← All Of It with Alison Stewart
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- [00:08]
A
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. It's time to start reading our next get lit with all of it book club. And it is a banger. It's King of Ashes by the one and only SA Cosby. The story follows a man named Roman Carruthers, a financial advisor who has left his small town in Virginia for a life managing money for beautiful celebrities. But after his father's attack, he returns home. Can Roman save his family from a gang? And at what cost? SA Cosby will join us live in person and for a virtual event on Tuesday, October 28, along with very special musical guest, Brooklyn based RB musician Yaya Bae. Now, tickets are free, but they tend to go quickly. So to find out how to get your free tickets and to borrow your E copy, thanks to our partners at the NYPL, head to WNYPL. That's wnyc.org getlit now, we're gonna talk about the new musical Mexodus. So let's start things off with a beat courtesy of our next guests.
- [01:16]
B
Uno, dos, tres, cuatro.
- [01:20]
A
In school, you learn about the underground railroad, you learn about Harriet Tubman, and you learn about the tens of thousands of people who escaped slavery northward in the antebellum period. What you may not have learned about was another underground railro ran south into Mexico. Research has suggested between 5 and 10,000 people fled enslavement in the United States following migrating to Mexico where slavery was fully outlawed in 1837. A new musical at the Manetta Lane Theater aims to shed light on that little known history. That musical is Mexican and it comes from creators and stars Brian Quijada and Nigel D. Robinson. But you know what? I'm gonna let them introduce themselves and the show. Here's a clip from Exodus, a song called Two Bodies.
- [02:06]
C
My name is Nigel D. Robinson, a descendant of Mansa Musa who was shipped from the east to the coast of Cuba, then up to America, land of the free. 400 years later. And here you have me standing here before you with a new manifesto.
- [02:20]
B
Todos tamos junto sinestos they call me Brian Quijada I'm a child of Latino immigrants Equivalent no different than any founding participants who cross the sea across the border in order to build a life much better than the one they knew before Just on the other side struggled just to break it in plus the ones they made it in fought hard to be accepted in a land that's.
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C
Barricaded in so where do we meet?
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B
In the middle Give them the truth.
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C
Okay okay. From 1829 to 1865, 4 to 10,000 slaves escaped to Mexico to thrive.
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B
Did you know this?
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C
We didn't know this. Did you know this?
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B
We didn't know. Why? Cause it wasn't allowed. It wasn't allowed. It wasn't allowed. It wasn't spoken.
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C
Loudmouth. Deep south secret way of speaking. Whispers only fingers of a mouth Just to avoid the beat that keeps the locks of our miles held pretty tight.
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B
So we struggle to uncover America's other boundest fight to live in this America.
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C
They're scared of us. They came for us, brought all of us and now we are here. Old woes, dead folks. New laws, new flaws. The same holy cross and the same northern star.
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B
Here we are, we got far to go but we won't keep it low. We only singing it. Cause that's the way we live with it. Oh, my dear.
- [03:26]
A
Mads Robinson plays Henry, a Texas man escaping enslavement. Brian Quijada plays Carlos, a former medic in the Mexican army who takes Henry into his home. Mexicus is running at the Mineta lane now through November 1st. The New York Times calls it, quote, an electrifying theatrical experience. It's a critics pick. Brian and Nigel, welcome to all of it.
- [03:47]
B
What's up? How are you?
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C
How you doing?
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A
You thought that was funny? When we.
- [03:51]
B
I was like.
- [03:55]
A
Brian, what do you remember about learning about this part of the underground Railroad?
- [04:01]
B
I. Well, in school, none of it, you know, of course, you learn about the underground railroad that led north, which is a vital part of history. But it wasn't until 2017 that I found this article, the untold story of the underground Railroad that led south to Mexico. On Facebook, on history.com, somebody posted the article. And I have a little notes app where I keep play ideas. And that's where it lived until I met Nigel.
- [04:24]
A
How long after you read that did you think there's a musical in this?
- [04:29]
B
I think it happened pretty immediately for me. I was like, oh, this is. How have I never heard about this? And you read the information and you're like, of course, this makes total sense. And then I was. I mean, that's, you know, my trade. I like to tell stories and do theater. So it wasn't until I met Nigel, though, that this idea of making it a musical together came to be.
