Levee: I done wrote a version of that song, what picks it up and sets it down in the people’s lap, and here she come talking this. You don’t need that old circus bulls**t. I know what I’m talking about. You going to mess up the song, Cutler, and you know it!
Cutler: I ain’t going to mess up nothing. Ma say…
Levee: I don’t care what Ma say! I’m talking about what the intro going to do to the song. The peoples in the North ain’t going to go for that old tent-show nonsense. They want to hear some music.

Cutler: I done told you time and again. Ma say what to play, not you. You ain’t here to be doing no creating. You play whatever Ma say.
Levee: I might not play nothing. I might just quit.
Cutler: N****, don’t nobody care if you quit. Whose heart you going to break?
Toledo: Levee ain’t going to quit. He need to make money to keep him in shoe polish.
[they laugh]
Levee: I done told y’all you don’t know me. You don’t know what I’ll do.

Cutler: Sylvester, look here. The band plays the intro, and then you say, “Alright, boys, you done seen the rest. Now I’m going to show you the best. Ma Rainey’s going to show you her black bottom.”

Levee: I ain’t rehearsing nothing. Just wait till I get my band together. I’m going to record that song and show you how it’s supposed to go.

Toledo: Yeah, well, Levee can’t help it none. He’s spooked up by the white man. Ain’t had time to study them.
Levee: I studies the white man, I got him studied good. The first time one fixes on me wrong, I’m going to show him just how much I study. Come tell me I’m spooked up by the white man. You let one mess with me, I’ll show you how spooked up I am.

Levee: Levee got to be Levee! And he don’t need nobody messing with him about the white man! Because you don’t know nothing about me. You don’t know Levee. You don’t know nothing about what kind of blood I got, what kind of a heart I got beating here!

Levee: My daddy wasn’t spooked up by the white man. No, sir. And that taught me how to handle them. I seen my daddy go up and grin in this cracker’s face. Smile in his face and sell him his land. All the while, he’s planning how he’s going to get him, and what he’s going to do to him. That taught me how to handle them. So you all just back up and leave Levee alone about the white man. I can smile and say “yes, sir” to whoever I please. I got my time coming to me. You all just leave Levee alone about the white man.

Toledo: Everybody come from different places in Africa, right? Different tribes and things. Soon awhile they began to make one big stew. You had your carrots, and your peas, and your potatoes over here. And over there, you had your meat, and nuts, okra, corn. And you mix it up, cook it real good to where the flavors flow through. And then you got one thing. You got a stew. Now you take and you eat that stew. You take and you make your history with that stew. But you look around and you see some carrots over there, and some peas over here. And that stew is still there. You done made your history, and it’s still there. You can’t eat it all. So what you got? You got some leftovers. That’s what it is. See, we is the leftovers. The colored man, he is the leftovers.

Toledo: What’s the colored man going to do with himself? That’s what we’re waiting to find out. But first he’s got to know that he’s a leftover.

Ma Rainey: What’s all this s**t about “the boys in the band said”? I tells you what to do. I says what the matter is with the band. I say who can and can’t do what.
Cutler: [referring to Sylvester] We just say because the boy stutter.
Ma Rainey: I know he stutters. Don’t you think I know he stutters? This is what going to help him.
Cutler: We just thought it’d be easier…
Ma Rainey: He going to do the part. And I don’t want to hear any more of this s**t about what the boys in the band says.

Ma Rainey: Levee ain’t nothing but trouble.
Cutler: Levee alright. He plays good music when he puts his mind to it. He know how to write music too.
Ma Rainey: I don’t care what he know. He ain’t nothing but bad news. Find somebody else. He the ringtail leader. I know it was his idea who to say who can do what.

Levee: A man what’s going to get his own band need to have a woman like you.
Dussie Mae: A woman like me need a man to bring it and put it in my hand. I don’t need nobody getting something for nothing and leave me standing in my door.
Levee: That ain’t Levee’s style, sugar. I knows how to treat a woman. Buy her presents and things. Treat her like she want to be treated.
Dussie Mae: That’s what they all say till it come time to be buying the presents.

Ma Rainey: I’ve been doing this a long time. Ever since I was a little girl. I don’t care what nobody else do.

Ma Rainey: They don’t care nothing about me. All they want is my voice. Well, I done learned that. And they going to treat me the way I want to be treated no matter how much it hurt them.

Ma Rainey: They back there right now calling me all kinds of names. Calling me everything but a child of God. But they can’t do nothing else because they ain’t got what they wanted yet. As soon as they get my voice down on one them recording machines, then it’s just like I’d be some wh**e, and they roll over and put their pants on. They ain’t got no use for me then. I know what I’m talking about. You watch.

Dussie Mae: You get your own band, we’ll see about this stuff you talking.
Levee: I just want to show you I knows what the womens like. They don’t call me Sweet Lemonade for nothing.
Dussie Mae: Stop it now. Somebody going to come in here.
Levee: No, they ain’t. Look here, sugar. What I wants to know is, can I introduce my red rooster to your brown hen.
[they start kissing]
Dussie Mae: You get your own band and we’ll see if your red rooster know how to crow.

Ma Rainey: Sure done got quiet in here. I never could stand no silence. I always got to have some music going on in my head somewhere. It keeps things balanced. Music will do that. It fills things up. The more music you have in the world, the fuller it is.

