00:00:00 Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. 00:00:08 Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme. I'm Questo, your host. We have Team Supreme with us right of them. Now, Now what's up? 00:00:19 Speaker 1: Steve? I never go to you first. How's your life? That's how your life is? Is that a word? What you know? Everything's great, man, New York City. We're opening up, got a full audience, talent show. Everything feels good. Mentally, I'm a wreck. Thanks for asking. Let's me okay, we're gonna find out why you Maybe you can get a reading from our guest today that yeah, that'd be great. Fan Tikolo is also here with us. What's going on, bro? 00:00:55 Speaker 3: I'm good, Bro, I'm good Man down twenty three pounds, man, that louderday I usually am. 00:01:03 Speaker 4: Okay, I'll try. 00:01:06 Speaker 1: Was all right if she couldn't. I appreciate the enthusiasm. No, man, you inspired me. Man, that's what's up? Man, That is what's up? Because counting. Yeah, I was about to say that I'm the king of like you know, doing zero to one hundred on the auto bond and then when you just gotta do that like that last thirty you start laxing off. 00:01:31 Speaker 2: So yeah, right now I'm drinking and eating dandylions and other eat those. 00:01:39 Speaker 4: Yos are so bits and horrible, but you do eat them too, Jina. I tried. I tried. 00:01:48 Speaker 5: They make wine out of dandelions. 00:01:49 Speaker 2: If you do two weeks of this dandylion juice that I'm doing, that's that I could probably drop like forty pounds everybody. 00:01:58 Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just trying to get to Yeah, you will to live exactly, all right? Last cool, She's rather disgusted by. 00:02:11 Speaker 6: No, I'm excited. I'm excited to have Gina or I'm excited. Happy tunesday to you, Gena. You pay to post the video yet. 00:02:17 Speaker 7: But I'm late. 00:02:19 Speaker 4: Today on back to back zoom meeting today, I've not had a chance to do my tunes on Tuesday. 00:02:25 Speaker 1: All right. So that leads to our guests. Our guest today hails. 00:02:30 Speaker 2: From my hometown of London, England. I never I never passed of a opportunity to speak on my little three years in London, and I just claim it like it's been my my, my, my city of birth. She is a raw and hilarious British comedian with uh a Nigerian lineage, which isn't too far from my people's in Benin. But you know, I'll clean next door neighbor. She's also in addition to being a hilarious comedian, she's one of the co creators of the CBS smash Bob Hart's Abashola. I always thought it was Bob Loves the Apashola, but of course it's Bob right exactly. And if you've seen her work, you know that her life is an absolute open book. Speaking of which, her memoir, penned during the pandemic, I believe, is titled cock Candate, which cock co. I was hoping that cock cat candidate. Forgive me, yes, no, this ain't on video, so we gotta still no cat candidate, which yeah, let's hear for the lefties in the house. I'm also a lefty, so we special. 00:03:50 Speaker 1: You know. 00:03:50 Speaker 2: She shares her life and her experiences and her relationship with her family, the total open book. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to quest Love Supreme Gina yash I. 00:04:00 Speaker 4: Hope perfect, thank you. I was waiting, I was waiting with breath for the name. 00:04:07 Speaker 1: I was like, it's easy, You're you're, You're hooray with a yeah. 00:04:14 Speaker 4: Exactly. 00:04:15 Speaker 1: You're you're a comedian, hooray. 00:04:18 Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, I'm stretching that, but everyone has done very different variations of how to pronounce your last name. 00:04:26 Speaker 4: Oh God, I get your share a lot. I'm like, no, no, it's Nigerian. Yes, you almost have to shout my name. 00:04:33 Speaker 1: Okay, yes, aa, Okay, I get it now. 00:04:37 Speaker 5: You know. 00:04:37 Speaker 2: I'm so glad you're here because you know I've been I've been a fan of your work. You know, I've seen all all three of your specials, well three and a half specials on Netflix at least, very familiar with you. But you know, I never We've never gotten a chance to talk or I know. 00:04:54 Speaker 4: I've seen you. I've walked past you on planes and. 00:04:57 Speaker 1: Gone hi, oh so we we We've been okay, a. 00:05:03 Speaker 4: Flame once tight and I didn't want to make a big deal. You should have said something inconspicuous like I don't want to No. 00:05:13 Speaker 2: I call that a Tuesday me and conspicuous. I don't know, so you were okay, So I'm I'm glad you're here simply because knowing how open you are about uh, your life living in London and growing up there, and your experiences, which of course as an outsider with me, I didn't get to see those things. And of course also in the pandemic taking a crash course on Small Acts. 00:05:45 Speaker 1: Which is. 00:05:47 Speaker 2: You know, Steve McQueen's series, I was like, Wow, did I did I ever live in London? Because I didn't realize that these experiences were going on over there as well. Like mine was slightly different because we were just a band trying to get our next gig, so you know, we very rarely did we get to truly like mingle with people that didn't have to deal with like work or interviews or that sort of thing. So hey, talk talk to me about your experiences living in London. Like I assume that everything that you speak on in your life is true. 00:06:28 Speaker 4: So I was born in London, East London, bethnal Green. I am a Cockney by birth, like proper okay, geezer geezer. So I was born in East London. I'm a child of the seventies, child the seventies and eighties, and England was super racist when my parents came to England in the sixties, super racist. That's when they had you know, when people used to put signs on their doors. No dogs, no blacks, no Irish. So when you're going to rent a place, you know you don't you don't even need to bother ring that doorbell if it's got that sign on the door. So this is what my mum and dad faced in England in the sixties it was openly racist, and seventies and eighties not much different. This was the time when the National Front were prevalent. National Front was very far right organization in England. They tried to sort of style themselves a political party, but they were just a bunch of thugs and their graffiti was ubiquitous. It was all over London f n F n F and yeah, I remember being changed and spot by skin heads a lot when I was a kid, like eight years old. I remember eight years old being spat on by skinhead. I remember me and my mum walking down the street and people shouting fits out the cars and swerving into puddles and splashing us. So that was London. That was the Americans view of the British being so genteel and polite. 00:07:46 Speaker 1: It's absolutely now what we know. 00:07:48 Speaker 3: Listen, when I went to London, and that's how your niggas eating beans for breakfast. 00:07:52 Speaker 1: I understood how y'all used to rule the world. That's no, you're not doing that. 00:07:59 Speaker 4: Had to eat beans, is supposed pudding beans on toast is the best thing on that. 00:08:06 Speaker 1: That's some savage ship. 00:08:07 Speaker 6: Are you Are you really about to say that is English food better than Nigerian food? 00:08:14 Speaker 4: Food is the best? Come on right, come on now? Everything came from us night? Are you watching high on honk? 00:08:23 Speaker 2: So you're saying that you ride for all English things like marrowmite sandwiches and. 00:08:29 Speaker 4: I hate mam no being toast. Yes, bubbs and mash mash. I love a bit of bangers and mash. You can't feed it, but some of it not. So I don't do the black pudding. 00:08:42 Speaker 1: I was going to ask. 00:08:44 Speaker 4: Audience, latinous pig blood Philly close. 00:08:49 Speaker 1: Eyes, wait time out. 00:08:51 Speaker 2: I didn't wait all all these years that I've been having. 00:08:54 Speaker 1: Uh, I'll usually have the black pudding. 00:08:57 Speaker 2: They'll serve that when we're on like a fairy coming from like Europe headed to the UK, and they will have like black pudding as breakfast. 00:09:08 Speaker 1: You're telling me there's blood in that. 00:09:10 Speaker 4: It's made from pigs blood. 00:09:13 Speaker 1: I did not know that anyway, You're not going to make a comic moment out this, Like have you seen how much I weigh? What do you think I'm being? 00:09:22 Speaker 3: Man? 00:09:22 Speaker 1: Just talk about drinking dandelion juice. I don't think. 00:09:27 Speaker 4: From the chops are delicious. It's blood. Just the blood. Yeah, black pudding, it's made from blood. It's close. 