- [04:50]
A
How did the pitch come to you, Brian?
- [04:54]
C
We met at an actor musician conference. We were both guest speaking and he was talking about looping. I was talking about, like going into an audition with an instrument and like, I was like, I need to know you. And he was like, I need to know you, too. So he was like, come to your house. So I came over, and then he was like, dude, have you ever heard of the underground Railroad that went south to Mexico? And I was like, what are you talking about? And then it hit me, and I'm like, oh, that makes perfect sense. And I'm like, that. That's wild. But I've never heard of that. So we talked about that, and he was like, would you want to write this musical with me? And I'm like, yeah, sure. But, you know, New York, you meet a. You throw a rock, you hit somebody. Writing a musical, you do. Like, everybody's writing the show, but, like. But, like, circumstances made us actually hunker down and do it. Like the pandemic.
- [05:37]
B
It was right before the pandemic. We met two weeks before the pandemic shut down. And then a couple months in, we actually started working on it.
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A
Yeah, you created something that is really new, that's really exciting. And I'm curious, though, what's your musical background?
- [05:52]
B
I don't really have one. That's not true. I grew up in a household. My parents sang in the church. My parents loved music. I mean, every weekend it was like, we're blasting hip hop in all rooms, me and my brothers. My mom is playing 70s rock and roll. My dad is playing, like, Mexican moleros cumbias. I came from a very musical family that. My parents are immigrants, so they don't. They didn't believe that you could make a living doing art. Right. So the idea of going to school for music or the. Or for the arts was, don't do that. So I've just kind of loved music as an expression of, you know, self and learned how to play guitar in college. You know, started picking up little instruments, and I still don't know how to read music. Nigel is very trained. I just kind of love it so much.
- [06:45]
A
How about for you, Nigel? What's your background?
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C
I grew up. I was in church so much so, like, I was surrounded by music that way. And then one of my favorite people on Earth, my Uncle Greg, imagined me very skinny, dark skin, giant mustache, and bald. Nigel, you need to. He would get drunk, and he would make me come to the back porch and be like, we're gonna listen to Earth, Wind and fire. Listen to these horns. Nigel going to listen to Stevie. We're going to listen to, like, a lot of, like, old soul music and R and B music. So, like, I. I grew to love it. Like, I I didn't. I don't resent him at all for it. I'm like, thank you for trapping me on the back porch and making me listen to it. Like, he was just like, in this one and now this one. And my mom played a lot of John Legend around me. A lot of Stevie Wonder, a lot of Temptations, a lot of Smokey, a lot of. A lot of Motown stuff around me. And then I. She put me in piano lessons. I begrudgingly did it. But then when I was 11, I played in church and I got $100. And $100 for an 11 year old is a million dollars. I was like, oh, I don't ever have to get a job. So, like, I started taking it very seriously. And then picked up a guitar in high school, picked up trumpet in middle school, started playing bass. Cause I was like, oh, bass is just the guitar, the first four strings and one note at a time. And played drums in church. So, like, I've been surrounded by music and I knew I wanted to do something musical, but I didn't know how. And then I found musical theater and I was like, that's perfect. That's what I want to do. So I went to college for it and I just gigged around as a musician, as an actor musician. And then I've always written music, like, ever since, like, I was like 8 or 9. 50 cents. Get rich or die Try and change my life. Yeah, really, like, that's the reason why Nigel D. Robinson is a writer today, because of 50 Cent. Thank you, 50.
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B
Thank you, 50.
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C
Thank YOU, Curtis.
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B
Thank you, 50, for all of your contributions to society.
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C
Tim Exodus.
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A
Well, the thing that's interesting about Mexodus is that all of the music happens on stage and it just happens from U2 and looping.
- [08:40]
B
Yeah.
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A
All right, so for people who don't understand looping, would you explain it to us?
