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Topic - Sammy Davis, Jr.

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Concert: Wayne Brady cover Sammy Davis Jr. In 2003, singer and comedian Wayne Brady needed to repair his reputation. His problem was not that he was a bad boy, but that he was not a bad enough boy. So he went on Dave Chappelle's sketch comedy show. The episode began with Dave Chappelle asking a fortune teller, "Why do white people like Wayne Brady?", and the fortune teller asking, "White people like Wayne Brady because he makes Brian Gumbel look like Malcolm X." A later sketch saw sweet-cheeked Brady playing a violent and manipulative gun-wielding pimp. The real secret behind Brady's ability to break racial barriers is not that he's tame (an ugly stereotype regardless of whose riffing on it), but that he's talented. Accompanied by the National Symphony Orchestra, Brady will sing the best of Sam Cooke and Sammy Davis Jr. A fitting program, considering that Cooke and Davis's much-deserved mainstream appeal is not so different from Brady's. To March 31 at the Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. NW. Phone: 202/467-4600. Web: http://www.kennedy-center.org/

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England, he said, was a “fag” country - a word you wouldn't hear on network television today.

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