A Quote by Laila Rouass

I thought the Charleston would be a bit like the jive, but it isn't really. — © Laila Rouass
I thought the Charleston would be a bit like the jive, but it isn't really.
There are dances you can do separately - your charleston, your jive.
There was a bidding war between Epic Records and Jive - now RCA - which was bittersweet. Just having labels bid over me was really cool, but I ended up going with Jive because it felt better over there, and they have my favorite artists like Usher, Chris Brown, and Justin Timberlake.
I wanted everybody to like me. I thought I was one shuck and jive away in every direction.
There were a couple of years where I got a bit lost - I went out too much, I was a bit heartbroken, thought I was a bit more of a dude than I really was. I would love to go back and have a strong word with myself.
I think Jive was just a shady label that they didn't want artists in the same room like, 'Hey, what you making?' Like I never worked with R. Kelly, I never worked with Q-Tip. I never worked with anybody that was on Jive. I never did a song with KRS-One.
I tried changing my swing because I thought it would make me better. I thought it would make me a world-class golfer. I was a bit naive and I was a bit silly and just got going the wrong way.
The Brick House was one of the toughest joints I ever played in ... Guys would drink and fight one another like circle saws. Bottles would come flying over the bandstand like crazy and there was lots of plain common shooting and cutting. But somehow all that jive didn't faze me at all. I was so happy to have some place to blow my horn.
I would say things like 'I am the greatest! I'm pretty! If you talk jive, you'll drop in five! I float like a butterfly, sting like a bee! I'm pretty!' When white people heard me talking like this, some said, 'That black man talks too much. He's bragging.'
After the song [for sausage Party] was finally done, we didn't have enough time, but we thought it would be fun. It also would've thrown it off a bit, because we really are doing more of an homage to Pixar, and if we filled it with songs, it would've felt more like Disney. And we had an experience, while we were making it, that going too Disney made it too weird.
What helped me get the part was that I turned it down. When I read the script, Venus was just a black guy who came in wearing a big coat and a hat and making jive talk. I'd been up for so many of those! I'd had enough of caricatures, what white writers conceive blacks to be. I told the producer I wasn't interested in doing anything like that for three or four years. He said that it was just a pilot, that Venus would be given a human dimension and would be quiet off-the-air. I wanted that input. I thought that side was as important as the comic side. For 'WKRP,' too much of either would be bad.
Jive has been really, really good to me.
I really thought the process and what I'm used to doing on film would be different. I thought that because I wouldn't have the same amount of time, I wouldn't do all of the tracks that I like to do or the lighting that it takes. And then, I got there and realized that I don't know any other way. I just do all that stuff really, really fast and under a lot of stress.
My dad was obviously a really quirky, unconventional Asian man who didn't care about what other people thought. When he would fight with my mom, he would be really dramatic. He would be like, 'Devil, get away, for I am God's property.' He would say crazy things that were so melodramatic but so theatrical and funny.
A lot of West Virginia is untouched. It doesn't have as many strip malls, it has these old towns that feel like it used to be how it looked. Charleston has this river that runs through it, and it's really beautiful.
I hate to predict my future. I never really thought I would be a head coach at 34 years old. I never thought I would be traded to Tampa. I never even really thought I would be fired, even though I probably deserved it. I try not to predict things.
I never thought in my life, I never really thought I would get married. I watched my parents go through a divorce, and I thought, like, this is just not something people are supposed to do.
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