Mica Paris on Josephine Baker
Great Lives
BBC
4.2 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 15 May 2018
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For soul singer Mica Paris, when she first dreamt of becoming a singer it was Josephine Baker who inspired her most.
Baker was a young black American dancer who became an overnight sensation in Paris in 1925 after performing wild, uninhibited routines in the skimpiest of costumes.
So can Mica Paris make the case for Baker who wore a string of bananas and little else while performing the 'banana dance?
Joining presenter Matthew Parris to help tell the story of Josephine Baker is author Andrea Stuart.
Producer: Perminder Khatkar
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 May 2018.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, it's Doleepa, and I'm at your service. |
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| 0:26.0 | Julie, at your service. |
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| 0:31.0 | This is the BBC. Wearing little more than a bunch of bananas and a big smile. |
| 0:39.0 | This week's great life could own a stage with ease. She's regarded as the first black superstar, |
| 0:45.4 | and she's the great life choice of the singer and presenter, |
| 0:48.9 | Meisha Paris. |
| 0:50.1 | It's wonderful to have another Paris on me on the show tell us who you're |
| 0:55.6 | nominating well I decided to nominate Josephine Baker she's phenomenal for she's phenomenal. And one of my great heroes from the very beginning of my career. |
| 1:07.0 | Hero in what respect has a performer, as a woman, as a barrel of laughs? |
| 1:13.0 | What? |
| 1:14.0 | For me, when I was a teenager dreaming about becoming a singer myself just before I got signed, |
| 1:20.7 | I got signed when I was 17 to Island Records but before that I was dreaming of |
| 1:25.9 | being what she was in terms of she was she was an all-rounder yeah that's why she was |
| 1:31.6 | amazing so she was amazing. So she was an actress, singer, she was political, she was |
| 1:36.1 | revolutionary, she was a mother, the woman was just a total one-off and also being a woman of color. That's the biggest thing that I |
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