking to a lot of experts and guests around sustainability, social justice, the future here in Hawaii, progressive politics and a whole lot more. So please tune in and thank you for watching Think Tech Hawaii. Welcome back to Sister Power. I'm your host Sharon Thomas Yarbrough. And we are so excited about the one man show. And we have Stogie Kenyatta joining us here from Fort Lauderdale. But he lives in Los Angeles. And he is coming here to do the one man show. The world is my home, the life of Paul Robeson. And also we have joining us. And there's a flyer right in front of you at the Doris Duke Theater. We also have Alan Bryson, sisters in part in Hawaii's marketing director. Welcome, welcome gentlemen. Before we went to break, we were talking about the famous Paul Robeson and and Alan just, you know, you are just only 28 years old. And you've learned so much about Paul Robeson. Tell us about tell us about your takeaway. I'm just, I mean, when I hear the story of Paul Robeson, what I've done my personal research on and her Stogie say I'm just sometimes I get baffled that one person can do so much in one life. Like, I mean, he was, of course, he was married for 44 years to Eslanda. And throughout that time, I mean, I mean, he went to Rutgers University, the third African American, like Stogie Kenyatta said, and graduated, went to law school. And if my research is correct, they said on the weekends while he was in law school at Columbia U, he played professional football and taught Latin. So I'm like, I'm just trying to wrap my head around just, just how can one person, you know, do so many things. And he speaks 12 languages. That's a rabbit hole there. Like, how can you speak over 12 languages? And who are you talking to? And what are you talking about? So it's just like, it's just like Stogie Kenyatta said about the left brain and the right brain. He was definitely an intellect. He was a thinker. He was a deep thinking he was he was a deep person, but he was also a very colorful, artistic person. So I mean, for those who are fortunate after me, Paul Robeson, I think he was he has something for everybody. He could talk to everybody because he could, you know, I'm pretty sure he knew something about computers. And he knew probably just as much about sports. It is cool was just was Stogie taken away because you are playing this fantastic human being. Yeah, you see, that is magnificent about it. And a lot of people ask me, they say, Well, when we do Q&As, when they ask about how is he able to have done so much and achieved so much is so he lived two lifetimes. And the thing is, is that without the distraction of TV and, you know, video games and all the things that consumers today, you have to because you do know that you're representing an entire generation. And life was short then because during Paul Robeson's lifetime, you had World War One and you had World War Two. Between those two wars, World Global Wars, we had 97 million dead of the 97 million dead people. 70 million of those were civilians that were not involved with the war. So what you knew growing up with then was that life was short and life was cheap. And I mean that globally and not just across the world here in America. It was March, on or about March 23rd, somewhere in the New Mexico desert, the United States for the very first time tested the atom bomb. Within 12 days later, by April 6th, I mean, August 6th, they dropped it on Hiroshima, killing almost 400,000 people in 12 minutes. Two days later, they dropped another stocky. And of course that ended the war because if they can get the phone, they was like, Listen, whatever you do whatever, we're done, we're not fighting anymore. And I say that to say that it was as though you got a brand new toy or hat and you couldn't wait to wear it. Human life was cheap. The thing that you think that if you, when can you get the entire globe to get together and say, let's choose slides and don't kill our brothers. They did that not once, but twice. Global World Wars. So that being said, young people and people living under that social criteria knew that tomorrow is a promise, you have to do everything today. And Robeson approached life that way because as a descendant of the slaves and knowing that he was three fifths of a man and it was not against the law to kill him, he approached life with that zest. And once he got to Europe, and he saw that the French and the Swiss Swedes in different countries did not live and have the same ideology as me. He said, I wanted to learn to talk to those people. So while he was in London, he went to the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies and he studied language and he learned about all these different languages and he studied them. And that's how you know he was a genius because he learned so many languages after the age of 20. And he became good friends with Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, and Nnamdi, and Nnamdi became the president of Nigeria. Jomo Kenyatta became the president of Kenya and Kwame Nkrumah became the president of Ghana. And the three of them along with W.E.B.B. Boys formed the O.A.U., the Organization of African Unity, because he had a vision for a unified African. They're phenomenal men that did so much in a short lifetime. It shows how, you know, and the only parallel to Robeson that I thought did so much in a short lifetime would have to have been Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, because both of them died before their 39th birthday. And when you think that in 39 years Martin Luther King not only went to college and got a degree and got a doctorate, he married what had to be the most beautiful woman in the 60s, or the 50s, Florida Scott King. And he had five babies with her. So he had an active home life, and he had a beautiful wife, and he did all of that. And still, at 26 years old, brought down the Alabama racist segregated bus system. So it's a phenomenal achievement by phenomenal men. And it's one of the reasons why we are who we are in such amazing ways with people. Oh, you know, you can go on and on. You're