00:09:34 Speaker 2: And as we were explaining earlier that you know in America, I think like the beans, the beans that are source associated with pork and beans or hot dogs and porking beans are kind of an afternoon evening dish, whereas in England and that's. 00:09:50 Speaker 4: A breakfast breakfast bean eggs and beans, chips, eggs, beans, eggs, beans, sausages, that's a proper breakfast. When I first came to America and I'm like, where's the beans? Where's the beans? 00:10:01 Speaker 6: I mean, Mexico doesn't Mexico does it in l A. But it tastes way better. I think probably, yeah, But. 00:10:12 Speaker 3: I ain't got that. When Gina Yashid, I can't. I can't right the bankers and mass I can do the bankers of mass I could. 00:10:18 Speaker 4: Put the beans on trumpet makes the difference. God, beans have no idea, no don't know, don't know. 00:10:28 Speaker 2: Gina, I'm gonna tell you this much. I miss I miss touring so much. I'm actually I'm actually gonna side on your your your side of the fence this time around. 00:10:42 Speaker 1: Normally I'd be with them. 00:10:44 Speaker 6: Okay, Wait, can I ask the question though, because even though Gina is born and raised in London, her mother is not, and so I must think that your mother does not feel the same way about this English food. 00:10:55 Speaker 5: And on the. 00:10:56 Speaker 6: Back of that question, can you also break down like how dope and royal of a situation your mother came to to come and they came to London and it was a flip of the switch. 00:11:05 Speaker 4: Oh yeah, For one, my mom loves a bit of bait beans. Don't even knock it. My mom is full Nigeria now. She loves Nigerian food. Like when we were kids, we ate Nigerian foods in the house. But my mom loved mashed potatoes and my mom loved baked beans. So it was the dichotomy. But yeah, yeah, my mom was from a wealthy way well on her family. My mom's from a family called the Abasaki family and they are practically royalty in Nigeria. And my mom was from a wealthy family. Her dad had a load of wives. She was educated. Her dad traveled all over the world on business and he took her with him and she went to private school and she was a school principal in Nigeria before she was twenty four years old. So she was very you know, she did yeah, she was very She achieved a lot and then she came to England. Did before. 00:11:54 Speaker 1: Why did she come to England? 00:11:55 Speaker 4: Well, long story short. If you read money book that's coming here, that's how you know that. My my mother was the daughter of the first wife. So my grandfather had many wives. As you know, polygamy was why I practiced in Nigeria. 00:12:09 Speaker 1: Tell me about it. 00:12:10 Speaker 4: Oh yeah, lots of wives, lots of friend and lots of wives. And my daughter, my mum was the daughter of the first wife. But the first wife was very powerful as the first wife is as the first the other wives were very jealous and there was the other wives murdered my grandmother. 00:12:29 Speaker 2: They put you, oh yeah, well we never get into the beginning this throne ship. 00:12:36 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for real. 00:12:39 Speaker 4: So yeah, the other wives did not my mother. My grandmother was like, listen, the other wives don't like me. These bitches are trying to kill me. If anything happens to me, get my daughter out of Nigeria. So she ended up dying. She was poisoned and when she died, she had a mark on her throat. Now, before my grandmother died, she always used to say when I come back, when I come back, I'm going to I'm going to speak English. I'm going to be in England. I'm not going to have all these children because my mother, my grandmother, had eleven kids and I don't want to all these children. I'm going to do a man's job. I'm going to have freedom, all everything. When she died from a poison she had a mark on her throat. Obviously, when she died, my grandfather sent my mom out of the country because who's like, world, I've killed the wife. I'm not going to have them kill my daughter to so he sent my mom to England to study and that is where my mom met my dad. They met each other, they had me, and I came out with this mark on my float. So basically, I'm a reincarnation of my grandmother. So that that's the story. Because Nigeras believe heavily in the incarnation and I came out doing all the things that my grandmother said. Ful I fulfilled everything. So when I said my mo, mom was like comedian, you want to become a clown. I was like, mom, remember this is what your mother wanted. I am your mother. That's how I get away with her. But yeah, my mom. So that's how my mother ended up in England studying and she was a teacher. She came to England. She wanted to carry on working as a teacher, for England was super racist. She couldn't. My dad. She met my dad. My dad was studying for his PhD. He was and he was also a qualified lawyer. They could he couldn't get work as a lawyer in England. So basically they met, they got married, they had us, and then my dad was like, forget this, I want to go back to Nigeria. This is not I am driving a bus when I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer in Nigeria. I'm not staying here to drive a bus. Let's get the kids, let's go. And my mom was like, no, I've had my children in England. They are British. I want them to stay in England and be afforded all the opportunities that being British entails. I'm staying here with my kids. So basically my mom and dad. My dad went back to Nigeria when I was three and I didn't see him again till I was thirty seven when I went out there to do a show in Nigeria. So that was it. 00:14:51 Speaker 1: Wait, you met your father backstage at a show. 00:14:54 Speaker 4: He came to my show. So at that point I was pretty well known in England and pretty well known in Nigeria. Done a couple of sketches on television in England that had gone viral in Nigeria. So I got flown out to Nigeria to do a show. And obviously I still carry my father's name, so my father was like when I was going, my mom was like, oh, your father is going to turn up you watch, it's going to. 00:15:16 Speaker 1: Claim you. 00:15:16 Speaker 4: And he did. He turned out for the show with a bunch of brothers and sisters I'd never met. So it was it was, It's all in the book. It's all in the book, people, it is. 00:15:25 Speaker 6: And also in the book, I remember I want to tell people too. You give a good history on the Empire of Benin and whatnot. 00:15:30 Speaker 5: I was like, oh wow, I had no idea, so can you. 00:15:33 Speaker 2: Can you briefly let me know about I just recently found out my lineage to Benin like this a year ago, and. 00:15:41 Speaker 4: The inn the country next to Nigeria or been in the city in Nigeria. I've been in this because there's two minutes there's been in city in Nigeria, which is where my family is from. And then there's been in the country which is next to Nigeria where they speak French. Yeah, so are you. But if they say Banina your I'm assuming it's been in the country. 00:16:02 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:16:02 Speaker 2: I believe that it was the country simply because when there was a civil war happening, the Nigerians had some beneath prisoners that they used as leverage to negotiate. My great great grandfathers was one of. 00:16:21 Speaker 1: Those, uh those captured and sold in the slavery in America. So the country, Yeah, it's. 00:16:28 Speaker 4: Definitely the country then in yes, but yeah. I opened my book with history of Nigeria and within Nigeria which is now Southern Nigerian where my family was from, and and how advanced the society was, and how the British came and tried to take and they got their asses handed to them by the Bnin warriors. And then they came back and burnt Been into the ground and stole all those bronzes. And hence while you've got all these bien In bronzes in museums in New York and around the world, because the British came, burned down, stole all the bronzes and sold the bronzes to pay for the army they've used to burn down Been in. 00:17:09 Speaker 1: The British have done to the world. 00:17:10 Speaker 4: Man Jesus like, yeah, exactly, when you guys go, oh Britain is so polite and genteel, it's no, it is they are straight savages. 00:17:20 Speaker 5: Well and also not for nothing. 00:17:22 Speaker 6: Nigerians usually act like ain't nobody come and mess with them at all, So this history is not always told in that aspect. It's like anybody comes, try to colonize us. We got no, We're good, Oh no, we were. 00:17:32 Speaker 4: We only got our independence. Now, you only got air independence in nineteen sixty and nineteen sixty. We got our independence, and even then the economy was completely messed up after that because the white people came out and took everything with them and they've already raked it of all the resources, all the oil, all the everything. And then there was a lot of money in oil for a while, but it all collapsed. It all collapsed. The school systems was based on the British school SYSM. The you know, they took away the element that Nigerians were all about. Africans were all about family and learning trades and passing down stuff within the family, and the British came and went, now, I don't forget about family stuff. That capitalism. It's all about capitalism. You learned to get these qualifications and then like it. And so they completely changed the way that Nigerians worked and it's just ruined, in my opinion, ruined the country. Now you've got a few greedy people just creaming everything off there. Just so that's the history. 