DC Young Fly to Play Sly Stone in BET’s ‘American Soul,’ Talks Working With Babyface for the Role

DC Young Fly stopped by “The Breakfast Club” February 21 and revealed that he’ll be playing Sly Stone in the BET series “American Soul.”

Young Fly said he learned a tremendous amount about Stone and his band Sly and the Family Stone while prepping for the role, and he was amazed at how racially diverse the group was.

DC Young Fly (left) will play Sly Stone (right) in BET’s “American Soul.” (PhotoS: Paras Griffin/Getty Images Entertainment via Getty Images, Michael Putland /Hulton Archive via Getty Images)

“Now that you do music, you need to do a little music history,” Young Fly told “The Breakfast Club” hosts. “Sly and the Family Stone was kind of like the first group. … He was like, ‘All right, I’m going to have a group with everybody.'”

“Even though it was a music group, it was more so of a message and that’s all they talked about in their music, family, just dance be happy,” he added. “I appreciate ‘American Soul’ and BET for allowing me to be on that project.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Young Fly talked about working with Babyface for the singing parts of the role, and he said the R&B veteran was impressed by his vocal skills.

Babyface is the music supervisor for “American Soul,” which tells the story of Don Cornelius creating “Soul Train.”

“He was like, ‘Man, you did a great job,'” Young Fly said Babyface told him in the studio. “‘You was on key, you was on notes and you sound way better than I thought you would.'”

Born John Whitfield, Young Fly grew to fame by sharing Vine videos of himself and being on Nick Cannon‘s long-running series “Wild ‘n Out.” He was a co-host on MTV’s show “TRL” as well.

Some of Young Fly’s movies include “How High 2,” and “I Got The Hook Up 2.”


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