such a great storyteller, Stokey. What is the connection to Robeson, the Obamas, and the state of Hawaii? Oh, that's a wonderful question, because I often say when people ask me how is this show so important to me, I said, because Paul Robeson has proved that one person can make a tremendous difference, even if that one person is not around to see the difference that they make. And I say it right after that, without Paul Robeson, we would have never had Barack Obama as president. Now, a lot of people think, well, that's a bit of a stretch, because they never met. But then I explain to them that Robeson was the most influential artist of his time. And as so, he mentored some younger artists. Among them is number one mentee was a great Jamaican, Harry Belafonte, and his best friend, Sidney Portier. When him and both Bojangles Robinson tried to get a black player in the National Major League Baseball, the best black player in the Negro League was Jackie Robinson. He lived in Pasadena, California. He was a son of a Texas Louisiana slave, Grand Center for the Texas Louisiana Slaves. They came here. So the three of them became his primary mentees, Sidney Portier, Belafonte, and Jackie Robeson. Robeson taught his mentees several things, among them three things in particular. Number one, he taught him education was the number one way to advance in society. He said educated people do less harm to their fellow fellow citizens. The second thing he taught him was that the continents of African and the African in America were one people. And the third thing he said that was successful African Americans have a moral and cultural obligation to try to get a quality education for qualified African students. So in 1959, Belafonte, Sidney Portier, and Jackie Robeson started a foundation to pay for college for qualified African students, but they first had to find a university that would do so. All of the local in the lower 48 said no thank you, we don't want Africans coming here no matter who's paying for. So, but our newest state was Hawaii. And Hawaii said well, we haven't been part of America long enough to learn how to hate anybody, and we're kind of brown ourselves. So if you if you want you can bring them here and the more you bring the bigger the discount. So Belafonte, Portier, and Jackie Robeson went off to Africa, started West Africa, went to Central Africa, all the way to East Africa. The requirements were you must be a high school graduate, speak fluent English, and pass a college entrance examination test. They brought 72 students from 18 African nations, and they flew them all to the University of Hawaii to study. Among them was none other than a brilliant boy from the mountain sides of Kenya, and his name was none other than Barack Obama. And that was how, and while he was there, he met Anne, they, and when she was, they dated, they fell in love, she got pregnant, when she was three months pregnant, they got married, and Barack Obama, the global economic students from the mountain sides of Kenya, named his firstborn son on Hawaiian soil in America, Barack Hussein Obama. Oh, there you people, viewers, there you have it. Who would not want to come out Saturday, February the 1st at 7 p.m. and we have a matinee Sunday, February the 2nd at 4 p.m. at the Doris Duke Theater. It's only $35 per person, and I want the lovers out there to know this is a way to jumpstart Valentine's Day by bringing the family, grab your best friend, grab your wife, grab your husband, and come out and contact Sisters in Park Hawaii at gmail.com, or please call us at 808-228-7802. And in 30 seconds or left, Stokey, leave us a tip why everyone in Hawaii needs to come to this show. Well, there'll also be a meet and greet. After the show, I come off the stage in full costume, and I'll take pictures with the audience and in different and signed programs and answer questions, and there's a full meet and greet afterwards. But it's a one to the... I've been to 16 countries in the world and I've never performed in Honolulu. So you're integral part of the story because you gave us our very first African-American president, and he did so with such class and grace, and there's nature and disnurture, and it was Hawaii that nurtured President Obama. And you nurtured him with the gentleness, the grace, the style, and the humanity that's so amazing. And we see how rare it is now with whom we have an impeached bigot in the White House. And so the very fact that the state, that by the time they count Hawaii's votes, the president has been decided. Not once in American history have we waited to see how Hawaii voted before we knew who our president was, and yet still you gave us our first African-American president. It's a wonderful thing that shows the testament that it's not where you are, it's who you are, and that quality and character does count. And so it's an honor, and I'm looking forward to it, and there are more Obamas out there, and there are young people there that are looking for this, and I often tell people, when I speak at universities and do master classes, I say you can't start a fire without a spark. This show will be the spark that will ignite the wisdom, the compassion, and the intellect of many, many young people there, and it will be a satisfied thing for those in comforting to know that those that have been living right all along. So it's an amazing opportunity to use theaters, vehicles, social change, and we're the number one nation in the world, the United States, not because of bombs and bullets, but because of arts and culture, and that is what system power in Hawaii is doing. I'm honored that you guys have chosen to bring me out, and I'm still looking forward to opening Black History Month in this new decade, 2020, here on the home of our 50th state, Hawaii. Thank you very much, Stokey. We're so excited for your one-man show. The world is my home, the life of Paul Robeson. Get your tickets, go to the Honolulu Museum of Art, aloha, and I just want to thank Heritage Painting and Waterproofing and some of our sponsors, Evolve Theater, and Dr. James McCoy, aloha.