00:18:29 Speaker 5: He at least you know yours. You don't have to go to Africa ancestry right somewhere. 00:18:33 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah. 00:18:37 Speaker 1: When you were speaking of your family earlier, are you. 00:18:41 Speaker 2: In an active kind of communication with them now, Like, how does the idea of family reunion work? 00:18:49 Speaker 4: Or well, my dad's my dad died a few years ago. That side the family, you know, he wasn't there for me, you know, when I went to Nigeria, and I was very polite to him because he you know, he's the other half of my genetic tree, and I was very you know, I'm Nigerian, so I was brought up to respect my eldest So when I met him, I'm not going to go mother, you I ain't seen the hilst. I wasn't gonna do that, So I was very polite. We sat, I told him to dinner. We talked. I asked him all the questions that I'd had from my childhood, like why didn't you come back for us? Why? And he had a stack of letters that he'd been sending to us as kids that had all been returned because my mother was like get out of here because she he broke her heart. 00:19:30 Speaker 1: You know. 00:19:31 Speaker 4: My mother was pregnant with my younger brother when my dad left. So imagine in England in the seventies, given birth. 00:19:39 Speaker 1: By herself as a single mom. 00:19:41 Speaker 4: As a single mom in the seventies in England where she had no family, nobody, and she and I was I had another brother, so it was me and my other brother were toddlers at the time, and she was given birth to my youngest brother. So me and my brother had to go into foster care temporarily while she went into the hospital to have this baby because she had nobody, so we went into care. You know, she got a wife, I need to look after us while she went to hospital to have this baby. So my mother never forgave my father for that. Can you imagine being in the hospital all these all these women, all their husbands are coming in with flowers for their wives who've had these babies, and she's lying there by herself with absolutely nobody. So she never forgave them, never forgave them. So as a result, I kind of you know, I'm not going to say I hated him, but I was like, look, you you abandoned. That's you know. I went through life with a horrible stepfather, horrible as you never came for us. So I give you your due respect as my father figure, but that's all you're getting. So I met him the once and after that I was like, all right, I've met him. That was great. I took a few tears, that's all I need. So, you know, when he died, these other kids that came, you know, are you coming through the funeral and I'm like, no, I am sorry for your loss. He was a father to you, and I'm sorry for your last part. I did not know the man, so no, I'm not coming for the funeral. 00:21:04 Speaker 5: What about your mother's big family. 00:21:06 Speaker 4: Oh, my mother's side of the family. Yeah, not the wives who killed her mother. I didn't know any of those, but I've met many of my uncles, her sisters. Yeah, a lot of them came. A couple of them came to England. So my mother's side of the family good, all her friends. Yeah, that's that's who I rock with. 00:21:23 Speaker 2: Okay sounds Hey can you Okay? I'm glad you're on the show. To also clear up this this conception because Americans have a different especially Black Americans, we have this different. 00:21:37 Speaker 1: Idea of who Nigerians are coming from. This a I'll be real with it. 00:21:46 Speaker 6: Listen, not in DC, not in Houston, and not in Atlanta. But yes, outside of DC, Houston and Atlanta. 00:21:52 Speaker 1: D I know. 00:21:53 Speaker 2: But it's almost like a crazy stereotype that we never get to dispel that myth because we rarely have Nigerian guests on the shelves. 00:22:00 Speaker 4: What's just what's the stereotime? 00:22:02 Speaker 2: But no, just basically like the ideas Nigerian scam artists that there's some visible scam artists that we I. 00:22:09 Speaker 4: Mean, we are really good at that ship. I mean, I can't even. 00:22:12 Speaker 1: Love Oh damn. I'm trying to get you to wipe it off the table. 00:22:18 Speaker 4: Nigerians are very smart and very resourceful. And if you're stupid enough to fall for some many scams and give them your money, then I went. 00:22:27 Speaker 1: To Nigeria sixteen. I was sixteen. 00:22:32 Speaker 4: Look it is going on. I went to Nigeria and when I went to lakes, I saw houses with signs on the houses it said this house is not for sale. They had signs on the houses because what was happening. People were going on the internet and selling other people's houses, so selling houses that don't belong to them. So you're in the house and people don't GI. Yeah, and if people knock on the door, excuse me what you did in my house? I just bought this house. Like no, but this is mass But this is what. 00:22:59 Speaker 6: Was hay right scam here, Gina, are you aware that Nigeria's brought that scam here? 00:23:03 Speaker 5: And there's a scam like. 00:23:04 Speaker 6: All over your Craigslist, your favorite apartment search, you see a beautiful house and the the price doesn't look believable, and then you call and they tell you to drive by and look at it from the outside, and they give you a long story about how somebody lost their job and somebody died. 00:23:16 Speaker 1: And you fell for. 00:23:21 Speaker 5: I didn't fall fall. I just got to the park where you drive past the house. 00:23:24 Speaker 4: I remember someone. All the scams are out there. I remember someone. I was selling a phone years ago on was it email or something? I was selling a phone this how long ago it was? It was on email selling the phone and this Nigerian send me an email and listen. I think I want three hundred for the phone or something. And this guy was like, I will give you seven hundred. I'll give you send just send me the phone and I will send you a Western Union. And I emailed him back and I was like, did you look up my name? My name? You are trying to scam another Nigerian. Don't even don't even. 00:23:59 Speaker 5: Try now, Gina. 00:24:01 Speaker 6: Is the scamming pure Nigerian or is it tribals because some may say there's certain tribes are more scamming to others or not. 00:24:09 Speaker 4: I don't know about that. I just think it's just Look, I'm not saying all Nigenes. It's a small percentage of Nigerians are doing this. It's not all Nigeens. I can't do that ship. I don't even know how to. I would love to learn, but no, Note it's a small percentage. It's been blown up out of proportion to make it look like every Nigerian is scamming. There's a small percentage of who are really really good at it. But I trust it's a base small number. I don't know which tribe it is. I don't know. 00:24:37 Speaker 1: I'm glad you clear that up. 00:24:40 Speaker 4: I didn't. I didn't clear that up. But you know what, honestly, it's all about honesty. People were doing honesty something that. 00:24:48 Speaker 1: Well, honestly, I gotta I gotta go. I gotta cancel this check I just sent out. 00:24:59 Speaker 2: You know, could you tell us about creatively, what was your like life like growing up in Britain and the time period, like your formative years, like ten eleven twelve, like your school existence or just like what did you generally do and during that time period. 