Despite the ongoing gentrification of Harlem, the five-story, 1,506-seat theater at 253 West 125th Street, between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Frederick Douglass Boulevards (formerly known as 7th and 8th Avenues), is in no danger of being torn down; in 1983, it was declared a city, state, and national landmark and deservedly so. Outside the theater, on the sidewalk under the marquee, is the “Walk of Fame”—with plaques honoring some of the greatest performers who appeared on the Apollo stage, including Richard Pryor, Charlie “Yardbird” Parker, Redd Foxx, Etta James, Little Richard, Moms Mabley, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Quincy Jones, Chaka Khan, James Brown, Billie Holiday, Stevie Wonder, and Prince. Inside the maroon-carpeted lobby, opposite the mirrored walls, is a world-famous mural—with pictures of the celebrated jazz musicians, comedians, singers, and musicians who performed there—Pearl Bailey, Sammy Davis Jr., Duke Ellington, Nina Simone, Nat “King” Cole, Lena Horne, the Temptations, Ray Charles, Odetta, Eartha Kitt, Smokey Robinson, Fats Domino . . . too many to mention. The theater—which in 1914 opened as a whites-only vaudeville house called Hurtig and Seamon’s New Burlesque—changed ownership and reopened to black patrons as the Apollo in 1934.

In the 1930s, comedian Pigmeat Markham performed regularly, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday won $25 prizes on Amateur Nights, and blues singer Bessie Smith once rolled around the stage screaming that she wasn’t getting paid. In the 1940s, comedians stopped performing in blackface, Sammy Davis Jr. made his debut with the Will Mastin Trio, and others on that stage included gospel great Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Lionel Hampton, and Dinah Washington. In the 1950s, Josephine Baker appeared there, Elvis Presley visited the theater and stared at the famous mural in the lobby, and Louis Armstrong greeted guests in his dressing room dressed only in his underwear. In 1954, after losing his left eye in a car crash, Sammy Davis Jr. chose the Apollo for his return to the stage. Jazz musicians Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, and others all performed at the Apollo. According to Tony Bennett, who calls the theater “America’s Carnegie Hall,” the improvisational jazz stylings of Louis Amrstrong and Billie Holiday—both of whom Bennett saw at the Apollo—were his biggest influences. In the 1960s, Jimi Hendrix won an Amateur Night contest, a drag troupe called the Jewel Box Revue was a regular feature, and the Motortown Revue came to the Apollo with Motown artists the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, and Stevie Wonder. The nine-year-old Michael Jackson traveled from Gary, Indiana, with his brothers to perform as the Jackson Five; they won an Amateur contest in 1967. Later, Michael stood in the wings between the J-5 shows and watched—rather, studied—the performances of James Brown and Jackie Wilson. And, says Smokey Robinson, “Michael watched each and every act until it was time for him to go on. Then, after his shows, he’d go back [into the wings] and watch again.”

Stevie Wonder, musician: I was 11, going on 12 when I first heard of the Apollo. Motown was bringing a show there and I was going to be featured on the show and I was told that the Apollo was very important. And I remember when I was onstage at one of the shows there, I was playing “Fingertips” and I was so nervous, I was shaking, and I dropped the bongos between my legs on the floor. We did four shows a night, and in between I had to study. The only fun I was allowed to have was maybe having some cake.

Berry Gordy, founder, Motown Records: It seems like I’ve always heard about the Apollo; in my Detroit neighborhood, it was a very special place to us. But it seemed so far out of reach. It was so ingrained in the black community—all the stories about it—it just seemed like Utopia. All the artists wanted to play there—especially Smokey; he wanted his picture to be on that mural in the hallway.

Smokey Robinson, singer/songwriter: Motown had just started, and I remember we [the Miracles] went to the Apollo to be on a Ray Charles show, and we didn’t even realize that we needed arrangements for the horn players to play our songs. My fear of the Apollo was being pulled off the stage with a hook, because that audience saw everybody. When you go to the Apollo, you’d best have your shit together, and we didn’t. Our salary for the week was $750 for five people, and we were so bad that the owner called Berry [Gordy] and told him he wouldn’t pay us. We were amateurs, we were terrible. But it gave us initiative; it gave us the will to go home and get ourselves together so that we could be better. The Apollo was a turning point for us. Next time we went, “Shop Around” was a hit, and they wouldn’t let us off the stage. By the time we were a mainstay at the Apollo, we were making $3,500 a week—which was a lot in those days.

