Nearly two decades before FedExForum opened in 2004, the corner of B.B. King Boulevard and Dr. M.L.K. Jr. Avenue was nothing but a grassy field. And that grassy field served as a convenient place for Rarecas “Rod” Bonds and his brothers to hide from the police whenever they objected to the boys performing flips on Beale Street in exchange for tips.
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Bonds and his brothers were born into poverty just a few blocks away from Beale Street. Flipping started as a hobby. On the frequent occasions when neighbors were evicted from their homes, the boys would take the abandoned mattresses and perform backflips onto them. It became a competitive sport — a way to have fun, a way to kill time.
One afternoon, a neighbor walked Bonds and his brothers to Beale Street. It was 1986, and Bonds was 5 years old. Beale Street is now known as a prime entertainment district, but at the time it was in the process of being rebuilt. The street had been in a state of disrepair for more than a decade, impacted in part by a sanitation workers strike in 1968 and the riots that followed Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination that same year.
In 1982, local real estate developer John A. Elkington was tasked with rebuilding Beale Street. It led to a surge of tourism — and changed Bonds’ life.
Someone in Bonds’ entourage saw an opportunity to capitalize on the crowds of people who migrated to the street every night. “Flip, Rod!” they screamed. Bonds began to do flips while standing in place. A tourist in the crowd gave him some spare change as a tip. Another followed. Pretty soon, money began to pile up. One of his brothers ran to a nearby restaurant and grabbed two red buckets that had been used to store chitlins and put the tips in them. When the buckets were filled with change, they walked home.
Bonds realized what he had done when he woke up the next day and saw his mom counting the money. Stacks of quarters lined the living room table. He asked if he could have 50 cents to buy some candy. She obliged.
“That’s the quickest she ever gave me money, especially having 14 brothers and sisters by the same mommy and daddy,” Bonds said. “So I was like, ‘I’m going on Beale Street every day.’”
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After school, he made the short walk to Beale Street to flip. Sometimes, his brothers and friends joined him. The Bonds made so much money from flipping for tips that they eventually became the primary breadwinners for their family.
There was one problem, however. Flipping was illegal on Beale Street until 1991 — the city saw it as a safety hazard — and the police often showed up 15 or 20 minutes after the boys started their routine. So Bonds and his crew developed a system to avoid arrest. One flipper was designated as the “bucket man” and stood five steps across the street from the tip bucket. Another stood at the end of the street and fulfilled two roles — moving the crowd to make room for their flipping routine and watching for police.
When the police arrived, the flipper at the end of the street signaled to the bucket man, who grabbed the tips and ran. When the bucket man started running, the rest of the flippers knew it was time to go. They ran a block south to the grassy field and laid flat on their backs. Once the cops left, the boys collected the tip bucket and made the short walk home. They repeated the same routine the next day.
The Flippers have been a mainstay on Beale Street since the late 1980s. (Duffy-Marie Arnoult / Getty Images)The Beale Street Flippers need no introduction in Memphis. The group, which historically has consisted of children, teenagers and young adults, has been a halftime fixture at Grizzlies games since the franchise moved from Vancouver in 2001 and has also performed in arenas across the country for nearly two decades. They’ve made appearances at NBA All-Star games, flipped on “America’s Got Talent,” “The Ellen Degeneres Show” and “Good Morning America,” and they have been the focus of a Nike advertising campaign. And it all started when Bonds decided to do a backflip on Beale Street when he was 5 years old.
Bonds, now 38, is the mastermind of the group and is still involved in running the operation. He has “Beale Street Flippers C.E.O.” tattooed on his bicep. Bonds’ profile grew as Beale Street emerged as a tourist destination in the late ’80s and throughout the ’90s. He flipped alongside Tom Cruise in the movie “The Firm,” which was filmed in Memphis and released in 1993. He became a fixture at the original B.B. King’s Blues Club that opened on Beale Street later that year, and he even befriended the legend B.B. King himself.
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Bonds has used the Beale Street Flippers to change lives. Many of the boys and young men who flip come from rough neighborhoods in a city that continues to struggle with poverty and crime. He lures them away from the streets with the promise of up to $250 for a six-minute performance — quite a bit more than the 50 cent payout he received from his mom after his first night on Beale.
A gunshot wound ended Bonds’ flipping career more than a decade ago. He uses crutches to get around. Everything still runs through him, though. With the help of his younger brother, Tommie, and agent, Rollin Riggs, Bonds is still involved with planning and recruiting.
“Parents are going to bring me kids,” Bonds said. “Some parents are trying to get rid of their kids. You find the right ones. But I like the guys who are standing outside on the street corners asking you for quarters and dollars. I like them guys because they’re hustlers. They know if I don’t make this work, I don’t eat.”