00:25:19 Speaker 4: Well, same as every other kid, did try to just play, do my school work, and it was a struggle being an African kid, it was not cool at the time. And even though I say England was racist, it wasn't white kids I was fighting with at school. It was other black kids, the descendants of slaves from the Caribbean, African Caribbean kids, you know, because it is that they got the same education that we all got. And in the seventies and eighties, the view of Africans, the only image of Africans on TV was either are sitting there with flies landing on our face, begging for food donations, or in Tarzan movies chasing white men around in trying to and cook them in parts were bones in our noses. So we were seen as primitive and heaths and an animalistic and that was what the image of Africans was at the time. So as an African kid at school, I would put up with you guys. In America it was African booty, sclatchert in in England it was African booball, spear chucker, all of that stuff, And it was it was black kids call that because the British were so good at hiding their their what you know, because this has been you don't know about the British. The Europeans were the biggest slavers, biggest. Belgians were disgusting. The Dutch were discussed. Belgian England was number one. The British Empire, they were number one. They just hid it better. Like I used to do this routine when I say that the Americans did the equivalent of stealing ship, as in stealing people and bringing it back to their own house, whereas the Brits stole but kept it in other people's houses. So they Yeah, so they went to Africa, they took they stole people, but they didn't bring them all back to England. They put them on you know, their colonies in the Caribbean. Yeah, barbade Us in kids, Jamaica. All of those people are descendants of slaves, all the black people from the islands. But they did not educate the black people from the islands as to where they came from. They just assumed that they were from the islands, that there was a there are black people from Africa and there are black people from the islands. They didn't know. So I had so many fights to school with kids who'll be calling me names. I go and I go fuck. Do not know that your africantinue you came from. Ain't no African. I'm a Jamaican. I haint no primitive. I don't run around with doult bones in my I used to get that school and it wasn't until roots came out in England that they went. My gods, because they didn't. They were not educated. It's not their fault, they were not educated. The school system did not educate us to tell us that all black people okay from Africa. They didn't know it. So at school I went for a horrible time with other black kids just calling me names. I was constantly getting into fight to school, and that's where I started using humor because I was getting into too much trouble because I was to make myself into the crazy kid. Don't mess because she will punctu your face tall, big, small, you know, I would just I would fight. I'd be ready to fight, to shout so that I wouldn't get bullied. I will fight any of you. Don't even I will fight you. So then I started using humor to kind of circumvent those, you know, those confrontations. 00:28:27 Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so it's weird to hear you say that, because in my mind, I thought that type of ignorance was just for America because yeah, like I also you know, had experience like that in the mid seventies or whatever, like the the the worst insult you could say, like on the on the playground or whatever on recess to call someone African, Like that's when it's like, yo, I'm ready to fuck you up. 00:28:57 Speaker 1: Yeah, you say that to me again. 00:28:59 Speaker 2: But you know to hear that this also is happening with African kids over it's white supremacy. 00:29:07 Speaker 4: Oh my god, white supremacy. They indoctrinated the entire planet. I mean, it's genius what they did when you think about it, generation people knocking out. 00:29:20 Speaker 6: I'm sorry, I'm also dying because I do another podcast with Jill Scott and Asia from Kindred, and Asia always says, the root of everything that has to go on with black people is white supremacy. 00:29:29 Speaker 7: So it's just like word, absolutely the genius that not even the fact that they subjugated us, that they convinced us that we were less than and generations later, hundreds of years later. 00:29:44 Speaker 4: We still believe that we are less than we still did. Hence you have all the you know, African Americans hate Africans Africa. Haitians hate this to try. Everything stems from that. The religion that was forced upon us to have us believe even in a white Jesus and a white God. The religion is forced upon the homophobia that was never existent in African society. We were spiritual, We were spiritual. 00:30:13 Speaker 2: Do you practice Euba? Are you do you practice Euba the religion? 00:30:20 Speaker 1: Or I don't. 00:30:21 Speaker 4: I don't practice any religions. Really, I'm like, I've pulled out from all are you Europa? 00:30:26 Speaker 3: No? 00:30:26 Speaker 4: My family from Benin City. But yeah, like if you look back in history, homophobia was not existent in Africa. It was all about spirits. They you know, there are historical pieces written by white people who came to Africa. 00:30:44 Speaker 6: They came now so now they because somebody literally just told me that Ghana just took down the sign at their airport basically saying don't bring your homosexual don't bring your American homosexuals Christianity. 00:30:55 Speaker 4: Basically the bricks came in and they were like, what are you doing your worshiping these deities, these wooden artifactists. This stuff that you're doing is wrong as disgusting as he them. You will, you will, you will worship this white Jesus, and they built churches, and they took the land to build these churches, and they beat the religion into the people and it's been passed down for generas generations, so they didn't even know where the religion comes from. So the Christianity and all that stuff was not there before. It wasn't met. Now, we worshiped the land, We worship our own deities. We worshiped the spirits within people. So yes, there were men that had more feminine energy, but it was no big deal. There were women who had more masculine energy, but people just were It was all about the spirits of the people. Same thing within the indigenous tribes of every country. You know that they had different genders and they it didn't It was all about the spirit. And some of these people with different genders or different identities were considered more spiritual than some they we went to. They used to go to them for advice and things like that. So this was what it was like before the white missionaries came. Yeah, and they were like, stop all of this, stop all of this. This is heathen, this is animalistic. You will worship our white Jesus. You will go to our churches, and we will give you our education, and if you don't do it, we will kill you. So while we're building your churches, we will take every all your land to build these churches that you did not know you needed and you were worshiping them. And we may sell some of your family, but that's just how it is. We are bringing you civilization, and that's basically what happen. So the religion that you see is bastardized. It's been used by men to subjugate. This is the same religion that was used to justify enslaver and black os. 00:32:42 Speaker 6: Oh yeah, I was about to say, you know, you know all about this same religion. 00:32:46 Speaker 5: Some of us try to act like we need forgot. 00:32:49 Speaker 4: Yeah, So you know, I'm like, this same religion that you're using to beat people over the head because they have this is the same religion that was used to subjugate your people for hundreds of years. This is the same the same colonizes that you claim to reject, but you're not rejecting the bullshit that they taught you. 00:33:07 Speaker 2: You know, when you when you occasionally bring this up in concert, like when you really get real about the effects of racism, knowing that you have a mixed audience, like what's the general reaction and how do you handle it if someone collapse back at you? Because I saw Chappelle try to do this once and it didn't work with his sort of drunk frat boy I'm Rick James bitch audience that was wanting him to just, you know, just be a caricature, and you know he's here to turn Dick Gregory on them. 00:33:38 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean here's the thing. The audience that tends to come to see me know that I just say, well, I'm going to say so if you're coming to see me, you know that you're getting what you're getting. Also, as a comedian, my first port of call is always too entertained. I'm here to make you laugh. I'm not a teacher. I'm not a lecturer. I'm not That's not what I'm here to make you laugh. So that is always my first port of call. You need to be laughing. 