Keith Richards, guitarist, the Rolling Stones: It was a legend even in England amongst R&B and blues fans. It’s where all the cats wanted to go and never really thought we would get there. Especially when the (1962) album James Brown Live at the Apollo came out, that really stuck it into us. You could imagine all the people playing there—Chuck Berry, the Drifters . . . it’s a dream list, it was Shangri-la. I never thought I’d get there, but I did. I went to see James Brown in 1964 and he was incredible, amazing, and the band was amazing. We were invited up to his dressing room and there he was playing emperor . . . like “take my shoes off, get me a burger.” He was proving who was numero uno in that room. I was pretty happy, because I didn’t get sent out to get a burger.

Mavis Staples, singer: We [the Staples Singers] were there with James Brown, the Temptations, Gladys Knight . . . we just had wonderful times at the Apollo. My sister Cleotha and I had little portable Singer sewing machines, and in between shows we would sew, or I’d do my knitting or we’d go down 125th Street to Chock Full o’Nuts and get those little cream cheese on date-nut bread sandwiches. I’ve heard the stories about having to warm up food on the radiator, but we didn’t have to go through that. We were staying at the Theresa hotel [down the block] when Fidel Castro was there; he had an entire floor, and he had all these live chickens.

Sean “Puffy” Combs, performer/producer/entrepreneur: Harlem is my home, so the Apollo was part of my life growing up. The first concert I saw at the Apollo was James Brown, my idol. I knew everything about his music. And when I saw him live, I just remember thinking, I want to do that one day. All of the legends have performed there, and from the moment you step inside, you can feel their greatness. Those of us who have performed there share something special; there is a status and respect when you perform there, and that never goes away.

Nona Hendryx, musician, the Bluebelles, Labelle: My first awareness of the Apollo was in 1961, when we were already performing as the Bluebelles. We were a young girl group; I was 16, going on 17, and the headliners were Dinah Washington and Brook Benton. Usually you just did your hit, but they liked us, and pretty quickly we would do two or three numbers. But you had to stay in the theater all day long because we would do four shows, and maybe a midnight show on the weekends. It was very family-oriented backstage; you’d bring your food there, or you’d go to Big Daddy Grace’s church and have food in the basement or in his restaurant. It was a life of its own back then.

Fab 5 Freddy, rapper/performer/activist: When I moved to Harlem it seemed to me that popular culture in American began at the turn of the 20th century when black folks were fleeing the Jim Crow South. The explosion of musical creativity that emanated from Harlem in the roaring 20s helped make the Apollo the most revered show place, the Vatican of performance venues where the best performers turned the world’s most demanding audience into their fans.

Lee Daniels, director: I first heard of the Apollo when I was seven or eight—my aunt took me up from Philadelphia to see the Temptations and the Supremes. It was a really big deal, and I felt a sense of unity I had never felt before. I had never seen a group of African-Americans all together like it was in church—except it wasn’t church. It was a spiritual extravaganza.

In the 1970s, the theater fell into disrepair and in 1982, it was bought by a group headed by former Manhattan borough president Percy Sutton who renovated it, and reopened it in 1984. In 1991, the Apollo was purchased by New York State and turned into a nonprofit. Currently under the direction of C.E.O. Jonelle Procope, it has a board with members that include former Time Warner chief Richard Parsons, McAndrew & Forbes C.E.O. and philanthropist Ronald O. Perelman, musician and producer Quincy Jones, chef and restaurant owner Marcus Samuelsson, and musician Pharrell Williams. According to Ronald O. Perelman, whose annual summer benefits held at his East Hampton estate have raised millions of dollars for the theater, “I get a strong heartbeat whenever I go through those doors. The Apollo exudes a real sense of history and importance. It also has an audience that can be unforgiving; when they don’t like you, they let you know.” And, according to the Roots’ Questlove, “The myth is that if you can survive the Apollo audience you can make it anywhere.” The soul singer Jerry “The Iceman” Butler once said that you had to be at the top of your game at the Apollo because almost everyone in that audience was as good as you were. The 13-year-old Lauryn Hill was booed on an Amateur Night, but eventually, she won over the audience. Lenny Kravitz recalls that Lionel Richie once told him he made the mistake of inviting someone from the audience onstage: “You don’t bring nobody onstage with you,” Richie told him, “if you give them the mike, there’s a good chance they’ll blow you away.” And indeed, the audience is discerning, especially on Amateur Night when a man called “the Executioner” comes onstage and drags you off if the audience starts to boo.

