by Sheila E.
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.
23. Hi-Hat
A pair of foot-operated cymbals
Just realize it’s an image before it goes too far
“SEX CYMBAL”
SHEILA E
If someone had told me back in the seventies when I’d gingerly sneaked my foot across the boundary of a curtained stage that I would end up playing for a billion people worldwide, I’d have laughed in their face. And yet that’s exactly what happened.
Working day and night, including weekends, holidays, and birthdays, had allowed me to follow my dream.
Wow. Was it real?
I’d gone from wearing tennis shoes and shorts to romantic and beautiful seventeenth-century-themed swashbuckling costumes. I was writing songs, making movies, performing at sellout shows, and breaking fashion boundaries. It was crazy, but crazy good.
And then there were all the amazing people I met along the way. It was at the American Music Awards that I first met Whitney Houston, whose star was on the rise. I loved her voice—angelic and powerful, soulful and sweet. Connie and I had been working on a few songs with my sax player Eddie M, and we had an idea. At the after-party I told Whitney about the song.
“We wrote a song for you,” I told her, smiling. “It’s called ‘Touch Me/Hold Me.’ It would be an honor to have you sing it on your next record. Can I send it to you?”
“Sure, honey,” she said, a sweet grin on her face.
She never did pick up on our song, which was a shame, but I heard from her hairstylist later that Whitney had misunderstood my pitch.
“Sheila E tried to hit on me!” she claimed. “She told me she’d written a song called ‘Touch Me’ or something—but I knew what she meant!”
Fortunately, we met on many occasions in the following years and always laughed about it. She even came to see Prince and me play only a few months before she passed. I’ll always remember her standing there in the wings, telling me she wanted to get up onstage and hit some drums with me. I’ll never forget her vibrant smile, her warmth, and the purity of her relationship with music. It was something we shared—our true love of music. I threw her some sticks that night and she caught them before blowing me kisses. She beamed up at me, head nodding to the beat, tapping out a rhythm on the floor.
The pace never slackened as I began 1986 by filming a concert at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco for my Live Romance 1600 video, as well as working at Sunset Sound Studios on my third album, Sheila E (due to be released in February 1987).
Choosing our outfits for the tour was a high point. We had the finest designers, stylists, and pattern makers create clothes for everyone in my band. They decided to dress me in matching (or at least color-coordinated) fabrics to complement the six-inch heels I wore. I’d usually step onto the stage in a coat that lit up, but after that I chose to wear all kinds of different outfits—usually something new, tailor-made, tight, and sexy.
Inspired by the 1984 movie Amadeus and its bejeweled eighteenth-century costumes, I had a lot of fun coming up with all sorts of crazy variations on the Amadeus theme. The famous Patti LaBelle, a friend from my teen years, was the one who suggested a stand-up collar for me, which was a look I wore for years.
The designers played with ideas and tried out different concepts. I’d see things I liked in all the hippest fashion magazines and tear out the pages to show them. “I like the look of that one in Vogue,” I might say, “Can you copy the neckline on this?” or “This would look great in blue silk.”
There were no rules, and if there were, we broke them.
My main concern was that whatever I was wearing be easy to get on or off because I had to do so many quick costume changes. Everything had to have Velcro or snaps—there could be no buttons or zippers in case they got stuck. Between us we figured out what made sense. Some of my outfits were very risqué and had little more than doilies over the spots that needed to be covered. I took it to the extreme.
There were times when even Prince looked at me as if to say, “Are you sure you want to wear that?”
The media was picking up on my over-the-top-sexy outfits, too, and the critiques confused me. I was either being called a role model for being a woman who could play a typically “male instrument” or being judged for dressing too sexy. At the time, I viewed both playing drums and wearing revealing outfits as ways of celebrating my womanhood. Even though I was very much a tomboy, I still loved being a woman.
During the song “Next Time Wipe the Lipstick Off Your Collar,” I started to lure men from the audience up onto the stage and sing to them as a security guard tied them to a chair. They were not allowed to touch me at all, but I got to tear their shirts open, buttons flying, then sit on their laps, straddle them, grope their crotches, and rip their belts off. This was long before Janet Jackson or Madonna started acting out bondage scenes onstage, and it was all my own idea.
