When Malcolm-Jamal Warner was about 7, he made a prediction.
“I told my parents that I was going to either be a famous poet, a famous actor or famous basketball player,” he told me on this week’s “Renaissance Man,” adding, “so don’t ask about my game.”
We all know Malcolm-Jamal went on to play Theo Huxtable on iconic sitcom “The Cosby Show.” But he’s also a musician, a poet and, most recently, starred on Fox’s anthology “Accused.” So, there’s plenty to talk about without bringing up his jump shot. He’s the definition of a renaissance man.
Malcolm-Jamal’s father went to Langston Hughes’ alma mater, Lincoln University, with poet Gil Scott-Heron. And his dad always ensured he always had a foot in the arts and the intellectual world — something that also colored his taste in sitcoms.
“Everybody loved ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ and ‘The Jeffersons’ and ‘Sanford and Son’ and I watched them because, like everyone else, I was starved to see people who look like me on television. But like the show that as a kid that really rocked it was ‘Benson,’” he told me. “Benson was always the smartest dude in the room.”
He then, of course, starred on “The Cosby Show,” which not only changed America, but “legitimized” the black middle class, which had always been there.
“To be able to be a part of the thing that changes the way the entire world looks at us, there’s a sense of pride, definitely pride and also gratitude,” he said, adding that while he enjoyed the celebrity of being on the show, it also shaped his conduct.
“I was not just a reflection of my own mother and father, but I was a reflection of Mr. Cosby. I was a reflection of everything that the show stood for,” he continued. “So, I placed self-imposed boundaries, no doubt, just because I knew I knew what I was representing when I was walking through life.”
“Cosby” also opened up some incredible doors for him. As a teen, he hosted “Saturday Night Live” and was able to choose the musical guest. He went with Run-DMC. He directed New Edition’s “N.E. Heart Break” video in 1989. And since the sitcom was filmed in New York, he was exposed to the golden era of rap. At one hip-hop show, he was approached by a guy in a powder blue Adidas sweatsuit with a matching Kangol.
“And he’s like, ‘Yo, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, what’s up? My name is LL Cool J … One day I’m going to be as famous as you,’” he recalled.
Now, he has a love-hate relationship with modern hip-hop, which he says is a “celebration of black death … drugs … self-hatred … and misogyny.”
“Mr. Cosby got himself in a lot of trouble with his views on the state of our young culture. But I knew what he was trying to do. I knew what he was trying to say. So to be able to even address those messages, but in a loving way, because this is about us. Like I’m still part of the hip-hop culture, no doubt, but its messages are really having a negative effect on the psyche of our young people.”
Malcolm-Jamal’s own musical style is difficult to pin down. He is a bass player, though he can also play the piano and the trumpet. He resists labels of neo soul, jazz and R&B.
“I’ve been in a very unique position in that the music has never been an income-generating vehicle for me,” he said. “I’ve never been signed to a record label.” And, of course, he noted, he was a poet before he was anything.