- [08:45]
B
Yes, of course. So looping is just layered music making. It's, you know, you take four bars, like, let's just say it's a four chord loop, a four chord guitar riff, and you just play that and it records. The machine records. And then you can drop the guitar, go to a bass, drop in a bass line, drop the bass, go over to the percussion, and lay, you know, little samples of sound that eventually layers like a cake. And what's nice about how we build this in the show is that then we begin to take stuff out. We create new compositions by isolation. It's. It's kind of like a magic trick, really. It's like you know, I mean, because we have an insatiable appetite for learning new instruments. There's just always a magic trick of a new instrument coming out and it's a. A blast for us to do.
- [09:31]
A
Did you want to add anything to that?
- [09:32]
C
Oh, no. That's looping in a nutshell.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Well, it's interesting because you play the bass, so you're like in a more traditional form and then you have your looping. Is it hard to go between the two?
- [09:43]
C
No, not, no. When I caught on to how looping worked, I was like, oh, oh. I can just be a little one man band. So it kind of is in alignment with who I've always been. Like, I'm always like with headphones on, sitting on my computer, like making stuff. So like, this just lets me do it live.
- [10:00]
A
I'm speaking to the creators and the stars of Mexico, a hip hop musical about the little known underground railroad that ran to Mexico. It's running at the Manana lane Theater through November 1st. My guests are Brian Quijada and Nigel Robinson. Nigel, you play a formerly enslaved man named Henry.
- [10:15]
C
Yeah.
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A
Brian, you play this medic from the Mexican army named Carlos. Let's start with who these two men are. Who is Carlos?
- [10:24]
B
Yeah, Carlos is, I think. So both of these characters are composites of. Bless you, Nigel. Are composites of a bunch of research that we did back when we started writing this in 2020. There was, you know, there was a student from the University of Texas that had written her thesis on it. There's now a book that was called south to Freedom, if anybody's interested in more of the history. But it hadn't come out when we did all the research and we're doing it. But anyway, he's a composite of, I think, a lot of Mexican stories that we were reading of a displaced Mexican whose land was taken in the Mexican American War and then crossed the Rio Grande to where now the south of where the border is currently now. And remakes his life and has to kind of start everything from scratch. Becomes a farmer just in the northern part of Mexico.
- [11:24]
A
And Henry has an unfortunate encounter with a gentleman.
- [11:28]
C
Yeah, well, he, you know, the show starts and he's like, this is like life. This is what's happening. And then there's a situation. I won't tell you. Please come see it. There's a situation.
- [11:38]
B
No spoilers.
- [11:38]
C
There's a situation that makes it to where it's like I either get killed or I do something and run away. So he chooses the latter and has heard about, like, The Rio Grande being, like, if you can get to Mexico, you can be free. So he, like, there's a folk tale about a bale of cotton being used as a means to travel on a river. And we took that and, like, made a song about him traveling across. So he gets across the Rio Grande and goes into Mexico and then becomes a citizen. But I think that, like, really interesting thing about these composite people. They are composite characters. They're kind of like caricatures of like. Of like these. What's the word I'm looking for? They are tropes in a way, you know, but, like, I think the thing that separates us from being tropes and these characters from being tropes is that we are ourselves as these people, and we, like, intersperse. Like, here's how Nigel's feeling right now. And then I'm gonna jump back into this thing. Here's how Brian's feeling. I'm gonna jump back into this thing. And, like, that's how we kind of. That's how we make sure that it's not just like some tropey thing that everyone's hurt. You know, we want to separate it from that. But these people are us, and they are, like our ancestors. You know what I mean? So, like, we step into that and, like, Henry is, like, very. I'm philosophical. I like to sit under trees and, like, dream and, oh, what are the leaves thinking? And, like, I think that Henry is doing this. So I insert that part of myself into this person. And like. And Brian as well. Like, we are ourselves as these people, but we are everyone that we have come from, you know, or we try to be.
- [13:19]
A
Brian, what was something in the research that you knew had to be in the show?
