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<\/a>\nNext week\u00a0I’m going back to my home town, Detroit, to\u00a0conduct my high school marching band playing a medley of my greatest hits in the lobby of the theater I grew up in before a performance of my musical, The Color Purple,\u00a0with the cast\u00a0leading a sing-along. \u00a0It’s a fundraiser to buy new uniforms for the Mumford\u00a0marching band because with over 40 kids in the band, some of them are still marching around in threads from when I were there. \u00a0Although I never made marching band as I never learned to play an instrument. I never learned how to read music either which should make my conducting this event most interesting to say the least!<\/p>\n
My high school was made famous in Beverly Hills Cop when Eddie Murphy wore a Mumford Phys Ed T-shirt throughout the film. I won a Grammy for Best Soundtrack for Beverly Hills Cop so my destiny and that of my high school \u00a0are inextricably linked.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Mumford is one of the largest schools in the city, 99% African-American and close to that percentage underprivileged. The Color Purple is about believing in and loving yourself, a rise from less nothing to everything that you never even dared to dream. \u00a0I want to instill that hope in these kids.<\/p>\n
I know most of you don’t live in Detroit – \u00a0any of you who do please\u00a0come to the Fox <\/a> on Saturday April 9, from 11- 12:30 PM – but you \u00a0can still help us march. Please\u00a0donate<\/a> to help this most fabulous high school and help invigorate the spirit of Detroit.<\/p>\n And please forward the invitation or give the links to anyone you think might be interested in attending the event or donating to the cause. We need all the $$ we can get!<\/p>\n Invitation-\u00a0https:\/\/www.alleewillis.com\/mumfordinvite<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n All text version –\u00a0https:\/\/www.alleewillis.com\/mumfordinvite-text<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Direct link to ticket\/donation page:\u00a0https:\/\/www.alleewillis.com\/mumford<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Next week\u00a0I’m going back to my home town, Detroit, to\u00a0conduct my high school marching band playing a medley of my greatest hits in the lobby of the theater I grew up in before a performance of my musical, The Color Purple,\u00a0with the cast\u00a0leading a sing-along. \u00a0It’s a fundraiser to buy new uniforms for the Mumford\u00a0marching … read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2562,107,1365,87,193,2528,2568,37,997],"tags":[61,3261,3232,3245,2624,3260,2625,2626,943],"class_list":["post-30285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-detroit","category-empowerment","category-financial","category-kitsch","category-kitsch-o-the-day","category-mumford-high-school","category-school","category-self-expression","category-the-color-purple","tag-allee-willis","tag-detroit","tag-kitsch","tag-kitsch-o-the-day","tag-marching-band","tag-mumford-high-school","tag-mumford-marching-band","tag-the-color-purple-detroit","tag-the-color-purple-musical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"