00:34:03 Speaker 5: Now. 00:34:03 Speaker 4: If I'm slipping in some politics and slipping in some that's teaching you something. As long as you're laughing, it's all good. So I don't go out there and just got hardly man is the devil. I don't do that I tell stories. I tell stories of experiences from my life because just by virtue of who I am, I am a walking political statement. So I don't have to make a big dealer again I'm black. I'll just tell stories. I'll tell stories about the racist woman on the train who didn't believe that I belonged in first class. I'll tell the stories of being in the first class lounge at the airport and a guy asking me where the eggs are. I would just tell stories. I would tell the stories and they learn from the stories. They're laughing, but they're learning at the same time. And that's how I do it. It's like feeding medicine, but you coat it in sugar, so you don't really know you're taking the medicine. And that's how I tend to do it. As a stand up coming so I don't go. You know, obviously, people still get angry because white people get angry that you got I call them the defensive white people. Ah, the dfws who will get upset with if you just mentioned race, They're going to get upset. And I mean called racist by someone. You're racist, You're racist talking about white people. I'm like, talking about racism does not make you racist. You gotta know the difference. You're defensive, you're just so I'm just like, just get out of my face. But yeah, but an audience who comes to see me know that they're gonna have a good time. They're going to laugh a lot, and they may come out with some knowledge, but really they're coming to enjoy your show. And that's what it's about for me. 00:35:40 Speaker 1: I know that before a life in comedy, you were preparing for life as an engineer. 00:35:48 Speaker 4: I wasn't prepared. I was an engineer. 00:35:51 Speaker 1: I worked right, but I mean, well, yeah, what came first? You're need to make people laugh or you know, I would assume that was it. 00:36:04 Speaker 2: Was it a desire to be this engineer or was it like let me fall back on something. 00:36:09 Speaker 4: No, the desire to make people up, It wasn't a desire. It came out of necessity to avoid fights. I didn't think it was something I could do for a living. 00:36:17 Speaker 1: I just used thatchanism. 00:36:19 Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a defense mechanism. But I come from an African family with very academic so my mom was like, you know, I do a routine on stage where I got there's four choices of career in an African family. Doctor, lawyer, engineer, disgrace to the family. Those are the choices. So I was meant to be the doctor. My mom told me from the age of two that I was going to be a doctor. It was until I was at eighteen and we had to dissect a rat that I discovered I couldn't stand the sight of blood. So I switched from studying to become a doctor to engineering because that was the next on the list. So yeah, I became an engineer. I started, I got my degree in electrical electronics engineering, and I became an engineer, and I enjoyed the work. I enjoyed being I was never going to be the best engineer in the world, though I was. I was okay, I did well, and also I was you know. My last job was working for Otis Building, repairing elevators. His name was Elijah Otis, the man who supposedly invented the elevator, even though he probably had a black person helping them do that as they did. But the guy who is credited with inventing the elevator was a white man. People figures a black guy because the name Otis, but his name was Elijah Otis. It was a white dude. But I worked for Otis Elevator building and repairing elevators that as an engineer, and I was their first female engineer in their one hundred year history in the UK of this company in the UK, And it sounds amazing, but it was not. I worked on construction sites with white men and I was the only woman engineer and a black engineer in that and the same paid word as these people, while being much younger than all of them. I went for a baptism of fire. Like you're on a construction site. There's no HR, there's no one to say, oh, you're not allowed to say it back. I got called the nigga to my face every day at work. I'd come into work and there's pictures and monkeys above my overalls, or there's banana skins in the pockets of my overrules, and they'd be giggling as I'm taking out these banana skins and throwing them away. This this is what I put up with at work every day for four years. Oh yeah, I stuck it out because I had to prove that I could do the job. I had to prove to them that they're not going to scare me out of this that I'm as good as they are. And the more they hated me, the more I came into work because they wanted to drive me away and I was not having it. But in the end I had to pull a guy aside and threaten him with physical violence. I was like, listen, you can call me nigga. I've got two brothers. I was sending these two niggas around your house too. Fuck you up. I know where you live, so that if you call me nigger once more, you're a dead man. And that is it. He never spoke to me again. Damn, work got quiet, but. 00:38:49 Speaker 5: I was helping. I wanted. I wanted them to meet a niggah. 00:38:55 Speaker 4: Yeah, he didn't get to shut his math. He shut his mouth quick, that is quick when I told him my new ways lived and I'll send my brother's around there. So that But that was what I put up with every day at work for years and then the only reason I ended up leaving the job. I was good at the job. That any reason I ended up leaving because I wasn't getting the promotions I was supposed to. Because I was a woman. I was their first woman. They didn't know what to do with me. 00:39:18 Speaker 5: That's great. 00:39:19 Speaker 4: So I'd be like, well, I've done this, I've earned this, I've done this promotion. I've got the promotion, you give it to me on paper, You've given me the money. Now I'm supposed to run my own site because when you get to a certain level, you then manage your own site. And they were like, well, we don't have to the gins is we've done. If the guys are going to listen to a bird, you know what I mean, doesn't think they're they're going to listen to a girl. Given them all theers, So we'll give you the promotion, give you the money, but you can't manage your own site. So I was like, well, then this is not good. I'm going to go to a grievance hearing. So I set up a hearing. My union that I've been paying into for four years, refused to represent me. Union records like, we don't know about this women's stuff, so you're on your own. So I turned up for this ingridians hearing unrepresented by my union. So here I am twenty one year old black girl in a room with these old white men who run who are at the top of the company, and obviously I lost. They were like, yeah, we don't see we're doing anything. Want to get out of here. So in the end, I was like, I'm I at this job. They were you know, in the mid nineties, they were making people with Dundant. The building industry went through a bit of a slump. They were laying people off. They were never going to lay me off because I was their black poster child. But I marched into my manager's office and I was like, you better pay me off and let me go. Al was I going to go public with this shit. So they were like, oh, here's your money, Off you go. And it was in that time that I fell into comedy because I was like, let me take a little bit of time out of engineering, let me have some fun, let me go. 00:40:46 Speaker 1: Do you had a little cushion, Yeah, a little cushion. 00:40:49 Speaker 4: I had the money and had a little apartment with my My rent was cheap. My car was brought cash at this nice little nest egg money. So I lived off that money. And it was in that time that I fell into comedy and just ended up never go back to engineering. 00:41:01 Speaker 1: Around what year was that. 00:41:02 Speaker 4: I'd say ninety I started doing comedy in ninety six. 00:41:05 Speaker 1: So yeah, oh damn okay, yea. 00:41:09 Speaker 5: At the time, who were you laughing at? 00:41:10 Speaker 6: Like? 00:41:11 Speaker 5: Who was making you laugh? 00:41:12 Speaker 4: Funnily enough, I never really watched comedy before I did it. Oh, I'm not one of those comedians that's got an encyclopedic knowledge of comedy. I like to watch my peers. I never watched the l because I tried to watch Richard Prior videos, but but when I came, I'd seen so many cares doing virgins off he stuff. But by the time I saw him, I was like, yeah, like I've seen this, and it sounds horrible to say this publicly, No, that's real. I've never watched it entire which of Brian Special because I felt like i'd seen it because I've seen versions of it so often. 