Ma Rainey: White folk don’t understand about the blues. They hear it come out, but they don’t know how it got there. They don’t understand that that’s life’s way of talking. You don’t sing to feel better. You sing because that’s a way of understanding life.

Ma Rainey: The blues help you get out of bed in the morning. You get up knowing you ain’t alone. There’s something else in the world. Something’s been added by that song. This be an empty world without the blues. I try to take that emptiness and fill it up with something.

Ma Rainey: I ain’t started blues way of singing. Blues always been there. But if they want to call me the Mother of Blues, that’s alright with me. It don’t hurt none.

Irvin: Listen, Ma. These records are going to be hits. They are going to sell like crazy. Hell, even Sylvester will be a star. Fifteen minutes. That is all I am asking, Ma. Just fifteen minutes.
Ma Rainey: Fifteen minutes. You hear me, Irvin? Fifteen minutes. Then I’m going to carry my black bottom on back down to Georgia, you hear me? Fifteen minutes.

Toledo: Some mens got it worse than others. Some mens is excited to be a fool. I knows about it. The excitement is something else. I done experienced it. Make you feel good to be a fool. But it don’t last long. Over in a minute, then you got to tend with the consequences.
Levee: That’s the best sense you made all day, talking about being a fool. That’s the only sensible thing you said today, admitting you was a fool.
Toledo: Oh, I admits it, alright. Ain’t nothing wrong with it. I done been a little bit of everything. Going to be a bit more things before I’m finished with it. But I ain’t never been the same fool twice. That’s where we part ways.
Levee: But you been a fool. That’s what counts.

Cutler: Toledo, what you call a fool, and what I call a fool, are two different things. A fool is responsible for what happen to him. A fool cause it to happen. Like Levee. He keep messing around with Ma’s gal, and his feet be out there scraping the ground. That’s a fool.
Levee: There ain’t nothing going to happen to Levee. Levee ain’t going to let nothing happen to him.

Cutler: Toledo, all I’m saying is, from the looks of it, from your story, I don’t think life treated you fair.
Toledo: Oh, life’s fair.
Levee: Life ain’t s**t! You can put it in a paper bag and carry it around with you. It ain’t got no balls. Now death. Death got some style. Death will kick your a** and make you wish you never been born. That’s how bad death is. But you can rule over life. Life ain’t nothing.

Levee: Is you going to be satisfied with a bone somebody done throwed you when you done seen them eating a whole hog?
Toledo: You lucky they let you be an entertainer. You’re lucky and don’t even know it.
Levee: I’m talking about being satisfied with a bone somebody done throwed you. That’s what’s the matter with y’all, you’re satisfied sitting in one place.

Levee: Soon as I get my band together, and record them songs Mr. Sturdyvant done told me I can make, I’m going to be like Ma, and tell the white man just what he can do. Ma tell Mr. Irvin she leaving? Mr. Irvin get down on his knees and beg her to stay. That’s the way I’m going to be. Make the white man respect me.

Cutler: The white man don’t care nothing about Ma. The colored folks made Ma a star. The white folks don’t care nothing about who she is, or what kind of music she make.
Slow Drag: Let her go to one of them white folks hotel and see how big she is.
Cutler: Hell, she can’t even get a cab up here in the North.

Ma Rainey: Levee, what were you doing? Why you playing all them notes? You’re playing ten notes for every one you supposed to play. It don’t call for all that.
Levee: You’re supposed to improvise on the theme. That’s what I was doing.
Ma Rainey: You’re supposed to play the song like I sing it. The way everybody else play it.
Levee: I was playing the song the way I felt it.

Ma Rainey: I’m trying to sing my song and you messing up my ear. You call that playing music?
Levee: Hey, I know what I’m doing. Y’all back up and leave me alone about my music.
Cutler: I done told you it ain’t about your music. It’s about Ma’s music.

Ma Rainey: Cutler, Levee’s out. He ain’t playing in my band no more.
Levee: I’m fired? Good! Best thing that ever happened to me! I don’t need this s**t.

Levee: Mr. Sturdyvant, sir? About them songs I give you?
Sturdyvant: Oh, yeah. Oh, Levee. I thought about it. I just don’t think that people will buy them. They’re not the type of songs we’re looking for.

Levee: Mr. Sturdyvant, sir. I done already got my band picked out. I got some real good fellas. They know how to play real good music. I know if the peoples hear the music, they’ll buy it.
Sturdyvant: Levee, I’ll be fair with you. They’re just not the right songs.

Levee: [after Sturdyvant’s rejection] Look at that. That’s my shoe. You did it. You did it! You f***ed up my shoe. You stepped on my shoe with them raggedy-a** clodhoppers.
Toledo: Ain’t nobody studying about you and your shoe. I said, “Excuse me.” If you can’t accept that, then the hell with it. What you want me to do?
Levee: You stepped on my shoe.
[suddenly he stabs Toledo in the back]

Levee: [Cutler and Slow Drag look on in horror as Toledo dies] He stepped on my shoe. He did. Honest. Cutler, he stepped on my shoe. What he do that for? Toledo, what you do that for? Cutler, help. He stepped on my shoe. Cutler! It’s okay, Toledo. I’ll help you. Come on, Toledo.

Levee: [as he rocks Toledo’s body in his arm] Oh, no. Don’t look at me like that. Don’t look at me like that.