Effie White meets Effie White when Jennifer Hudson and Jenifer Lewis sing together.
Ahead of Lewis’ appearance on the Tuesday (May 12) episode of Hudson’s eponymous talk show, Billboard has an exclusive preview clip from The Jennifer Hudson Show of the two singers delivering audience members a powerful duet.
“Now Jenifer, the last time you were here we sang a little bit, and we had a good little time,” Hudson begins. Lewis interrupts Hudson to share that when she got out of college and moved to New York, she replaced Tony Award-winner Jennifer Holliday in the workshop production of Dreamgirls before the show transferred to Broadway.
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“I’m telling y’all right now, I could sing my ‘a’ off back then,” Lewis says. “But nobody could sing like Jennifer Holliday. Of course, she took it to Broadway.”
Lewis continues, “It was Jenifer Lewis that developed the role of Effie. Jennifer Holliday took it Broadway. And Jennifer Hudson did the movie. That’s a lot of ‘Jennifer’ going on.”
Lewis then says to Hudson — who won an Oscar for playing Effie White in the 2006 film adaptation — that they will sing together and that she has a suggestion for what song they should perform. Naturally she picks a Dreamgirls song: “I Am Changing.”
“I want y’all to know, and this is true, I haven’t sung this song since I was 19 years old,” Lewis, who is now 69, says to the audience as the opening notes of the track begin to play and before Hudson begins the duet. The two powerhouse vocalists go back and forth with the song before standing up from their seats and holding onto one another as their voices blend together for the epic conclusion. Lewis and Hudson end their performance with a huge embrace and exchanges of “I love you.”
“I got to sing with Jenifer Lewis, yo!” Hudson excitedly exclaims to the audience. “I’m living a dream right now.”
Watch Lewis and Hudson duet on “I Am Changing” from Dreamgirls below.
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