- [13:25]
B
I mean. I mean, that folktale is one of them for sure, because I think there's something really beautiful about, you know, the thing that enslaved this man for his entire life is the thing that sets him free. But also, you know, there's something about that united these men in their. In how they were affected by white supremacy, you know, like, and how they were affected by colonialism and imperialism. It's. It's. I think it's. You know, you think about all this research, and we did a bunch. I mean, we were not only reading narratives of the Underground railroad that led north, but we were also reading adjacent Texas stories that took place in 1851 to try to paint the world right in a very authentic way. But what stayed true, I think, in all of this is that here were two men that were Oppressed by the same thing and pinned against each other systematically or just have biases against each other when really if they could just see how much more similar than different they were, so many more things could be fixed and faster and. And division would. Would be non existent, I think, in any way. I, you know, I'm from Chicago. We're one of the most segregated cities in America. And you're just like, oh, it doesn't have to be like this, you know. You know, it's like if. If the country was more like a New York City subway, honestly, then I think it'd be a better world.
- [15:05]
C
Right.
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A
Let's listen to another clip from Exodus. This is a song Wade in the Water remix. Nigel, can you set this up for us?
- [15:12]
C
Yes. Henry had to escape. And he is facing the Rio Grande and knows that he has to get across it. And he sees a bale of cotton and makes a split decision that I have got to use this thing to get across. And if I can just get across that Rio Grande, I'll get to the land where slavery is bad.
- [15:36]
A
Let's listen. This is from Mexico.
- [15:39]
C
If I can just cross that Rio Grande, I'll get to the land where slavery's bad. Hold fast, boy and be not dismayed the glory of the Lord will be displayed so just wait in the water Wait in the water, Henry, wait in the water. Boom goes the thunder crack goes the lightning the wind keeps whipping and my grip keeps tightening Halfway across and I'm on the brink of sinking what was I thinking? Am I like the children of Israel Punished for their worship of baal? Floating on a cotton bell with no proper sail I weep and wail to no avail who will hear this tale if I'm bound to fail? Just a little more and I'll reach the shore if I stay brave I won't be enslaved that's the finish line. But I'm out of time and I can't be saved from this massive weather.
- [17:00]
A
I want to point out there's just y' all on stage.
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B
That's true. All those sounds we make, even the thunder, we. We hit a thunder sheet.
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C
Yeah.
- [17:08]
A
And you see the pedals around the stage. Explain to us how that works.
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B
The pedals do one of two things. So there's like 16 pedals all over the stage. And our sound does it. Tony Award winning Misha Fixel. God bless him. We used to. We wrote this play on a little machine on an RC505. It's like, you know, you have to continue to go back to it. To make adjustments. He's like, what if we make the stage a loop machine? We were like, we like it, make it happen. And did. And so the buttons all over the stage do one of two things. They either armor record, meaning we press it and then we start recording, like, and then we repeat. We could put the guitar away. And once we've added every single element of a song, the other function that the button can do is it progresses the song forward. Meaning if at one point bass, percussion and guitar are playing, it'll take out the percussion and just leave the bass on the guitar. We press it again. It just leaves the bass. We press it one more time and everything comes back. So the programming in the show knows how the song goes. And so that's how we are able to call all of the sound ourselves from onstage.
- [18:19]
A
We're talking about Mexico. We'll have more after a quick break. This is all of it. You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart in studio with me I have Brian Quijada and Nigel Robinson. We're talking about Mexico. It is their hip hop musical about the little known underground railroad that ran to Mexico. It's running at the Manette Lane through November 1st. Would you agree that's a hip hop musical? Is that the right way to describe it?
- [18:55]
B
Yes. I mean, it's mostly hip hop music, but it definitely has influences of, you know, gospel, funk, Mexican boleros. Yeah.
- [19:03]
A
Are there things that you can say through hip hop that you wouldn't be able to say in other genre?
- [19:08]
C
There's a rate at which you can say things in hip hop 100 minutes.
- [19:12]
A
Go.
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C
Truly, you know what I mean? You can get a lot of information out. And I think hip hop is like a very passionate art form. It's a very political art form. It's based out of struggle. So I think it lends itself very well to a story like this, especially hip hop being created by black and brown people.
- [19:30]
A
You've heard people compare it to Hamilton. Suff's got the same treatment. A lot of people called it Shamilton. Shamilton, whatever. Do you think that's a fair comparison? Yes. No.
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B
Well, yeah, I think yes and no. Yes.