Bonds estimates there are currently 15 members of the Flippers, ranging in age from 5 to the upper teens. The inexperienced flippers perform on Beale Street for tips. Once they get older — and better — they get to travel the country and perform as a halftime act at NBA games.
That presents another challenge — the logistics of travel. The boys often lack photo identification, an issue Bonds constantly runs into when recruiting new members.
“Oh, it’s hell,” Bonds said. “You gotta remember these kids don’t even have social security cards and birth certificates. You can’t imagine the extremes we go to to try to get these guys able to travel.”
Occasionally, a young Flipper gets in trouble with the law. But Bonds trusts that if he shows them a better way of life, puts them in contact with positive role models such as himself, he can change their trajectory.
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After all, Bonds figured out how to better himself by applying his talent toward something productive. He had role models and mentors in his life to point him in the right direction.
“I’m going to bring you around people, put you in contact with people,” he said. “I’m going to let people see you. I’m going to let you interact with people. Now, from building them relationships, that’s on you. What you do with those relationships is on you. Some people take those relationships and they fly. Some people take those relationships and throw them in the garbage. That’s on you. But I took mine and tried to make something out of it. Now you take yours and try to make something out of it.”
In 1990, Beale Street Management approached Tommy Peters with an opportunity. The group had acquired licensing rights from B.B. King’s manager, who was based in New York and wanted Peters to help put a deal together to open a B.B. King-themed restaurant. At the time, Peters was a certified public accountant who owned a small investment firm. He had never worked in the restaurant industry. And given the state of Beale Street at the time, he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea.
Beale Street was still in the midst of its revitalization, and it wasn’t going well. Rum Boogie and Alfreds were open but much of the rest of the street was boarded up.
Finding investors was not easy, but Peters eventually cobbled together enough money to move forward.
B.B. King’s Blues Club opened in 1991 and quickly became an anchor on Beale Street. King, who was born two hours south of Memphis and had been an integral part of the city’s blues scene during the prime of his career, made regular appearances.
“Back when we started, everyone said, ‘You’re so smart to put it there,’” Peters said. “Shit, man. You should’ve seen it back in 1990 when there wasn’t a FedExForum, there wasn’t a Westin Hotel. There was nothing but vacant lots and stuff. There was no parking garage. There was no Peabody Place. You did have the Orpheum Theater. There wasn’t a whole lot of traffic down there. Did have the Peabody Hotel, but it was nothing like it is now. In terms of sales volumes, it was a fraction of what they are able to do now.”
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It also helped that the Beale Street Flippers were bringing crowds of tourists literally to the front door of the club.
Bonds, 10 at the time, had been a fixture on the street for a half-decade. B.B. King’s became home base for him and his crew, and Peters became a father figure to the boys. Peters would open his doors and let the boys flip inside when the weather was bad. Or, if they needed something to eat or drink. Bonds credits Peters for helping him learn how to read and write and manage his money.
If it weren’t for Peters, Bonds said he would be in jail.
“B.B.’s became his home, so to speak,” Peters said. “We took care of him. He was pretty savvy, even from a young age. And he was smart, street-smart. He had relationships and friendships from the neighborhood, which included Beale Street.”
The Flippers performed between musical breaks. Even inside the club — where space was limited — their acrobatic feats wowed. They often made more from tips inside the club than they did on the street.
“I’ve seen Rod flip off the stage and run up one of our steel beams,” Peters said. “He could go from one end to the other, and he’d clear the floor out. He’d do 30 flips in one position. Just crazy stuff that you don’t (even) see in the Olympics.”
Bonds became a featured part of the club’s expansion strategy and performed at the grand opening of B.B. King’s second location, at Universal CityWalk in Los Angeles. Traveling there was the first time Bonds had ever been on an airplane.
It wasn’t his first brush with Hollywood, however. Two years earlier, in 1992, the production crew filming “The Firm” witnessed the Flippers in action during a night out at B.B. King’s. Shortly thereafter, Bonds was flipping alongside Cruise down Beale Street for a scene in the movie.
Rod Bonds and Tom Cruise during the filming of The Firm in 1992. (Courtesy Rollin Riggs)“He was a star wherever he went,” Peters said. “He has natural charisma, and Rod’s always been a good person. He’s always been a natural leader. Two of the Beale Street Flippers were younger brothers of his, but they all looked up to Rod. He was a business person, and he knew how to maximize income, whether it’s on Beale Street in the different establishments or really organizing the Flippers.”
