Ep 49 | BACKUP DANCER TO PRINCE AND MICHAEL JACKSON & IS A TOTAL BOSS: MARVIN COLUMBUS

Episode Summary

In this episode, we feature the amazing Marvin Columbus. 

In 1978, he joined The Gap Band and started touring the United States with them, since then, he hasn’t stopped dancing with the greatest in the industry. Prince, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Michael Jackson, you name it. One day he started a boxing club in his kid’s high school and this transformed into a well-established boxing program for several high schools. His life also has gone around his kids and he mentioned a couple of stories regarding them. 

Tune in and get a special cameo from Dominique Columbus, Marvin’s son!

About the Guest - Marvin Columbus

In 1980 Marvin Columbus toured with Midnight Starr, Zap, the SOS & Gap Band for six months. In 1982 he was the lead dancer of the Flashdance/Beat Street tour with Jennifer Beals in the UK, which was based on the hit movie "Flashdance". He was also featured as a dancer at the "Hollywood Palace" from 1985 to 1987 in his own show "The Palace Dancers" which he also choreographed. The show opened up for various acts such as Kid Creole & The Coconuts, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Straycats and many more.

Marvin was also featured in the "Smooth Criminal" Video with Michael Jackson and was on the "Bad Tour”. Marvin is currently writing and producing feature films.


Key Take-Aways

  • Redirecting people’s energy can change their life. 

  • Anywhere you go, immerse yourself in the local culture. 

  • God always brings people together for a reason. 

Resources

Hinesights Podcast_Ep_49_Marvin Columbus: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Hinesights Podcast_Ep_49_Marvin Columbus: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Kevin Hines:
My name is Kevin Hines. I jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. I believe that I had to die, but I lived. Today, I travel the world with my lovely wife, Margaret, sharing stories of people who have triumphed over incredible adversity. Now, we help people be here tomorrow. Welcome to the HINESIGHTS podcast.

Kevin Hines:
Now, let's backtrack a little bit about, Marvin, if we can, I want to learn a little bit about the early days of Marvin, and I know maybe you, you have a, you have a powerful past my brother, and people need to know where you came from to get to where you are today. So can you break it down?

Marvin Columbus:
Well, first of all, I, I say things to God, my father in heaven, because without him, I wouldn't be alive today and I wouldn't be doing, doing now. You know, so I give, praise my Lord and Savior, you know, growing up in Ohio, Cincinnati, Ohio, I was into baseball, kickboxing, and then once my mom and dad split up, lost the house, I was about 17 years old, I became homeless for about a year and a half, I stopped the whole kickboxing thing because I wanted to make a living, so I would get a job and I started dancing. So a group called the Gap Band came in town about 1978, phew, I told my age. I jumped on stage and started dancing and the lead singer, Charlie Wilson, and they said, come and go on tour with us. And I left and never looked back because at that point in time, I was going to high school, I was the only black in the whole entire school. The Klan came and get me a couple of times, and the teacher told me one time that my kind were into, in jail on drugs and that fueled me to like, prove them wrong. I never did drugs my life. I smoked weed, never got in trouble, so I give thanks to God for that, period. That's the most important thing, and I never got in trouble and pray about it. I'm going to go to California. I'm gonna start my career, I just kept seeing my dream. Came to New York and danced on tour with the Flashdance ... Tour, went around Europe, Paris, France, all over Europe, and there, uhm, end up in California, end up, were have to have my own show at the Palace, going on tour with the breaking movie tour. I work with Celine, Prince, Michael.

Kevin Hines:
Michael?

Marvin Columbus:
Jackson, Yeah. Wow. I did Japan with him, the .. Tour with him. Smooth criminal. Man, I worked with David Bowie, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billy Idol, ... Madonna, .... a lot.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah.

Marvin Columbus:
So in two thousand seven, my son came home, Dominic Columbus, tell you about him a little bit. He said dad, tomorrow is to be a riot in L.A. back in 07-08 at the high school, a lot of the blacks, Latinos and it was race riots, one in high schools. So he asked me, what side should he be on? I said, nobody's side, because he said dad, I got friends on both sides. I said, nobody side, this is not right. So I went to the school, we started a boxing program, can you have boxing? And a hundred kids, every, girls, boys, every nationality, you know, it took off. I had like twenty-four high schools. I had a high school boxing program, the first time in America, a high school's Boxing League. White High School boxing each other like football, basketball and it would, it was huge. I stopped it in 2015-16. So over a thousand kids since high school to my program.

Kevin Hines:
So they went from race riding, like killing each other.

Marvin Columbus:
Yeah, oh yeah.

Kevin Hines:
To transition into.

Marvin Columbus:
Boxing.

Kevin Hines:
Competitive boxing, yes. But nobody dies.

Marvin Columbus:
I had a lot of kids in my program. And one thing I noticed that they had beef because they didn't know each other. I'm like, you don't like him because of his race? To me that was ridiculous. And I think that, I would look back some times and said, OK, God, all these cities, all these countries in my life, every city I went to, every country I went to, I always made a point to eat the food and hear the music. If I'm in France, I would eat French, I would hear the music. I mean, I was, I toured with person singers. I want to hit the, the eat the food, hear the music. I'm in Latin America, the food, the salsa. We had that coming. Anywhere you go to, food and music. So I said, OK, on weekends, I want the kids, different race, I talked to the parents, this weekend you go to his house and next weekend that house. And the homework was the food and the music, and it worked. And to this day, a lot of kids are still friends, Persian, Black, Jewish, don't matter, because they got a chance to know each other and not the skin, not the outside, but the spirit, the culture, the culture and go back about my son. My oldest son. Matthew is a writer in Japan, he's done amazing. I mean, my boy are, I'm so blessed to have two great young men and my youngest son, Tom, he's three and a half years old. The principal, set him on the floor, in class, made 13 kids punch him in the face.

