The Beat of My Own Drum (26 page)

Getting through the concert and after-shows night after night, then the after-parties, the after-after parties, and the after-after-
after-parties, was an ordeal. My body was bruised and aching and my mind foggy from jet lag, but that part was easy compared to managing this overlap of my public persona and my intensely private relationship.

I was fighting to keep control of the (good and bad) emotions while simultaneously adjusting to the (good and bad) implications of my increasing celebrity. All parts of my life were colliding. And they were colliding loudly—my career, my love life, my well-being, my spirituality, and my identity as a woman. My anonymity was gone. My heart was wide open. It was full exposure on every level.

Remaining sane required a lot of compartmentalization. I had to keep my vulnerabilities in check while simultaneously running the machine that was my life. On top of everything else, I was writing and recording my next album,
Romance 1600
. Sleep wasn’t a priority. Needless to say, over time I became exhausted. Learning to navigate the press machine and some unexpected aspects of celebrity was often exciting and certainly necessary, but it added to me feeling generally drained. My body was tired, of course, but it was the mental fatigue that was getting the best of me.

The tour ended in Miami after a full year on the road, and all I wanted to do was lie on a beach and do nothing before I had to go out and promote
Romance 1600
, which was set to be released in August of 1985. So I took my first week off in over a year.

I had worked so hard to be successful, and suddenly I had the financial means to not only give myself a little vacation at a luxurious five-star hotel, but to also do those things I’d always dreamed of doing. So the band and I flew to Florida and rented speedboats and motorcycles, went deep-sea fishing and parasailing. When I had time to myself, I made sure to savor those delicious moments of quiet and calm—enjoying the feeling of my feet in the hot sand and the soothing sounds of the ocean waves.

During one of those blissful vacation days in Miami, a friend
dared me to cut my hair. Of course the Gardere in me said yes—never one to shy away from a dare, and knowing I needed a new look for the next album anyway. And, as usual, I took it to the extreme—telling my hairstylist to cut it real short. It was a cool, asymmetrical cut, but it really threw me off for a minute. Once again I had leapt before I looked. The
Glamorous Life
image was now gone. I suddenly had to re-create my entire wardrobe to match both my new cut and my new album.

I looked less feminine, which made me feel like I wasn’t sexy anymore. I was used to flipping, teasing, and twirling my hair. All men say they love women with long hair, especially seeing it strewn across their pillow. So were they still going to see me as sexy? When I walked into a nightclub a few days after the big chop, the owners recognized me and led us to our table. I could tell that heads were turning. I wondered,
Are they looking at me because I’m Sheila E, or because they still see me as sexy, short hair and all?
I found myself trying to act even sexier, strutting harder toward the VIP booth, swishing my hips to compensate for the fact that I had no hair to flip.

It was during my much-needed mini-vacation and this haircut meltdown that I got the call to audition for a movie called
Krush Groove
. Designed as a vehicle for some of the new young talent coming out of New York and based loosely on the early days of Def Jam Recordings,
Krush Groove
was produced by Warner Brothers and went on to become one of hip-hop music’s most iconic films. If I got the part, my costars would include Run-DMC, LL Cool J, the Fat Boys, New Edition, Kurtis Blow, and the Beastie Boys.

This would be my second movie audition—the first being for the film
Cocoon
, which I’d sabotaged because I was too nervous about my reading comprehension and didn’t have enough time to prepare my lines. I talked myself into a panic. Also, I was auditioning opposite the actor Steve Guttenberg and knew I had to wear
a bathing suit and shorts for most of the movie. That freaked me out, since I had bad eczema at the time—red and white spots all over my body, most likely a stress breakout.

When it was time to read with Steve, I didn’t really read my lines at all. Instead, acting silly and unprofessional, I tried to distract everyone from my insecurity. Needless to say, I didn’t get the part. So when the
Krush Groove
offer came up, I was anxious to redeem myself. While they had me in mind for the lead female role, before officially offering me the part they wanted to make sure I had chemistry with the male lead, the up-and-coming actor Blair Underwood.

