VICTOR: Wintley Phipps, it’s a pleasure having you on Turning Point.
PHIPPS: Great to be here with you.
VICTOR: Great to be here with you. I wish I had that kind of voice.
PHIPPS: When I was 14 years old I woke up one morning talking like this.
VICTOR: Are you serious?
PHIPPS: Yes. Shook up my father, you know. Can you imagine a 14-year-old?
VICTOR: There’s probably still hope for me. Now you’ve had an opportunity to perform before presidents and statesmen all over the world.
PHIPPS: Yes, yes.
VICTOR: Growing up as a child, if anybody had told you that you would have these kind of opportunities, would you ever have believed it?
PHIPPS: Well, I was born in Trinidad, and I was born to a troubled home. I used to get away from my parents troubles, I had a little red tricycle, and I would go in the backyard of my house and turn the tricycle on its side, and use one of the back side wheels as a steering wheel, and I would sit for hours and I’d close my eyes, and I would dream that I was driving and flying to faraway places in the world and meeting important people, when I was 5 and 6 and 7 years old.
VICTOR: So this really is a dream come true.
PHIPPS: It is a dream come true. When I was 10 we moved to Montreal, Canada and my father used to take us to the airport to say goodbye to people. And before leaving the airport I would grab a handful of the luggage tags and stuff them in my pocket.
VICTOR: (LAUGHS)
PHIPPS: And I would go home and I would get a pencil and I would print my name, Wintley Phipps, flight 393, London, Paris –
VICTOR: Oh, my goodness.
PHIPPS: Yeah, and I tell people, God walked into my life at 16 years old and said, “I’ve seen your dreams. Give me your dreams, and I will let you see what I have been dreaming for you.” And what an awesome ride it has been. The most incredible adventure a human being could ever have is to live the dream that God has been dreaming for them. And that’s all I’ve been trying to do with my life.
VICTOR: Amen. And talking about dreams-
PHIPPS: Yes.
VICTOR: You’ve founded the U.S. Dream Academy.
PHIPPS: Yes.
VICTOR: Tell us about that.
PHIPPS: I’ve been blessed to do everything I could ever have wanted to do musically, you know, duets with Patty LaBelle and Melissa Manchester, and Grammy nominations, and sung for every president since Ronald Reagan, and just all kinds of incredible opportunities, but then about 30 years ago I started singing in America’s prisons, and I did not know that there were so many young men in prison who looked like my sons.
I did not know that one of every three African-American males between the ages of 18 and 30 are either in prison, on probation or parole in the United States of America. And so, a dream was born in my heart to try to help these young men.
We found out that about 60% of the kids who end up in prison come from the children of prisoners.
So I began to advocate- why don’t we build ministry to children of prisoners, and children falling behind in school. It was very clear to us that they needed most – when the family disintegrates- you have to have mentors who mentor children.
VICTOR: Yes.
PHIPPS: When the family disintegrates, you have to mentor a child.
VICTOR: Yes.
PHIPPS: Perhaps some of your listeners, and I know that’s what it was like for me, you know, when my family disintegrated, there were people who came alongside and said, “Boy, you’re going to be somebody. The Lord – the Lord’s got a future for you.” And you never know that seed that is planted in the heart.
VICTOR: Let’s talk about the future here. You known, one of the biggest peeves -- one of the things that I’m strongly against is a statement that says, children, or the youth, are the leaders of tomorrow. Number one, tomorrow never comes.
PHIPPS: Yes.
VICTOR: But I also strongly feel that the youth and children need to be given leadership opportunities at a very, very young age.
PHIPPS: Absolutely.
VICTOR: Is that one of the things that you’re trying to accomplish with what you’re doing?
PHIPPS: Absolutely. But you’ve got to equip them. You have to give them skills. You have to – one of my quotes is that it is in the quiet crucible of our personal private sufferings that our noblest dreams are born, and God’s greatest gifts are given. You have to help these young people see their leadership gifts and their leadership skills. And so that’s part of what we do, and we have 11 centers across the United States of America, and-
VICTOR: And goals to expand internationally, I’m sure.
PHIPPS: Exactly.
VICTOR: Well, for anybody wanting information about the U.S. Dream Academy, where can we get that information?
PHIPPS: Absolutely. They can reach us at usdreamacademy.org, and they will be able to see the work we do and perhaps help us if they feel so led.
VICTOR: You’ve got –very briefly, you’ve got a great TV series on Day of Discovery, called “Africa and the Bible.”
PHIPPS: Did you see it?
VICTOR: Fantastic. I saw it about two weeks ago.
PHIPPS: Oh, great, great.
VICTOR: And I actually recorded a few of them, which I still need to go back to.
PHIPPS: Yes.
VICTOR: What started all that?
PHIPPS: Well, it’s amazing that a lot of people don’t realize that Christianity was in Africa a thousand years before even the arrival of Islam to Africa. And the council that put the order of the New Testament together, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John-that council that put those books together happened in Africa.
VICTOR: Hmmm.
PHIPPS: You know, so people don’t realize the link between Christianity and–
VICTOR: Africa.
PHIPPS: -- and Africa.
VICTOR: Now for those who aren’t able to see it on “Day of Discovery,” is this going to be available online?
PHIPPS: Yes.
VICTOR: Fantastic. But before you go, recently I was watching you again online –
PHIPPS: Yes.
VICTOR: -- and saw one of the most amazing renditions of Amazing Grace ever. But you know, you gave a brief history at the beginning of it about the history of music and you talked about the black keys and the white keys and how that ties in with negro spirituals.
PHIPPS: Yes.
VICTOR: Before we go, could you just give us a little demonstration and talk a little bit, a little bit about that?
PHIPPS: Absolutely. Most people don’t know that most Negro spirituals were written on just the black notes of the piano. There are five black notes on the piano and they just keep recurring. And you can play any Negro spiritual just about; just play the black notes.
VICTOR: That’s amazing.
PHIPPS: Yeah. How about the Christmas spiritual that I love – or “Deep River.”
VICTOR: All on the black keys.
PHIPPS: On the black ones because the slaves did not come to America with the “Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti Do” scale. All they had were those five black notes. We know it in music as the pentatonic scale. And they built the power and pathos of the negro spiritual on just those five black notes.
When you study music, you also come across what are known as white spirituals. And they are white composers who put their words to these slave melodies. And I went to the Library of Congress -- the most famous white spiritual, and the man who wrote that, before he became a Christian, was the captain of a slave ship. And many believe he heard this melody. And so the last thing I’ll tell you is that, these Negro spirituals are the most powerful, powerful form of music.
I looked up Negro – Amazing Grace in the Library of Congress, and wherever you see it authentically printed it says, “Words, John Newton, melody unknown.”
And I tell people when I get to Heaven I want to meet Abraham and Isaac, but boy I want to meet that slave called “Unknown.”