Keith Richards: That Apollo audience certainly knows what they like.

Lee Daniels: If you were stupid enough to bring your ass up on that stage, you deserved to be booed. Everybody knew what they were getting into. I felt no shame [as an audience member] booing. And the brilliance of it all was that they didn’t give a fuck if they were being booed. When you walked into the Apollo, it was nothing but honesty, there was no filter.

Mavis Staples: I had always heard that the Apollo had an amateur show and the audience would boo them off the stage. It was so funny. At the same time, it made me worry before we went there if they would boo us off. But we were lucky that the people at the Apollo loved the Staple Singers.

Berry Gordy: I do remember the amateur shows, which I loved. Oh my goodness, that audience was brutal, but it was fun for me. They loved to see people doing poorly. It’s not as much fun for you to be successful; someone else has to fail for you to be happy.

Suzanne de Passe, former executive producer, Showtime at the Apollo: That audience at Amateur Night was rowdy, it was like the Roman Colosseum. As a kid growing up in Harlem, the Apollo was such a big part of my life. I stood in line to see the Motortown Revue, I told my mother I was at the library when I was sitting up in the rafters of the theater watching Amateur Night, and then, returning in 1985 to produce Motown Returns to the Apollo, and later Showtime, was a “pinch me” moment.

Common, musician/actor: Watching Showtime at the Apollo was a ritual for me. They would have a great performer, then a great comedian, and in addition to being entertained, I would just learn about black culture. It wasn’t like a lesson, but it was like man, you’re getting to see all these great artists, and if you get on that stage, you have to deliver or you’ll face repercussions.

Pharrell Williams, musician/producer: I would always watch Showtime, and I used to call those amateur shows “the Black Colosseum.” You’re either good or you’re bad, but it would make you stronger, it would make you better. The cool thing about it was even as a viewer, you didn’t feel bad for that person—because they instantly knew what wasn’t working. If you can deal with that, you can deal with anything. You’re dealing with people who will tell you in two seconds if you’re off key, you’re not in the pocket, you look nervous, like, you can sing, but you’re not a star.

Jamie Foxx, comedian/musician/actor: Watching Amateur hour or Showtime was my first introduction [to the Apollo]. As a kid growing up in Texas, I was like man, if I ever get to the Apollo I’m going to make it. When I was 23, I got an opportunity to go there through the Comedy Act Theater, and I was so confident, I knew I was going to kill. Sinbad was the host, and when he brought me out, he introduced me as “this young guy from California,” and they immediately started booing, because that audience is an East Coast crowd. And, as they were booing me, I thought to myself, fuck it, I’m just going to soak this in. I’m at the Apollo, I might as well get booed. But the people at the Apollo were so nice that they didn’t air it. If they had aired it and people saw me being booed, the whole trajectory of my comedy career would have gone completely the other way. But that’s what the Apollo is: there’s a lot of people up there who can do it as good, or better than you.

Questlove, musician/producer: My father was in a doo-wop group (Lee Andrews and the Hearts), and in 1975 they did a reunion show at the Apollo. Ben E. King was on the bill, the stage was set up like a living room, and Ben E. King came on and said ‘Hey Lee Andrews, did you drive up here in a silver Granada with Pennsylvania plates? I think you better go back in the alley where they’re stripping your car apart.’ Sure enough, someone had taken the tires, everything. Also, Dinah Washington once told my dad to lose the white gloves he and his group wore; that they were ‘too minstrel.’ I was five years old, and my mother told me that they throw tomatoes at you at the Apollo, they boo you, you’d better be good. That was my introduction to the Apollo –fear. My parents got robbed, people got booed, and my father had his heart broken by Dinah Washington.

According to the theater’s historian, Billy “Mr. Apollo” Mitchell, the back alley, which leads from the backstage to 126th Street and faces the elementary school C.S. 154, was infamous back in the day. Mitchell recounts stories of barbecues, card games, shooting dice, drinking, as well as various illicit activities. A security guard with one arm, called “one-armed Neil” presided over the backstage. Mitchell, who was 15 years old when he started as an intern in 1965, remembers comedian Flip Wilson insisting on a closet-size dressing room in the basement. The other dressing rooms were—and still are—on five floors with a pecking order, with the biggest stars closest to the stage. Mitchell recalls Flip Wilson sliding a piece of paper with his food order under the door. Then, when Mitchell brought the food back on a tray, Wilson waited until no one was around, quickly opened the door and took the tray inside. When Aretha Franklin returned to the Apollo in 1971, the marquee simply said “She’s Home.” During one performance, the Queen of Soul insisted—as she always did—that the theater’s cooling system be turned off and reportedly, she stopped singing mid-song, said, “I feel air,” and walked off the stage. The three-paneled “signature wall” at the right-hand side of the backstage has been signed by some of the widely diverse people who’ve performed at, or visited the theater, including Barack and Michelle Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton, members of Metallica, Prince, Kris Kristofferson, Paul McCartney—who called the Apollo “the holy grail”–and hundreds of others. Prominently displayed on stage right is the famous tree stump—reportedly from the tree that was cut down in front of the theater in 1934—which performers have traditionally rubbed for good luck.