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C
I'll say why no.
- [19:50]
B
Yes. Sure, sure, sure. Yes. I think yes. In the fact that, you know, Hamilton is the biggest commercial hip hop theater that anyone knows. It didn't invent hip hop theater. You know, there's, you know, the universes does amazing work. The Q brothers in Chicago, Daniel Hawke. I mean, there's A lot of hip hop theater. But he blasted that show. Blasted open the door for the possibility of it. I'm a huge fan. We're both huge fans of that show.
- [20:17]
A
It's been 10 years.
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B
It's been 10 years. Yeah, it's been. And it's crazy that, like, you know, there hasn't been like a huge hip hop musical kind of since. And so in a lot of ways, yes, we're telling his story, history, and we're also rapping. And we love that show.
- [20:32]
C
But in other ways, say no, because it's not the same. Like, when I agree, you know, at face value, when you look back at it, like, oh, they're rapping and they're black and brown. But that's the only thing that's similar. You know what I mean? Like, we're two. And this is. I'm not saying this in a shady way, but we're two black and brown people telling a black and brown story in a way that is very organic to us. Lin Manuel Miranda, who I think is a total genius, who is also a child of hip hop. Like, he grew up with that. And I think that people in the theater community, people who don't listen to hip hop and Hamilton is their only reference to hip hop, they look at that and they're like, that's it. But I'm like, no, no, you've got to look back. And he talks about it a lot, how he looked back. He was like, the ten dual commandments. The ten crack commandments.
- [21:24]
B
Rise rap is based on Busta Rhymes.
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C
Rise rap is Busta Rhymes. He tells you often who his influences are, and we talk about it too. But I'm like. I guess I get iffy about the comparison. Cause I'm like, it's just two black and brown people rapping. It doesn't make it that.
- [21:38]
B
It's true.
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C
Like, these things couldn't be more different. But yes, he made hip hop musicals so accessible. So it has absolutely altered.
- [21:47]
B
And so, listen, if it helps people, you know, truly like the comparison, I'll take it. And it's on. I mean, I love that show. But, like, you know, I think people have such a. I mean, I think it's going away thankfully. But this. Oh, it's rap. I don't listen to that music. I can't, you know, enjoy it. But they went to go see Hamilton and they loved it. So if it opens a door for people to come see us and be like, no, we can enjoy this just as much, then that's amazing.
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A
Well, I see It As a genre that people use in musicals. That's totally.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You know, you can have a ragtime musical.
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B
Total.
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A
You can have a hip hop musical. Why is it such a big thing?
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B
You know, when Rent came, I mean, I think, you know, musicals shift on. What is the popular music? When Rent came out, rock was, like, super. So, like, it just created a bunch of rock musicals. And now, like, hip hop is the global music. And so, of course, a lot of us are gonna be creating it because it's the music that we came up on.
- [22:41]
C
Yeah.
- [22:42]
A
There's a lot of Spanish in the show.
- [22:43]
B
I love it.
- [22:45]
A
I love that you don't translate. I will say that out loud.
- [22:48]
B
No need.
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A
Why not? Why isn't there need?
- [22:50]
B
I. You know, I. I think that if we're gonna place a musical, half of it in Mexico, we should be speaking Spanish.
- [22:59]
C
Yeah.
- [23:01]
B
And also, you know, Henry doesn't speak a lot of Spanish. And I think the audience who doesn't speak Spanish should experience what he's experiencing as he arrives in this new country. And I also think that we. We're trying to respect and honor the culture and the country of Mexico so much. And we want them, you know, Latinos and Mexicans in the audience to feel like this is theirs, that they can watch it and be like, oh, this is ours.
- [23:30]
A
You know, as much as this is a story about history, Nigel, it's also about a friendship between two men and how it grows. When did that element of the story start to take shape?
- [23:45]
C
Kind of as our friendship took shape. It's like this show parallels us so much. It's kind of freaky and cosmic. But we started realizing, like, especially when David, our director, came in, he was like, this is a story about two men who need each other and two men who, like, have to learn how to get past their differences and help each other. And so we started, like, the closer we got, the more like. Cause the way we started writing this was, like, very separate. Like, I wrote what I was saying, Brian wrote what he was saying. We matched it together. But then, like, after isolation, we started coming together and writing things together.