Kevin Hines:
No.

Marvin Columbus:
Kids, the age, they rough house, they have fun. That's when had the power is out and I guess there's roughhousing.

Kevin Hines:
Seven years old?

Marvin Columbus:
No, he was three and a half.

Kevin Hines:
Three and a half?

Marvin Columbus:
Yes, I'll sell them, I'll sell them big party in .... So she decided to make an example out of him and set him on the floor and made 13 kids all hit him right here, right here, except one kid, he said, no, he's my friend. So he had astigmatism so bad, so now he wears glasses, he shut down, he literally shut.

Kevin Hines:
So let me, let me understand this so I can break it down. At three years old, the principal at his school, a school for children, told 13 boys to punch your son.

Marvin Columbus:
And girls.

Kevin Hines:
And girls your three-year-old son in the temple.

Marvin Columbus:
Yeah.

Kevin Hines:
Repeatedly.

Marvin Columbus:
Yeah.

Kevin Hines:
Had that go down? Your son developed astigmatism in his eye.

Marvin Columbus:
Yes.

Kevin Hines:
And it affected the rest of his growing up. He shut down for an entire year.

Marvin Columbus:
Entire year.

Kevin Hines:
Emotionally, mentally, physically, shut down.

Marvin Columbus:
Yes. So he got, eight years old, nine years old, he wanted to do track and field. And I said, OK, fine. You know, he just excel because me being there for him and me paying my horses getting his confidence back up, I saw him as his confidence came back up and became three-nation high jump, 50 Nation platform diver, he was nationals in boxing and then, he finished high school got a full scholarship for diving. It's a damn ... like, what? Are you talking about you got a scholarship, dad. I want to go .... I was upset, this is his life, not mine, you know? So he finished film school, ..., and audition for Ray Donovan ... my favorite show. He's a dad, I just met Ray Donovan, like what kind of character is this? He goes, the character boxes. I said, dude, this is your first time out, to be a lot of actors before you got bigger names, but they can't box. I said, son, you've already done down with the audition, if you audition, you got to kill the audition. Ask them, may I show you something? They gonna say yes. He shot a box, his softball, fast hands, fast feet, he jump rope. The day later, he calls me in the car, he said, dad, I booked it. My favorite show, ain't funny? And him down, so he came up through ..., in the third season, he booked it.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah.

Marvin Columbus:
He only booked for two episodes.

Kevin Hines:
They made him recurring like just the whole season.

Marvin Columbus:
The whole season.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah.

Marvin Columbus:
Series ... him. The movie is coming out next month called City of Lies. It's my son, Dominic, Johnny Depp, ... And Forest Whitaker.

Kevin Hines:
When I saw that trailer, my first thought, my first initial thought, multiple Oscar winner... Multiple Oscar award-winning film about BIG and Tupac getting shot and the corruption behind the L.A. Police Department and their lack of ability to find the killer right?

Marvin Columbus:
Let's just give him a call, right now.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah.

Marvin Columbus:
So I know you're sleeping, I'm doing an interview right now, had to wake you up.

Dominique Columbus:
Right, what's up?

Marvin Columbus:
... Right now. The game in the car last night, doing a big interview right now, and they want to give you a shout-out. It's Dominic.

Kevin Hines:
Hey, brother, how are you, Dominic, man? You want to tape right now.

Marvin Columbus:
Dominique, ..., wake up.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah, I saw the trailer of City of Lies, brother, and the only thing I could think about during the entire duration of the trailer. And then, then seeing that snippet of you with those drags and that look on your face is multiple Oscar award-worthy, hopefully, win, kind of a movie like looking at you, doing your damn thing and sharing your art, that's going to, it's going to change lives and sharing this particular story, it's going to open eyes to the corruption that went on, and it's going to be something that, that changes the world in a sense. I really mean that, man.

Dominique Columbus:
No, it's such a blessing to hear this from people because something that, you know, I just get caught up in what I'm doing. So again, I just want to say it's truly is, thank you, man. That's such good love and energy, bro. Like, you're fulfilling your purpose in such a positive way, and I know I'm doing the same thing. So I feel like when people do that, it's just natural things just ... and we goes, that's even life like, you knew my dad, ..., you know, my dad is doing this thing for this purpose, and so I used so when you have people that are both doing that to the fullest extent, like God brings those people together because they're like, Oh man, you bring this group together, so.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah, man, yeah. And right now, my brother, I feel like this is our time and I can't wait to the day I see you in person, shake your hand, give you that hug and we connect for life.

Dominique Columbus:
Amen, we gotta manifest it, boy.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah, for sure. All right, brother. You get, get some sleep, okay, come on, man, get some sleep, here we go. Oh, shoot, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Marvin Columbus:
I love you, son. Alright, bye. Yeah, I made a point not to go, every day, I tell both my sons, I love them.

Kevin Hines:
You have to.

Marvin Columbus:
Every day.

Kevin Hines:
You have to.

Marvin Columbus:
Every day, every day you got to because tomorrow's not promised.

Kevin Hines:
Yeah, man.

Marvin Columbus:
You know, but you're .. that. I can't wait to do more work together, man. And you know, you know, God brings everybody together for a reason. And we came together for a reason and I can't wait to see what happens. It's gonna be exciting.

Kevin Hines:
I think we leave it right there, and God brings two people together for a reason. That reason is undetermined and it is multifaceted and it will grow over time. My brother, I will see you soon. You too man.

Kevin Hines:
Margaret and I love sharing stories of people who have triumphed over incredible adversity. For more content and inspiration, go to KevinHinesStory.com, or visit us on all social media at KevinHinesStory or on YouTube.com/KevinHines.

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Margaret Hines