At first I was pretty hesitant about the whole thing. It was an exciting offer, but I was unfamiliar with auditions of any kind. Flying to New York for a screen test felt really strange. Even the word
test
made me uncomfortable. Having to prove my talent in a whole new realm made me pretty nervous.

On the day of the screen test, my hands were shaking and my heart was beating out of my chest. This was a huge career opportunity, yet I was terrified because it was all so new. While I was totally cool with my hair by now, I woke up that morning with a new problem: a huge pimple on the tip of my nose. I guess all the stress and fatigue were showing up in my complexion. This pimple had a life of its own. It looked like a thumb, or a third elbow. I told Connie that they’d be expecting a glamorous Sheila E but they’d be getting an unglamorous unicorn instead. I didn’t realize that I could have visited a dermatologist for a cyst injection, so I did it the ghetto way—by putting a big glob of toothpaste on it. Of all days to do a screen test. I couldn’t have felt more self-conscious.

They handed me the script just minutes before the test, so I didn’t have any time to prepare my lines. Then I met Blair, who was very sweet and seemed excited to work with me. He was a real actor, so I felt out of my league. I like to feel confident and
comfortable in professional settings, and I usually did. But there I was—a fish out of water (and a fish with a humongous pimple).

Despite my nerves, Blair and I had chemistry on screen, and the feedback was positive. Soon I was officially offered the role and moved into the Berkshire Hotel in New York for the duration of shooting. I couldn’t believe I was actually going to be acting in a movie. I was thrilled, but still nervous. It wasn’t the good kind of butterfly excitement. It was total fear of the unknown.

I always felt more comfortable with my family and friends around me, especially in new situations, so when I didn’t jell with the woman who was cast as my best friend/manager, I told the long-suffering director Michael Schultz that they’d have to fly my friend Karen to New York to replace her if they wanted me in the film.

They did as I asked, and things were looking up. I had my band, Karen, and a great costar. Once I got on set, however, events took a turn. Some of the East Coast rappers in the movie didn’t like that I had been given the role. I had recorded one rap song, “Holly Rock,” that was to be featured in the film, and since I was from Oakland, they thought I was some West Coast wannabe rapper who didn’t know her place and should stick to one genre of music. Little did I know, but the hip-hop community was on the defensive at that time. They were being attacked by critics and musicians for being nonmusicians—often accused of being a fad or just talking into a mic. They weren’t being acknowledged for their poetry as artists and the musicality of their beat making.

Then I arrived with my band, my timbales, and my proud musician identity, and they wanted to know what I was doing in a movie about rap music. I didn’t fit into their box. I often felt ignored as well as looked down upon and ostracized. It was pretty hurtful. Being on set was just like the times in my adolescence when I was told I had to choose, black or white. I couldn’t just be
me. Of course I wasn’t trying to present myself as a rapper like them, and even the script of the movie depicted my character as a singer-percussionist who is encouraged by Run of Run-DMC to give rap a shot.

I think the fact that I came from a successful world tour and was confident and clear about what I wanted might have contributed to the divide. Just like always, I had my dressing room set up the way I liked it—as in a five-star hotel, complete with rugs, lamps, couches, paintings, and even a popcorn machine. I always wanted to bring my home with me wherever I went, and I made sure my assistants dressed my hotel rooms before I checked in. But on the
Krush Groove
set, the guys didn’t have their rooms pimped out like mine, so they dogged me for being some kind of diva. In some ways I was.

Some of the guys, like the members of the Fat Boys, Run-DMC, and the Beastie Boys, were a lot more supportive. Kurtis Blow especially seemed to notice the cold reception I was getting. One day he pulled me aside and told me not to worry about it. “Don’t take it personally, Sheila. You just keep being you.”

In the last scene, while the final credits rolled, each cast member was supposed to do a little dance. Blair asked me to help him with some of the moves, so we worked out a routine. Once the camera rolled, we were supposed to be first or second, but we kept getting pushed out of the way, eventually ending up in the back. I couldn’t believe they were being that rude to us. In between takes I told Kurtis Blow what was going on. “Don’t let them run you over,” he said. “Just do your thing.” So during the next take, I took his advice. We literally shoved them out of the way.