- [24:23]
B
He was in North Carolina, and I was in New York when we started writing this. And so we were sending music back and forth.
- [24:27]
C
So I think, like, the timing, like, the way the more we got together, we happen to get to the songs where they are together more.
- [24:34]
A
Oh, nice.
- [24:35]
C
So it just. It's so bizarrely cosmic how it happened. But this is just a story about two friends, really. You know, unlikely friends, begrudgingly friends at Times, but, like, realizing that, you know, I value you enough as a human being to, like, give you food. I might not have to like you that much, but I value you as a human. I saw a human in need, and I helped. And then I happened to make a friend out of that.
- [25:01]
A
In the show, you asked the audience at one point, what are you choosing to do with the days your ancestors have earned you? What do you hope people leave the theater, go for a drink, go for coffee? What do you hope they are talking about afterward?
- [25:18]
C
I hope.
- [25:19]
A
No, please.
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C
Well, I just hope that they're interrogating what that means. Cause I am. Like, I'm actively doing it in front of you. I'm like, what am I doing besides this show? I mean, obviously, this is what I'm doing. That's a lot for what they did. Yeah, but. And, you know, like, it can't stop there. Like, that's only from 7 to 9. So, like, what else am I doing? Like, how am I living? Am I an accurate representation of what they did for me? But that question is interesting. Cause to black people, it means one specific thing. To white people, it means a specific thing. To Latino people, it means a specific thing. To Asian people, it means something. So it's like, what are you doing? So if you come out of a place of privilege, like, what are you doing with that? What are you doing with the days that you got given? Are you trying to give it back to someone else? Are you, like, being greedy? You know, like, so it makes different people interrogated in different ways. And that's the conversation I hope is being had after the show.
- [26:13]
A
How about for you, Brian?
- [26:15]
B
Yeah, you know, I think when you make a piece of art, a piece of theater, you want people interrogating, asking questions, and really dissecting what we're talking about. And we talk about a lot of things. We're talking about philosophical ideas of freedom, what it means to actually be free in your body. But what does it mean to be free of your demons? We talk about anti blackness in the show, and I think coming to terms with what that means in our Latino communities, because it runs rampant and we have to unlearn those biases. But also, you know, like, this is a reverse border story. This is a story of an American as much perhaps seen not as a full American in the eyes of law at the time, but born in America, as much American as all of us, and crosses the border to safety for a better life in the opposite direction than when we see that border now. And I think we are in a time where people like my parents are facing vitriol. Like they are just demonized for what they did. And you know, they're citizens now. They love being Americans. I mean, they love their life here. I love the sacrifices that they made for me to be able to sing songs in Spanish, you know, and it's just, I think for me it's a lot. I want people to leave really thinking about it. And also weirdly with all of those things, dancing and having the time of their life and have a little bit of hope in this time of, you know, a little hope in the tank.
- [27:58]
A
The name of the show is Mexican. It's at Mana Delaney Theater through November 1st. I've been speaking with Brian Quejada and Nigel Robinson. Thanks for coming to the studio.
- [28:06]
B
Thank you for having us.
- [28:07]
C
Thank you so much for having us.
- [28:08]
B
And now a next level moment from AT&T business. Say you've sent out a gigantic shipment of pillows and they need to be there in time for International Sleep day. You've got AT and T5G so you're fully confident, but the vendor isn't responding and International Sleep Day is tomorrow. Luckily, AT&T 5G lets you deal with any issues with ease so the pillows will get delivered and everyone can sleep soundly, especially you. AT&T 5G requires a compatible plan and device coverage not available everywhere. Learn more@att.com 5G Network.
- [28:38]
A
Attention party people. You're officially invited to the Party Shop at Michaels where you'll find hundreds of new items starting at $0.99 with an expanded selection of party wear, balloons with helium included on select styles, decorations and more. Michaels is your one stop shop for celebrating everything from birthdays to bachelorette parties and baby showers to golden anniversaries. Visit MichaelSinstore or michaels.com today to supply your next party.