I guess the act was all about being in control of a man—something I had never once been as a little girl—and I loved the power and the freedom of it. I went through that routine in almost every show, so at least ninety-eight men must have been publicly humiliated (and/or enticed/aroused) by me. But at some point it started to feel wrong to me. I felt empty and dirty.
Word got out about the kind of thing I was doing, and people soon started coming to see me in my own right and not just as an opening act. The downside was they also started to comment about how I looked. I read what they wrote, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it at first. I wasn’t even sure who I was anymore. The Sheila E I’d created was up-front, provocatively dressed, and playing with men like toys. I wasn’t even playing the drums so much anymore. I was getting further and further away from my craft.
More and more, people began writing not about my musical abilities but about my outfits. The tone was, “I wonder what she’s going to wear or not going to wear tonight?” I started to feel naked in the wrong way. That really bothered me and made me begin to reevaluate the image I wanted to project.
One night in a city somewhere in the middle of the tour, I looked into the audience and spotted dozens of young girls dressed like me, which really alarmed me. I was half-naked a lot of the time, and I didn’t want teenagers who weren’t yet aware what men were capable of to have anything happen to them because they were trying to emulate me.
It was time to reconcile my public and private selves. From then on, I started to wear more and more clothes in public.
Prince was intrigued by me both as a musician and as a sexual being. He made me feel empowered and sexy, and part of that process had made me dress the way I did. I think it worked both ways too. I doubt he’d ever met anyone, especially not a woman, who could stand up against him the way I liked to. That was part of my attraction. I was always so competitive, and we were testing each other to see who could stay up the longest, work the hardest in the studio, or win at basketball, pool, or Ping-Pong. He was up against the wrong person. I was a part-time boy and competitive as hell thanks to my mother.
Prince wasn’t great at relaxation, either—he always had so much stuff on his mind that even eating a meal seemed a waste of time. As he said in one interview: “Sometimes I can’t shut off my brain, and it hurts. . . . Do I have to eat? I wish I didn’t have to eat!”
It didn’t help that people went so crazy for Prince and me that we couldn’t go anywhere; we couldn’t even walk the streets or do something as mundane as go for a coffee or to the mall. Fans would tear at our clothes the minute we stepped out in public. It was like being back in Colombia—only all the time. I hadn’t been prepared for that. We were constantly surrounded by bodyguards, many of them hulking professional wrestlers.
One way I could get him to relax, though, was to watch a movie, either in our hotel room or—if we could manage it—by sneaking out to a theater very late
at night so that no one would spot us. Occasionally we’d hire the whole movie theater so we could watch a show undisturbed. His normal wasn’t my normal, because he couldn’t even go out in daylight anymore.
I was dating a vampire.
After a while I found I couldn’t keep up with the relentless nature of my new life, especially as I’d just come off a couple of big back-to-back tours with Marvin and Lionel. I was massively grateful and happy for everything Prince was doing for me, but adjusting to the way he pushed himself and everyone around him was a tough transition.
When I was a kid I’d wanted to run in the Olympics and win gold for the United States. Those first couple of years with Prince felt to me like the kind of physical and mental training that an Olympic athlete must have to put herself through. And like any athlete, I knew in my heart that there had to come a time when I would crash and burn. My moment in the spotlight would inevitably come to an end. Pushing that thought as far from my mind as I could, I somehow found the reserves of energy to carry on.
Even when I wasn’t with him, the partying never stopped. I guess it wasn’t that easy to kick the habit. Some of the craziest things we did were when we were on days off between gigs. Just like Moms, I was always looking for fun—especially as an antidote to the stress. I’d be in a speedboat with the band in Miami with me screaming, “Go faster!” or we’d go Jet Skiing in the middle of the ocean.
We might be somewhere in Europe with a bunch of friends and I’d say, “Let’s get on a plane and have lunch at the Eiffel Tower!” I’d ask my secretary to find me somewhere hot to take a break if we had a few days off. She’d suggest somewhere, and I’d check the weather reports USA Today for the hottest place of all—Hawaii or Florida—and then I’d change my mind and fly there instead.