00:41:46 Speaker 3: Yeah, Prior is one of those dudes like I always compare him to Like he's kind of like what Dila, what j. Dillar was to music, in the sense that you're trying to explain him. You had to be there and trying to explain him to people. Now they don't understand it, Like, Yo, before this guy happened, all this shit that y'are rocking to now, like that shit just did not exist, you know what I mean, And it's hard to explain that the people you know. 00:42:08 Speaker 1: And Richard Pryor, he was kind of like that when I. 00:42:10 Speaker 3: Would watch him, you know, all my uncles and should be laughing at him, but I'd be like, huh, you know what I mean. 00:42:15 Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, as my mom's mayble, and I was curious if you ever. 00:42:20 Speaker 4: I mean, I've gone back and researched it, That's what I meant. So I've gone back and got oh moms, But like we didn't have mums. Maybe in England we would not have known who she was. It's only when I moved to America that I started looking at the history of a black comedy in I mean, we had Eddie Murphy obviously in England he was huge. He was a world wide superstar. So I saw raw, you know, we everybody saw that. And then we used to get the VHS tapes of the Deaf comedy jams, so we got that, so we got deaf comedy jamming. England we always to, you know, so when I ended up doing deafth comedy jams, all the black British comics were like, oh my god, do it that. It was the massive thing because we'd all been sleeking and watching the vhs of Deaf Commic. So, but when I came to MCA, that's when I started. You know, Chris Rock. We knew who Chris Rock again, you know we've got. 00:43:06 Speaker 5: All the me came there too. 00:43:07 Speaker 4: Yeah, he came in towards so we knew who Chris Rock was. A Chappelle's show came later on. We we did get Schappelle Show. But I never watch Chappelle Show. I never watched it because it was at that time when I was I don't know when was Schappell Show. 00:43:20 Speaker 1: It was like two thousand and three, so. 00:43:23 Speaker 4: I was already in comedy in England, just hustings. So I never really watched a lot. I never really so I've seen I've never seen all of I've seen clips of the Chappelle Show on the internet, but I never I was not really watching TV like that. I've never even watched the First Prince. I know, I've watched clips of it. I've seen it. I know the show, I know what it's about. I watched the documentary of it, but when it was on, I never actually watched the show. 00:43:47 Speaker 1: Yeah, once she's seen a few clips, you see anymore. I'm playing no, okay. 00:43:53 Speaker 2: So from my observation, you know, when I'm watching people talk about English comedy, of course, Faulty Towers and Monty Python and whatnot. 00:44:07 Speaker 1: What people would you say. 00:44:12 Speaker 4: White English comedy? When I say English comedy, it usually means white people. 00:44:16 Speaker 1: I get it. 00:44:17 Speaker 2: But what were black people holding on to as far as comedy was concerned in the late sixties early seventies, Like, what was Monty Python for black people? 00:44:29 Speaker 1: Not really? 00:44:31 Speaker 4: I didn't give ahit about Monty Python. I never found it. I didn't get it. Was just a bunch of very wealthy, middle class white this is how Monty Python sounded to me. That's all it sounds like to me. I just I never watched it as a kid. I didn't get it, you know, I just didn't get it. 00:44:48 Speaker 1: I didn't get much but Benny Hill. 00:44:51 Speaker 4: But Benny Hill was physical comedy exactly. 00:44:54 Speaker 1: I was a kid watching that, and it was as a kid. 00:44:56 Speaker 4: I wasn't I mean, as a kid. There was a guy called Kenny Ever who who I found hilarious. If you ever look up clips of this guy on YouTube, Kenny Everett hilarious, hilarious. He was funny, and he was who I watched on TV. We had Lenny Henry, who was our black comedian. He was one top black comedian in the UK, so we watched a lot of his staff, a lot of Scared So we had stuff we had, you know, we had a lot of We had TV shows with Caribian actors on it. So we had our shows. But as far as black comics in the sixties, a lot of the black comics in the sixties did very self deprecating humor that was for white audiences. 00:45:35 Speaker 2: You know, they do similar to our minstrel comedy for America, Yeah, very much. So you guys had there was a version of that for the UK as well. 00:45:44 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the. 00:45:44 Speaker 4: Black and White Minstrel Show was a British show. Yeah, it was only in the UK. And then we also had black Yeah, and so Lenny Henry, he was our one black comic and black people looked at him sideways for a long time because he did appear in the minstrual show. But he was a young black comic. There was nothing out there. He was the one and he just did what he was told to do. But yeah, he did appear in the show. So the black people were like for a long time. 00:46:10 Speaker 1: So what year did the mental show stop in the UK? 00:46:14 Speaker 4: Not for a long time. It went on for I didn't I think it stopped. I think it didn't even stop for like the early nights. It went on for a long time. I might exaggerating, but I know it was on for a very long time. It stopped way after it should have stopped. 00:46:32 Speaker 1: Yeah, damn, okay, way it has to sell by day. 00:46:35 Speaker 4: Well, well by way. 00:46:37 Speaker 2: So how does one cut their teeth and navigate through the early structure of trying to be a comedian? 00:46:48 Speaker 1: Like what clubs and like how are you able to do that? And also you know where they open to you being a woman, a black person, how hard was it to sort of rub shoulders? 00:47:03 Speaker 4: And when I started in comedy in the nineties, there had been there was a burgeon in black comedy scene. 00:47:07 Speaker 1: There was a huge you know, it. 00:47:09 Speaker 4: Was very segregated. So we had a black comedy scene which was made up of theaters, black run theaters. There were lots of good underground roots theaters around the country. And there was a promoter called John Simmett who used to put on shows all along and he used to bring over American comics to do our show. It's like I met JB. Smooth twenty five years ago. Ian Edwards, I met all of these guys twenty odd years ago when I was starting out in England. I went to see them at theaters in England in the nineties before they became huge. So this guy, John Simmittt was putting on all these shows. So there was a really good comedy scene. Not in comedy clubs, it was theaters, it was events. The black scene was an event. They put in their face on the fly and people came and got dressed up. It was a big event. So that's where I started doing comedy on the black scene. The white comedy scene was mainly cony clubs and there were a lot of them all over the countries, so you could make the black team paid more money because it was more of an events, but they weren't as many of them, so you might get one, you know, we might get one show every couple of weeks playing three hundred bucks. But was on the white circuit. They paid less money, but you've got a lot of work if you got into the clubs. I've always made the point of playing both sets, playing the Black scene and the white scene. Immediately from the beginning, I was like, I want to be funny to everybody, and I want to make all the money because I'm a Nigerian. So that's how I thought. I want to make all the money, so I want to do all the clubs. So I made the point of playing both. People used to say, are you going to go do the white circuits? You're set out whatever, But I never sold myself out. I always was pretty much quintessentially me when I did those shows. So yeah, and that's why I did. It was hard. It was a struggle. It was a struggle getting on at those clubs because they didn't respect black comedy. They always thought that black comics were this the same, isn't America The assumption that every black comic is a deaf jam comic, or every black comic talks a certain way. That's how it was in England. They thought that all we talked about is our parents beating us or whatever. So it was a struggle getting on those clubs. But I worked here, and you know I did. I kept tussling and kept testing these clubs and I did get on. But you know, it was hard getting on TV. I was always the token. I was always on TV. I was on all manner of TV shows. You know. I was famous for being that black girl that's on every show an England never had show. So when these shows got accused of racism, they go, but no, no, we're not racist. We had Gina. We've had Gina on our show eight times. So I realized I was being used as a token to keep other black people down. So I was like, I got to get out of here. I got to get out here. 00:49:41 Speaker 2: I was told that I was trying to figure out an American comedy when blacks are trying to get to that mainstream level, Like, you know, how do you get out of what we call the Chiplin circuit into mainstream comedy. Some black comedians joke with me, the one thing you can't do when you decide to go mainstream is, I guess the common denominator is amongst comedians is your deaf, your deaf jam comic if you're fucking the chair. 00:50:14 Speaker 4: Yes, there was a lot of chair humping, a lot of chair humping exactly. 