- [Woman] Put it on, right.
(audience clapping) (people cheering)
- [Man] You step right, I'll take care of this.
The chair's behind you.
- [Woman] Behind you.
- Tommy, Tommy Johnson.
That was my humiliator.
I mean, at the age of 13,
how could you be so humiliated?
Let me not get ahead of myself.
You see, I was going to a church
right across the street from me.
That was at 141st Street in Harlem,
between Seventh and Eighth Avenue.
They had a center down there
that we used to go down to dance.
My dance step?
Side to side, shuffle.
Side to side, shuffle,
regardless of what type of music it was.
(audience laughs)
And I would go there and I'd sit on the side,
where the young ladies would sit
that didn't get a chance to dance too much.
And I would sit and sit.
And this young man by the name of Tommy Johnson
would come and ask me to dance.
I'd get up, and I'd follow him out to the dance floor
like the moth to a flame.
And we'd get out there.
Tommy would do slides,
turns, splits, bend over and shake a tail feather.
(audience laughs)
And I would do my little favorite step,
side, side, side. (audience laughs)
Regardless of what he did,
I would side, side, side.
That was my movements.
Well, Tommy did this so much,
and I got tired of it.
I mean, I really got tired of it.
And I went home one night after being humiliated.
And I laid on my bed crying,
and thinking about Tommy and his splits,
and his turns, and his bending over,
and his shaking a tail feather.
I thought about doing a step.
I said, "I could do this.
I could do this."
I got up off that bed,
got my belt out of the closet,
put it on the doorknob,
tightened it up, closed that door,
and I started doing me some slides.
Almost tripped over my own foot,
but I still did my slides.
And I bent over, and I shook a tail feather.
I even did the little twirling.
Then I did the half split.
I couldn't do the whole split of course,
(audience laughs) but the half split
would suffice me.
And I kept this up for a whole month.
I mean, I would eat.
I would stop and eat, yes.
I'd stop and go to school.
I mean, I had to go to school,
'cause my mother wasn't going to have that.
And I'd come back home,
do my homework, have my dinner,
go to my room, and I'd do my little dancing.
I'd practice and practice and practice.
And one night the garage door came open.
I bumped my head, but I just shook that off
and kept right on dancing.
And I even practiced doing a headstand.
I bumped my head again on the floor,
shook that off,
and tried it again till I got it.
Like I said, I did that for a whole month,
till I felt I had it together.
And then one night,
one Friday night at six o'clock,
I got dressed and I went down to the center.
And I sat in my same little spot.
Now I don't know who Tommy was dancing with
while I was gone.
But I guess he was dancing with somebody.
But I sat in my same spot waiting,
just waiting for him to come over
and ask me to dance.
True to form, here comes Mr. Tommy Johnson.
(audience laughs)
And I got up, and I followed him out to the dance floor.
Now, when you get out there on the dance floor,
if you really doing something spectacular,
a crowd will gather around you.
That crowd is there to help you
stay inside the circle,
to let the person that's doing the fantastic dancing
do their thing.
And if you're not dancing so good
and you try to get out that circle,
you can't go nowhere.
(audience laughs)
You got to stay inside that circle,
and endure the humiliation.
(audience laughs)
Well, Tommy had asked me to dance again,
and I was inside the circle.
And he was doing his splits.
He was doing his turns, his slides.
I mean, he had it goin' on.
He was sliding all over the place,
and then bending over and shaking a tail feather.
And I let him go right ahead.
"Go ahead, slide some more.
Do the split, shake a tail feather."
And he even got like he was riding a pony.
(audience laughs)
I said, "Yeah, go right ahead.
Go right ahead."
And I got tired of looking at him,
doing all his slides and everything.
And I slid up to his face,
and he stood there with his mouth wide open,
(audience laughs)
looking at me all wide-eyed, all bug-eyed.
And I showed him what I could do.
I showed him my slides, and I mean, I slide.
You could think I was James Brown.
(audience laughs)
I was sliding so good.
And I showed him how I could bend over
and shake a tail feather.
And I went and did me a half split,
which I could do.
Did it pretty good too.
And he just stood there looking at me
with his mouth wide open,
all buggy-eyed, like he was.
He tried to walk out the circle.