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The Flippers continued their arrangement with B.B. King’s for the rest of the decade, and the success of the club played a key role in the revitalization of Beale Street and the surrounding area. By the end of the 1990s, the Vancouver Grizzlies were preparing to relocate to Memphis. And a meeting between Bonds and a marketing executive would soon make the Flippers one of the Grizzlies’ original entertainment acts.
Larry Robinson couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Robinson, who worked in pharmaceutical sales and marketing at the time, was sitting in Peters’ office discussing business when Rod, and his younger brother Eldridge (who goes by “Bulla”) walked in. Robinson was relatively new to the Memphis area and had never seen the Beale Street Flippers perform. The conversation shifted to the Flippers. Rod started doing no-hands flips in place.
Robinson soon returned to Beale Street to watch the Flippers perform. He was shocked to learn they were only making money from tips and didn’t even have a formal manager. Robinson saw an opportunity.
“I said, ‘The world needs to see you guys,’” Robinson recalled. “This is bigger than Beale Street.”
Robinson, who owned a marketing company, returned to Peters’ office a week later with a contract — and the Flippers officially had an agent. Robinson wanted to turn the Beale Street Flippers into a national brand and believed that performing at an NBA arena was the ideal way to develop that brand.
“My background in marketing and advertising made me want to create something that people could grab hold to and really see and be amazed by, which was the amazement that I had just seeing them for the first time,” Robinson said. “So that was the goal, because I said, ‘Shoot, if they can flip on bricks, I know they can flip on hardwood. I know for a fact they can flip on hardwood. And if they fall, it’s probably going to be a whole lot softer.’”
The initial challenge was convincing people that they were a legit act. The Flippers — who at this point consisted of Rod, his brothers Tommie and Bulla, and three of their friends from the neighborhood — were a little “rough around the edges,” in Robinson’s words. But they were talented, and professionalism was never an issue.
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“They were all great kids,” Robinson said. “They just were in impoverished situations. Them boys were some awesome kids, man. They had just been dealt a shitty hand from the standpoint of … having to live in poverty.
“‘Just think of an urban Cirque Du Soleil,’ is what I used to say to people to try to get them to understand. They’re urban acrobats. They flip.”
He started with the Grizzlies, who were set to relocate to Memphis later that year. John Pugliese, the franchise’s longtime vice president of marketing communications and broadcast, went to B.B. King’s to watch the group perform in person. He was impressed and signed them to flip at halftime of a game.
The Flippers’ first performance at The Pyramid — the Grizzlies’ first home in Memphis — was in October 2001 for the team’s third preseason game.
“People really resonated with it, and that’s the first time we realized that this is authentic Memphis entertainment,” Pugliese said. “We couldn’t be more proud to showcase them on the platform we had.”
Robinson also connected the Flippers with Nike through his friendship with Willie Gregory, a longtime Memphis-based Nike executive who is currently the company’s Director of Global Community Impact. And while the Flippers were in Beaverton, Ore., to secure the sponsorship, Robinson reached out to the Portland Trail Blazers to set up a halftime performance.
“The word went around the NBA like wildfire about this new halftime act,” Robinson said. “Ultimately I just kept sending out (tapes) for all the different game operators and everything across the country. We got a call here. We got a call there.”
All was not well, however, with the Flippers. Despite its growing visibility, the group was not generating enough revenue to support all of its members. In December 2001, Bonds, who recently had become a father, dropped out of high school and joined the Harlem Globetrotters for a three-month tour.
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“When I got the call from the Globetrotters, first thing I said is, ‘I’m hungry,’” said Bonds. “I took the job from the Globetrotters and didn’t go back to school. I’m 18 in 11th grade. I didn’t go back to school because I got tired of going to school hungry. I jumped on a plane with the Globetrotters.”
Jeff Munn, the executive vice president of the Globetrotters, has fond memories of Bonds, who also performed as the team’s mascot, Globie.
“Being a professional mascot takes a tremendous amount of talent,” Munn said. “He brought a skill set that was comparable to many of the professional mascots out there. He did an admirable job for his first time being a mascot. If he would’ve stuck with that, he would’ve been the best mascot out there, in my opinion. He was that talented.”
The Beale Street Flippers have performed during halftime at Grizzlies games dating back to 2001, the team’s first season in Memphis. (Joe Murphy / NBAE / Getty Images)As Bonds traveled with the Globetrotters and embraced his new life on the road, he began to grow resentful of Robinson. There was a misunderstanding over Bonds’ contract; he was under the impression he would continue to be paid by the Flippers while he toured with the Globetrotters. That wasn’t the case.
Bonds also didn’t see any of the Nike money until he rejoined the Flippers. And he realized they weren’t earning much more money performing across the country than they did flipping for tips on Beale.