00:50:19 Speaker 1: So what what is the. 00:50:22 Speaker 2: What's the sort of the signature kind of blanket move for black comics in the UK, That sort of. 00:50:32 Speaker 4: Well, a lot of black comics in the UK kind of modeled themselves on the Deaf jam comics, So there was also some store humping in England as well. 00:50:39 Speaker 1: But fuck like this, White people like that. 00:50:43 Speaker 4: When I started doing comedy. When I started doing comedy, you know, I was the only comedian of African descent that was really doing it. A lot. Ninety of the comedians wore Caribbean descent, so a lot of their jokes were doing jokes at the expensive Africans. So when I came out, I was coming from a different perspective. So that made me stand out immediately from everybody else because I was like, yeah, you guys are talking about Africans, let me tell Jamaica's let me tell you about yourself, Basians, let me tell you about yourself. And so I was coming from that perspective, and I did material about being an African kid and the experiences at school being So I came from that perspective. So it made me stand out, made me different, and it made me successful earlier because I was coming I was very different from everybody else. But then what happened was I started a trend because I was able to parlay that into mainstream success on television talking about my African heritage on British television. Then I started a whole stream of young comics of African descent who were like, oh, we could talk about being African. And then it almost became hack because I was doing characters, my African characters, which were characters well written, but a lot of these younger comics were just coming out and go, look like I dog in an African accent and it's really fun and people were laughing at that, so then it became hackey. 00:52:03 Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to ask, Uh, you mentioned the Lenny Henry Show earlier, and that's where you did more of your sketch your character actors, How did you develop Tanya the one of your more famous characters, Tanya and Uh and I love the fact that you wore a bootleg Alan iverson Jersey I'm from Philly. And the other character missus us Yeah, how did you develop those characters for that show? 00:52:38 Speaker 4: Well? Missus Macreda was based on my mom, so I've been doing various versions of her in my stand up before that, so all I did was just make her a person and put the wig on and actually encapsulate The character Tanya was based on the young girls I used to see on the buses and see it on the streets when I used to hang out, and I used to listen to their conversations and their voices and stuff. So but when they call me on the show, they called me to be a writer. They didn't call me to be. 00:53:04 Speaker 1: On the show. They wanted me. 00:53:05 Speaker 4: To write on the show. And I was like, well, I write on the show, but the characters that I you know, that I come up with, I want to play them. That's the only reason I'm gonna I'm a comedian, I'm a performer. I don't want to just write sketches and be in the background. So I was like, if I write on the show, but if I create these characters, I want to play them. And that's basically how I got on the show as a writer and performer, and lucky I did, because those characters catapulted me to mainstream success. Up until that Lenny Henry show, I was what you call hood famous because I'd done a black TV show, and I was famous to black audiences, and when I was selling out theaters, it was all black. But then when I got on the Lenny Henry Show that was mainstream BBC television in the UK, and my audience changed. I started to pick up a much bigger and broader audience, which I still hold to this day. So I still kept my black routes because I never changed who I want. But then white people came on board. 00:54:04 Speaker 1: So I know eventually you came stateside. What was the what was the decision process to leave the UK to move to America. 00:54:15 Speaker 4: Well, I wanted to be in America since I was a child, since watching Different Strokes. I was like, I want to go to America and be adopted by Like it was my dream. I was to watch all your TV shows. I'm like, kids in America they got better candies than us, they got better clothes than us. They've got better bikes, they can go around and solve crimes and shit. I want to be an American kid. 00:54:35 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:54:35 Speaker 4: So when I was four years old, From four years old, I say to my mom like, why why did you come here? So I never felt British. I was like why did you come here? Like you could have gone. I could have been born in Miami, like what you thinking? So it's pretty dream like. Even when I worked for Otis as an engineer. Otis is an American company, So all my life, I was planning to come to America. Even when I was working as an engineer, I was like, I'm gonna work for an American company and at some point I'm going to transfer and be an engineer in America. So it's been my dream to live here my entire life. How I got here as a comedian Last Comic Standing, I saw it as a chance to get to America, and so I auditioned for the show and got to the semi final and they got me a two year work visa, and I was like, Oh, does this mean I can live and work in America for two years? 00:55:23 Speaker 5: Oh? 00:55:23 Speaker 4: Well, I'm done. Went back to England, sold my house, sold and gave away everything I owned, and turned out for the semi final of Last Comic Standing, which is two suitcases to my name, and threw a big party in England, said I'm leaving and coming back goodbye. And I was only a two year visa, but I'm going to turn this into a green card and then I'm going to turn it into businesship. I am never. 00:55:45 Speaker 1: Coming back into a dynasty. Nice. 00:55:47 Speaker 4: There you go, And I've been here fourteen years. 00:55:49 Speaker 5: So wait, is that for real? 00:55:51 Speaker 6: Like before you came here, you saw all the like the beauty of America, but you had no idea of like what was really going on in the history. 00:55:58 Speaker 4: Oh I knew what was going on, but and shit was happening in England. So I was like, I'm just there's no difference to me. I'm just going from you know, as a comedian in England, a black comic covers, I was well known, I hit I'd got quite famous, but I hit that glass ceiling, hit the glass ceiling of where black people are allowed to reach in English entertainment industry. So I was like, well, America's got a black seedling, but it's a lot higher. So at least when I hit the black ceiling, that the glass ceiling in America, I'll be a multi millionaire when I hit it, and I can cry in my money. So that was my idea. 00:56:30 Speaker 5: I love it because you are the queen. 00:56:33 Speaker 6: You are the queen of comedy in London. There a like queens. 00:56:37 Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I am the Adam. You know, I am the most you know, well known black female comedian, one of the most well known comedians standard in England. But I was here and my white male counterparts here. So I'm here and I'm doing pretty well. I've got you know, I'm doing well. But then these white is that who opened for me and then going boom and becoming stadium filling multimillionaires, And I'm like, wait, a year ago you were opening for me. How am I still here and you're here? I need to get out of here. I need to go and swim with the sharks in America. 00:57:17 Speaker 6: This is mind blowing because I'm thinking of myself like, so now that she so, now that you're here, and this is a different time. Now, it's a time now where you know, in Hollywood it makes more sense for you to be black and British black in African descent. You know, like a lot of there's an issues that people speak about sometimes that you are first choice when it comes to roles a lot of times like what is what is your talk about? 00:57:39 Speaker 5: It? 00:57:40 Speaker 4: Talk about No, here's the thing with the whole African American versus Africans and an hour versus Brits thing. If there were enough rolls, enough world rounded, three dimensional roles for black actors in America, we wouldn't be fighting over these crumbs. We're fighting over crumbs. And here's the thing I say. They say, the British black actors the first choice. Not how many African American characters have played Nelson Mandela, how many? 00:58:07 Speaker 1: How many? 00:58:10 Speaker 4: Only Washington played Steve Bako. All African heroes have been played by African American actors. But we didn't complain. We just were happy that our story parents. 00:58:22 Speaker 1: Howard even played Nelson. You have to remind us, wait he did. 00:58:29 Speaker 3: There was a yeah he was he was him and uh and Jennifer Hudson played Winnie. 00:58:34 Speaker 5: It was like, wait, the Winnie movie. It was the Winnie movie. 00:58:38 Speaker 1: Yeah, yea, I won't need to end apart at me. 00:58:47 Speaker 4: That's what I was saying. What what is the big complaint? What is the big complaint? Collination? Like we had a show. We had a movie in England called for Queen and Country. It was a movie about a British soldier. 00:59:04 Speaker 1: Coming out of the Queen the Country. I remember this movie. 