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T'keyah's 2 cents is worth
millions
 T'keyah
Crystal Keymah (pronounced Ta-kee-ah Kristle Kee-Mah) is an actress, writer,
producer, and singer. Many remember her for her work in the hilariously funny
sketch comedy show called In Living Color. During her five seasons on In Living
Color, she earned an NAACP Image Award Nomination and a Soul Train Comedy Award
Nomination. She also starred as Bill Cosby's daughter on CBS's Cosby. Currently
you can see her on the Disney teen comedy, I'm So Raven. She sat down with Bean
Soup Times publisher Toure Muhammad to talk about Hollywood, the politics of
hair and her big break on In Living Color.
BS: Thank you for granting us this interview.
TK: I am very familiar with your lovely newspaper. I didn't know that you did
real interviews though. I got the email from my publicist and I thought, 'wow I
wonder what they are going to do to me? (laughs) They're asking permission
first. OK. I'll talk to them as if it's a real interview and then they'll make
some weird parody out of it and I'll probably laugh' (laughs). My publicist
said, 'No, no, no. It's a real legitimate interview.
BS: Well I appreciate your willingness to do the interview even though
you thought it would be a parody.
TK Well I really like the paper.
BS: Oh, you know I'm printing that. T'keyah, I know you are busy, so
let's get right to it. Living Color; was that your big break?
TK Yes. I was working in Chicago as what they call a gypsy. I was doing
everything. Singing, dancing, modeling, acting, and to eat, I was a substitute
teacher, mostly on the south side of Chicago. Living Color was my introduction
into the hell that is Hollywood and the joy of my career.
BS: Many people give you credit with breaking down some barriers for
black women.
TK: I'm very grateful for the show, but I wasn't one of the favorites of the
show. It was rare that I was given my own sketch, so normally I had to create
something from nothing. I was always the no name woman in someone else's
sketch. It was hard. I wasn't thinking of other women coming behind me. I was
thinking, what would my grandmother think or say if I did this and I wouldn't
do many of the things proposed. I was the conscience of the show. I would joke
and say, the rule of the show was, if Crystal was offended, that means it's
funny and we should go with it.
BS: Wow.
TK: I'm certainly happy that more black women got to work and could be cute and
funny, which is a difficult thing to overcome in comedy for women. Women often
had to dress down and make yourself unattractive in some way and today that's
not the case. A lot of terribly talented comedians are also cute and to me
that's OK.
BS: It works for me (laughs)
TK: (laughs)
BS: You mentioned 'what your grandmother would say.' Do you think many
performers say that to themselves nowadays?
TK: I'm an actress and I don't remember not being that. I enjoy the ability
to be anyone. To be this person like clay so a director can make me anything
that the script calls for. But because I was raised by my grandparents and her
friends who had a better grasp of history than some younger people who take the
few liberties black people have for granted, it's on me to be cognizant of that
and to know the history of this industry.
Some people talk about what they may need to do to be successful because of
what everyone else is doing. This is a crazy business. You have to know whom
you are first and you have to know why you want this. A lot of people have this
theory that, they'll do some things that they really don't want to do so they
can get their foot in the door, then I can do what I really wan to do. That's a
theory and it has worked for some people. But you're not given your out date.
Somebody could promise you that is you do five degrading, horrible films that
irritate your soul and that's all you'll have to do. And you could die in the
middle of that fourth film and that's your legacy. And if you do survive those
five films, who is going to listen to what you have to say on your sixth film.
Because your audience loves you because of the crap you made. And how are you
going to sleep at night regardless of what the public thinks of you. You have
to know who you are before you arrive on the boat in LA.
BS: One more In Living Color question. Did you develop your Cryssy
character?
TK: I actually brought Cryssy with me and they tried desperately to steal her
from me. But with the little bit of backbone I had, I said, 'you can beat me,
you can kick me, but you can't steal Cryssy. (laughs)
BS: Now what do you mean by that?
TK: Oh gosh, yeah, see, I won't go into it. God bless them. There's this thing
in Hollywood. 'We wanna get fresh faces a chance. Fresh faces mean people who
we can take advantage of. (laughs) And a lot of that was going on. No one
wanted to admit that I wrote the piece, that I brought the piece to the show. I
auditioned with that piece. That piece is the reason I got on the show.
BS: That's incredible. When I look back, that character of Cryssy was a
big part of my early stages of development into consciousness.
TK: Hopefully you haven't seen the last of her. She's in a couple of theatrical
shows I do.
BS: I took a test on your website. You have 48 non-fiction books listed
as suggested readings in Black World. I've read or skimmed heavily though 19 of
those books and have two more on my shelf. Why do you have those books listed.
TK: I work with a number of charitable organizations. One of them is National
Association of Brothers and Sisters In and Out. It's a prison outreach program
and their motto is let every prison be a university. Their philosophy behind
that is that lots of the majority of people of color that end up in the system
fall though the cracks because they don't know who they are and therefore don't
value themselves enough to stay out of trouble. And some people are just
innocent, but the people that are not. Many don't see life beyond their 20s. I
think it's because we don't read. Our schools don't care. It's a minimal
education and it has nothing to do with black history. History is void of Black
accomplished and white washed. The things included are inaccurate. It's upon us
to tell each other who we are. To tell us do you know when you turn on that
light that it really wasn't Thomas Edison. This is my small way of saying,
let's start with a book.
BS: Would there be a black history month is Cryssy's black world?
TK: No, I think there would be a white history month in black world. Every day
is a celebration of Black history in black world.
BS: You wrote a book Natural Woman, Natural Hair. I have three daughters.
Why should I purchase this book for them.
TK: You should get 1,000 copies of the book and paper the walls of their room
with it because they are bombarded with images that tells them that they are
ugly. Not just not popular, but ugly. And that to not be ugly, in addition to
being white, they must have straight and blond hair. And I don't agree. I don't
want a another little black girl growing up with any part of the back of her
mind thinking, I'm ugly.
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