“Once we started traveling with Larry Robinson, we started experiencing different things as far as flying on the planes, having limousines picking us up from school and from the house,” said Bulla, who took over as the lead Flipper while Rod was with the Globetrotters. “Our lifestyles pretty much changed. Money-wise, it did not, because with the money, we didn’t know what we was getting total for a show. So our job was just to flip, and that’s what we did.”
Rod hired an attorney and sued Robinson for lost wages, but the suit didn’t go anywhere. In 2003, Robinson and the Flippers parted ways.
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Robinson denies any wrongdoing. He maintains that outside of appearance fees, the group didn’t make much additional money despite performing around the country.
“I don’t want to take anything away from what (Rod) has done and what he’s been able to create,” Robinson said. “I just happened to be in the right place. God blessed me to be in the right place to help them put some structure to it. That’s it as far as I’m concerned. I defer all the creativity of putting this group of guys together and all of that stuff — I defer all that to him because I think he’s one of the most amazing showmen that Memphis has probably ever seen.”
After three years of construction, FedExForum opened on Sept. 6, 2004. The grassy field that once served as a safe haven for the Flippers was now home to the Grizzlies’ $250 million arena. And fittingly, the Flippers were booked to perform at an event to celebrate the building’s grand opening.
Bonds will never forget that day — for a different reason, however. On the way home from the peformance, he stopped to talk with a friend from high school. There was a disagreement with a friend of his friend, and Bonds was shot in his hip. The bullet was never removed.
He still flipped for several years, but the effects of the wound gradually slowed him down. Bonds says he doesn’t know why the bullet wasn’t removed and he’s never asked. He retired in 2009.
His brothers started to pick up the slack, with Tommie replacing Rod as the lead flipper. Later that year, Tommie and three other flippers — Jessie Williams, Keviorr Taylor and Ernest Simms — advanced to the semifinal round on “America’s Got Talent.”
Bonds may not flip anymore, but he’s still the mastermind of the group. And the Flippers continue to provide a mostly safe haven for young boys from impoverished parts of town.
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“He’s doing a lot of good things,” Jon Shivers, director of Beale Street Management, said. “Rarecas is doing a lot of good things as far as trying to help kids get another avenue, to get them out of trouble or give them an activity to do where they’re not causing trouble or getting them out here and teaching them a skill and bringing them around the world.”
Not everyone, however, has been able to avoid the perils of life on the street.
In September 2018, Williams was killed in a shooting at an apartment complex in South Memphis that also claimed two other lives. Williams had been with the Flippers in various capacities for 20 years, and his death devastated the group.
“That was our brother, man,” Bonds said. “He’s one of the helpers of the organization. He did a lot of things for the organization.”
Bonds realizes he can only do so much to keep these kids — and young men — out of danger.
“All I can do is lead you to the point that got me successful,” he said. “Anything you do behind it is on you. But Beale Street Flippers are always there. Doesn’t matter if you’re down, or what. You can always come to the Beale Street Flippers.”
That, of course, was the case before the COVID-19 pandemic paralyzed the nation. The Flippers, like most entertainers in Memphis and around the country, are in limbo. They had five shows planned between March and early April that have been canceled. Between corporate gigs and halftime performances — both at NBA and college games — Riggs estimates the Flippers average about 60 shows per year. They’ll only do a fraction of that in 2020.
And there are also no tourists to flip for on Beale Street, which can pack up to 10,000 people on its busiest nights. Now, it’s completely empty.
“I’m not faulting the bars for closing on Beale Street at all. It’s definitely the right thing to do,” Riggs said. “And honestly they might’ve waited too long to do it. At the same time, it becomes very personal to these guys and their ability to survive, just to make a living. These are guys who come from the poorest corners of our city. They had a really tough upbringing, and they made something of themselves, and here it’s just been completely ripped away. And they’re not really in a good position to get other jobs elsewhere.”
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At their core, the Flippers are an entertainment act. But Bonds wants more. He dreams of having a building that can provide a number of services for the members — tutoring, daycare, money-management classes, nutrition. He takes in kids who don’t have homes, kids who have dropped out of school and are at-risk. He’s been doing it for 30 years, and he’s planning for the next 30.
Justin Timberlake has a key to the city. Where is Rod’s key?
“That’s why I say the city can do more,” he said. “They’re knocking down a lot of buildings. Why not give them to us? How many parks do we need? Give us the parks. If I can teach some of these kids, I can teach hundreds. Instead of teaching 10 to 20, I can teach hundreds.”
(Photo of Rod Bonds: Courtesy of Rollin Riggs)
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