The worst day of shooting was when we filmed the “Love Bizarre” performance. Like the “Holly Rock” scene, I took it really seriously. I had them bring my microphone stand, my mic, my guitar, and my timbales into my hotel room so I could practice in front of the mirror. Everything was tightly choreographed, and I
was probably better prepared for these scenes than for the acting ones.

When it was time to film, the band and I took our places onstage. It was a club setting with several hundred extras hired to be our enthusiastic audience. Once the cameras started rolling, of course we threw down because we were used to recording in one take. But at the end of our performance, you could hear crickets. The audience was just standing there, arms crossed, unimpressed.

The director was furious.

“Cut!” he screamed. “Do you guys understand that we’re shooting a movie here and you’re supposed to clap when she’s done, like you really enjoyed it?” Then he stormed out.

I was so hurt, embarrassed, and ultimately really mad. I knew the song was a hit, but apparently not everyone was a fan. We had to film it again. My band and I gave a slammin’ performance the second time, too, despite the hostility from the audience. (I’ve watched this scene several times over the years, and the wall between them and me is clear. My I’ll-show-you attitude is on full display.)

That’s the night I started drinking on the set. Nobody knew Karen and I were pouring Heineken beer into our apple juice cartons. Drinking was the only way I could get through some of those difficult days, and it continued until the director shouted, “That’s a wrap!”

The stress continued, too, as I was fighting hard to take a love scene out of the script. Sure, I was half-naked in some of my stage outfits, but I was transitioning out of that look and was feeling less and less comfortable showing so much skin. Plus the idea of having a shot of my booty preserved forever on film was pretty daunting. And most important, I knew that by making out with another man on screen, I would be hurting the man I loved.

Prince was across the world in Monte Carlo shooting
Under the Cherry Moon
, and he’d told me he didn’t want me to do the scene. But in New York, I had the movie executives in my ear every single day telling me how crucial the scene was to the plot. I couldn’t take it anymore.

I became so overwhelmed with all of the pressure—the schedule, the anxiety about memorizing lines, the relationship drama, and the haters on set—that I quit the movie. I walked off. I was done. People around me reminded me that I had given my word and should honor it. After a few days of rest, I knew they were right. I had to finish what I started, and I couldn’t let the production down.

On my first day back on set I downed some “apple juice” and said, “Fine! Let Blair suck on my neck.”

Blair was very respectful and sensitive to my concerns. With enough “apple juice,” I got through it, and I think it actually turned out pretty tasteful in the end.

While Blair was wonderful to me, Run of Run-DMC was another great person to work with. Director Michael Schultz pulled me aside before one scene in which I was supposed to get really mad at Run and encouraged me to improvise so that it felt real. Poor Run was completely unprepared when I slapped him. His knee-jerk reaction was to flinch, almost like he was going to hit me back. We cracked up laughing. We had to film that scene a couple of times, and the director encouraged me to slap him even harder each successive time.

Time and hindsight is a wonderful thing, and I’m cool with all the guys now. Some have even become good friends. To those we’ve lost along the way, including Jason William Mizell, aka Jam Master J of Run-DMC; Adam Yauch, aka MCA of the Beastie Boys; and Darren Robinson, aka Buffy the Human Beat Box of the Fat Boys, it was an honor to have known you.

God bless you and may you rest in peace.

Those of us still here laugh about those days—all of us so young and so unaware that
Krush Groove
would become a cult classic and such an iconic piece of hip-hop history.

Ultimately, I was proud of myself for getting through the film despite all the obstacles. I rented out the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland so that my friends and family—most of whom couldn’t make it to the first New York screening—could see it in a movie-premiere setting. I think half of Oakland High School was there.

Watching that love scene on a huge screen in front of my siblings and parents and grandparents felt ridiculously uncomfortable. I had to laugh, though, when my grandmother Nanny (the wild one) started squealing with childish delight. She loved that part the most.