Along with the televised Showtime at the Apollo, which exposed the Apollo to a wide audience, many people were made aware of the theater earlier through the legendary 1962 album, “James Brown Live at the Apollo” which spent 66 weeks on the Billboard charts. The “Godfather of Soul,” who appeared at the venue over 200 times, paid for the recording of the album himself— an album that many consider to be the greatest live album of all time. David Bowie cited it as an inspiration, and Lee Daniels says it was in every black household he knew, “along with the Bible.” In the past 25 years, all sorts of music—in addition to dance, opera theater, and comedy —has been onstage at the Apollo, and there isn’t a star who performed there or saw a show there who doesn’t remember something special.

Chris Rock, comedian/actor/director: I think the first time I went to the Apollo was to see George Clinton—his show with the spaceship, wearing the diaper, the fur coat . . . it was crazy. And in the middle of the show, Philippé Wynne, the lead singer of the Spinners, comes out. At that time, the Spinners were the biggest fucking group in the world; you couldn’t get more pop than the Spinners. And Wynne comes out in the Spinners outfit—white shoes, red suit, and people lose their minds. Because it’s New York—and you never know who’s going to show up in New York. So after that, I go home and go to sleep. And then [as Rock recalls] soon after that Philippé Wynne’s dead. That was my introduction to the Apollo. Philippé Wynne dies.

Alicia Keys, singer/musician: When I started to get into the music of Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, and Smokey Robinson, I started understanding what type of pillar the Apollo was for our artists. Nina Simone was a big inspiration for me, and I read about how she performed classical music at the Apollo at the piano with her back to the audience. I was around 10, and had never heard of another black woman who had played classical music. So I started to imagine that that was what I wanted to do one day. I remember when I walked in there to perform for the first time, it was like the energy of the greatness coming off the walls and the floor—it was just palpable.

QTip, rapper/producer: The first time [A Tribe Called Quest] played there was New Year’s Eve, 1989, with Big Daddy Kane. We came out onstage with champagne bottles, all the neighborhood kids were in there, a bunch of hustlers were in there, shit was booming. It was fun.

LL Cool J, musician/actor: I’ve seen many, many, many shows at the Apollo. I saw Rob Base and E-Z Rock perform there when their big hit, “It Takes Two,” had just come out and I remember feeling like I had never seen a crowd rock that hard in my life. I performed at the Apollo on numerous occasions; I remember singing “I Need Love” and girls rushing the stage, trying to tear my shirt off.

Nile Rodgers, musician/producer: I became a member of the Apollo house band early in my career. The first day on the job, the orchestra leader told me I came so highly recommended, he knew I could sight-read and therefore, didn’t need to rehearse. At showtime, I took my seat with the band, and was so focused on doing a good job, that I didn’t notice a coffin being wheeled onto stage right. As the conductor’s hands came down, the coffin’s lid popped open and out jumped Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, made up like the skeletal voodoo deity Baron Samedi. I was startled to death, grabbed my guitar and tried to run off the stage, but the stagehands blocked my escape route. The audience died laughing; the entire band was in on the joke.

Questlove: By the time I realized I needed to get over my fear of the Apollo and that the Roots should play there, we got this guy who’s hilarious at the barbershop to open for us. Apparently, he slays like crazy at the barbershop. But when he opened for us, he was getting mercilessly booed. And then, following him, we did the best show ever. So the next night, I asked the barbershop guy, “Hey, can you do it again?” But the Apollo didn’t want him again.

Janelle Monáe, singer/actress: When I played the Apollo in 2013, I just remember thinking about James Brown and Stevie Wonder and all my musical heroes and I cried after the sound check. I couldn’t believe I was on the same stage they had been on. And the best part was looking into the audience and seeing the diverse range of people: Asian, white, black, Hispanic, Muslim, gay, transgender, you name it. We were all there together breathing in the experience as one.