(audience laughs)
But they wouldn't let him out.
(audience laughs)
They came in tighter and enforced it.
And that made me more determined to do my slides,
my shake a tail feather.
And I even did like the pony too,
(audience laughs) showed him I knew
what I could do.
And then when I tired of him,
I slid up to his face again and (lips blowing),
threw him a kiss,
(audience laughs)
let him know that, "Hey, you ain't got it all like that.
I got me a little bit of it too."
And I walked out of that circle.
Now, I didn't go back to the center for a while.
And I didn't know what happened to Tommy Johnson.
But anyway, one day I was walking down 125th Street,
between Seventh and Eighth Avenue.
The Apollo Theater's around there.
And then across the street,
there was a store called the Record Shack.
And they were playing some music.
I mean, they were throwing down,
and it was one of James Brown's records, too.
And I just, something just came over me,
and I started dancing.
Next thing I knew I had a crowd of people around me,
and I just showed off even more so.
And then this man stepped out of the audience,
and he said, "You know what, Miss?
You should be at the Apollo Theater."
I looked at that man like he was crazy.
He said, "I'm serious."
He said, "Here."
He said, "Come here at this time and on this date."
I took the paper and I said, "Well, I couldn't lose.
I may gain something."
And on that day, and at that precise time,
I went to the Apollo Theater.
And they had a group performing up there
called The Coasters.
And the lead singer was Speedo.
He would come down to interact with the audience.
He would take the mic
and he would put it to somebody.
He'd say.
♪ Whoa ♪
And then he put the mic to somebody's mouth,
and they said nothing.
He went to the next person.
♪ Whoa ♪
He got nothin'.
He came to me.
He said.
♪ Whoa ♪
I said, "Whoa!"
(audience laughs)
He jumped back and looked at me,
and he grabbed my hand,
and he pulled me up on the stage.
And that's the first time in my life
I had ever seen anybody do the Twist on one leg
while they got the other leg extended in front of him.
(audience laughs)
Well, I couldn't do that.
So I did the best thing I could do.
I turned around and showed him my posterior
jumping up one at a time.
(audience laughs)
And he took off his shirt.
But when he went to take off his pants,
I screamed and I ran off the stage.
(audience laughs)
I hurried up and got back to my seat.
The usher came down with a flashlight
and he was shining it in my face.
I said, "Oh gosh, did I do something wrong?"
He said, "Miss, come here."
And I got up, and I went to him.
He said, "The manager wants to see you."
And I thought to myself,
"I'm going to get put out of the theater.
They're going to put me out.
They're really going to put me out.
And I paid to come in here."
(audience laughs)
But I went up to the manager, brave, very brave.
He said, "Are you working anywhere, Miss?"
I said, "No, sir."
Now here I'm 13 years old.
And he said, "Would you like to appear here
on the stage with The Coasters,
for the rest of the week?"
"Would I, yes."
He said, "You'll get paid Friday, just like they do."
I said, "Thank you."
He said, "You wouldn't have to go up on stage every show,
but be here every day."
And I was true to form.
I was there every day.
I went up on the stage some of the times,
and one time I was up there on the stage,
and who made an appearance, but James Brown himself.
I said, "Wow."
Then I really did something, then.
I did my slide.
(audience laughs)
And I had trained myself so well
that I could do the slide,
and make it in a figure eight.
He looked at me.
He said, "Wow, little mama."
(audience laughs)
That became my stage name, Little Mama.
And from there,
I went to the Carver Ballroom,
the Renaissance Ballroom,
the Audubon Ballroom,
the Baby Grand, Smalls Paradise.
And I did my slide,
and my bend over and shake a tail feather.
I even did The Fly.
And I stopped doing my little side to side.
That was off the hook.
(audience laughs) No more doing that.
I no more doing that, but you see,
I never knew what happened to Tommy Johnson.
But deep down in my heart,
I thanked him for humiliating me the way he did,
because it made me more determined.
And I mean, I was determined to show him
that I was not going to be a little step, step,
step, step, step.
I was going to show him something, and I showed him.
And I showed the ones that held me back in that circle,
that I could do something.
"Hold him back, and let me do my thing."
Whoa, Mama got a brand new bag."
(audience applauds) (people cheering)