Chuck D, Public Enemy, rapper/producer/activist: In the 70s, there were a lot of things going through Harlem that weren’t cool. In the 80s, when Percy Sutton bought the Apollo it started some sort of renaissance, rebuilding it. But in the 70s, the city had abandoned Harlem. It had been a different code in the hood in the 60s. Black folks, we might have been broke, but we wasn’t broken. When it got to a point where Public Enemy got too big for the Apollo, we said we would do a free show there. So we filmed it, and that turned out to be a Grammy-nominated home video, “The Enemy Strikes Black,” and that was done live at the Apollo.

Rosanne Cash, singer/songwriter: The Apollo is so full of mojo that it’s hard to take it in. When I played there I took a picture of the sign on my dressing room because I could hardly believe the sight, the idea of my name in that theater. I felt humbled.

The memories are abundant. Bob Marley was the first reggae act to perform at the Apollo in 1979. Chris Rock and QTip both recall one of the best, and most intense shows ever was when they saw Ice Cube’s first solo show after leaving N.W.A in 1990. Prince performed there in 1993 and brought Lenny Kravitz, QTip, and others onstage with him to jam. After a long hiatus, D’Angelo made his “comeback” at the Apollo. Mos Def (now known as Yasiin Bey) performed one of his “retirement” shows there. Bruce Springsteen, Metallica, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Korn, Debbie Harry, John Mellencamp, and dozens of other rock bands have all done shows there. Sean “Puffy” Combs performed with the Notorious B.I.G. when he debuted the Ready to Die album and says that one of the thrills of his life was in 2004 when he got onstage with James Brown to sing “Happy Birthday” to the Reverend Al Sharpton. A teenage Beyoncé performed there with Destiny’s Child.

Perhaps most notably in recent years, the Apollo has just become a natural gathering spot for the community when a beloved star dies. When Aretha Franklin died on August 16, 2018, there was one obvious place—in addition to her hometown New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit—for her fans to gather and mourn the Queen of Soul. For several days, the signs on the famed Apollo marquee switched back and forth from “Rest in Peace: Aretha Franklin, Queen of Soul,” to “Honoring Apollo Legend Aretha Franklin: 1942–2018.” On December 28, 2006, James Brown’s body was driven to the theater in a white carriage pulled by two white horses. His body lay in a white satin-lined casket on the red-carpeted stage while thousands lined up on 125th Street to pay their respects. When Michael Jackson, Muhammad Ali, and Prince died, people were just drawn to the theater; in Ali’s case, the marquee read “G.O.A.T.” For Prince, it read “Nothing Compares 2 U.” After the death of Howlin’ Wolf guitarist and blues icon Hubert Sumlin in 2011, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Gary Clark Jr., and others held a memorial concert to pay for Sumlin’s funeral. And when A Tribe Called Quest’s co-founder Phife Dawg passed away in 2016, the entire rap world—André 3000, KRS-One, Chuck D, Busta Rhymes, Grandmaster Flash, DJ Kool Herc, Kanye West—as well as Dave Chappelle and others were in attendance.

QTip: We did our eulogy for Phife at the Apollo, because that was home. That was the place we played the most in New York, but also, when it was time to take our brother home, we couldn’t think of a better place to do it. It just felt warm all over again.

Fab 5 Freddy: When James Brown and Michael Jackson died, it was amazing to see the Apollo become the spontaneous, unofficial gathering place for thousands to mourn and reminisce and share their stories with others. The same happened when Barack Obama was elected, New Yorkers from all parts of the city flocked to the Apollo to rejoice and celebrate the election of our first black president. And later, when Obama was inaugurated, I went with my friend (the late director) Jonathan Demme to watch it live in a packed Apollo theater and again, I thought, what a perfect place to be.

Common: When you finally get to the point where you get on that stage that you watched on TV as a kid, where all the artists you revere have performed, you know how precious that place is. And you’re going to take it in and value it like no other place.

Pharrell Williams: The Apollo is a sanctuary for black music, a place where a lot of magical moments happened. The evolution of black music over the last 50, 60, 70 years has just been amazing. Rhythm and blues and soul and gospel has just been such a strong force. Not only for black culture but American culture and global culture and a lot of it started, and was centered on, the Apollo. Even if the music was being made in Mississippi or Alabama or Detroit . . . they would all come to the Apollo.

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