00:59:07 Speaker 4: Yeah, Washington, that British soldier. They of all the black actors in England, they went to America and brought Denzel Washington to England to play the role of this British soldier. So it's cross. 00:59:21 Speaker 1: This is you know the play he plays Steve Beagle too. 00:59:24 Speaker 4: He was, yeah, said he played. So all our African heroes have been played by African AMers. 00:59:38 Speaker 5: I see it, right, Harriet Martin, I mean she. 00:59:47 Speaker 4: Did? 00:59:47 Speaker 1: They do the role justice, that's awfu. 00:59:50 Speaker 3: That's where I met with it too. They bodied the ship. 00:59:54 Speaker 4: That's all you got to ask, because that's what you got, you know. Look, Will Smith played the Nigeria in Horrible. 01:00:03 Speaker 5: You have the miss I love. 01:00:06 Speaker 4: I love Will Smith. That was horrible, just horrible. Black Panther, I love Black Panther. 01:00:10 Speaker 1: That was that. 01:00:11 Speaker 4: I love that movie. But every member of that family had a different African accent, different African accents. 01:00:21 Speaker 5: I blame I blame Lou Peter. She should have to everybody correctly. I don't know. It's a bad no, it's a bad joke. 01:00:35 Speaker 4: Well that's what I'm saying. Look, I tell you a little story. When I came to meet Chuck Laurie to create Bob hart Saba, I asked them what they wanted the African character to be called, and one of the guys said Peter, and I was like, okay, hell, here's the same. I was like this is why you guys need me for one. Peter is Kenyan. You're talking about Nigerian cats. She's Kenyan. Wrong side of Africa, Wrong side of Africa too. She was born in Mexico. Her parents, for ships and Googles, gave her the name of you Pitera. Pretty much guarantee there's not another fucking African on the planet. So him, let me give your listen like your names, let me help you. Lets let's make this authentic, Let's make this good. 01:01:17 Speaker 1: Thank God and thank you. 01:01:23 Speaker 2: I was about to say I don't I don't even want to skip this far into it. But I had a friend that used to act on Two and a half Men, and I went to set the visit just to see, like what the atmosphere was like. And you know, Chuck Laurie's shows are. It's the most intense atmosphere I've ever seen as far as the comedy show is concerned. Like I never I didn't know he was that hands on. I know that every time they break the writers run around, all right, give me better punch, likee go, no, you're horrible, go you suck. 01:01:59 Speaker 1: Like I never knew it was that cutthroat. 01:02:02 Speaker 6: That's just it's not as bad on our show. 01:02:06 Speaker 4: He's mellowed with age. And also because I'm running the show with our Higgins and him, our atmosphere is a lot more chill. It's a lot you know, I bought black writers in, you know. 01:02:20 Speaker 2: Like, well, they need you to make it work, So I doubt it. But I'm just saying that what I saw. It's like every time they. 01:02:28 Speaker 4: Take a sitcoms it's the NBA. 01:02:31 Speaker 2: It is like every time they take a break, and I could tell what the what the what not the linears, but I could tell the order of like the the the respected writer versus the newbie, because you're supposed to form a circle around him. And he's like, I don't like that punchline. Give me some of that works. 01:02:49 Speaker 1: Go and you don't. If you don't nail boilse eye with bulls eye with the right punch line, that sucks you. 01:02:57 Speaker 2: You And I'm just seeing like people getting deflated every time they don't come with the magic. 01:03:02 Speaker 1: I didn't realize that. 01:03:03 Speaker 4: Does not suffer fools. Gladly luck, I'm a stand up and I came in with that confidence of the stand up, and you know, not every one of your jokes is gonna work. It's the it's the not showing fear when it doesn't hold. It didn't work because something and these guys who just talk incessantly because they're trying desperately to impress you just got to be chilled, like he likes me because I'm chilling around there. I'm just like, here's a joke. Now, that didn't work, Okay, give me a couple of minutes. A couple of minutes and that relaxed about the whole thing. 01:03:35 Speaker 2: That's why I wanted to ask you, because in that particular atmosphere, in that particular day that I saw, I just don't know how one can be creative when they're they all look like they were like have their heads in the guillet gun right exactly. And I'm like, well, how can you come with something creative when you're under such duress? And I wanted to know was it like that on the set as well? 01:04:01 Speaker 4: Now our Share is a fun set. Before we do our run throughs and rehearsals, I put on afrobeats, we dance. I put our music Like if you look at my stories and stuff, you'll see me and the cast, the crew, all of us. We put the music on, we fuck it and we dance. I'm like, let's go, let's get the energy, just get it's fun. This is fun. We'll playing you make the lead like people. This is not rocket science, this is not surgery. So I put music on, We dance, We have fun, and the writer's room is a really nice collaborative feel. And Chuck likes the room that we're running. And Chuck comes in and he loves coming and hanging with us, and it doesn't feel high pressure. We're talking. We don't write because the show, if you watch Barba Harts having shot, it's not a joke heavy show. It's funny, and we aim for the funny, but we also aim for the real heart, the real story, the real three dimensions of all the characters. So it's not just jo give me a joke, need to joke right now, we need, don't you know, the funny comes. We concentrate. Chuck has now taught us, taught us a lot. We concentrate on the story, make it real, and then you can add in the jokes later. So you know, I've learned a lot sincinnat show, but we haven't got that kind of high intensity thing going on. We all it's a collaborative thing. Everybody works together, we break you know, and you know, I've had people come up to me after the season and go, look, this is one of the best sets I've ever worked on because your energy is positive and finally, you keep it light and it's not high pressure and we enjoy coming to work. So that's what I'm trying to do. 01:05:37 Speaker 2: I was going to say, if it wasn't desirable, I think we would have heard it from you right now and your your comedy. 01:05:44 Speaker 1: Abe. 01:05:45 Speaker 4: I've got a whole routine about how this show came about, then finding me on Google all of that. I've got a whole routine about it. Chuck has heard it and he's like. 01:05:53 Speaker 2: Oh god, So you know, I also want to, you know, commend you on You know, I know that the rural comedy is supposed to be like tragedy plus time equals humor or. I guess that's the the formula. But you know, all of your subject matters, you somehow find the seriousness and things that are like you know that you leave nothing no stone unturned, like you talk about sleep app you know, you talk about lupus. You know, coming out to your family, all these things. How did you? Where did you get to the place where it's like, because you I think you have to not care in order for your world to open up. Like usually if people are super guarded and that sort of thing, then you're not going to work. 01:06:43 Speaker 1: But you have to get to the point. 01:06:45 Speaker 4: Where you don't give a shit anymore? 01:06:47 Speaker 1: Yeah, where did where did you reach that level? 01:06:51 Speaker 4: Not that long ago? You know, I wasn't out for a very long time because I was like, I'm a black woman in this industry. I don't look so way, like do I really want to give them something else to box me in with? So for a long time, I did not talk about my sexuality at all. I avoided the question. I never lied, but I always circumvented the questions. They asked the question that but like, I was doing this stuff. So at the beginning of my career, it helped me because I had to think outside the box as far as materials concerned, because when everybody else is talking about relationships, so I had to go right, let me think of let me me just think of other material So it made my materials stand out because I wasn't one of those women talking about relationships. I wasn't talking about that stuff. But then after years, it was like a straight jacket because I couldn't really open up and be completely myself on stage because I was holding back a facet of my personality and I didn't really come out till I started touring. I was on toy Cat Williams, and I was touring with a young Oh Yeah. I was there for the crazy I was there on a private jet with Sugar Night. I was there for all of that, all that crazy ship that was happening. I was there for all of it, all of it. But I was on tour. I'll tell you that. I'll come back to that. I was on tour, and I was on tour with a young communion called Shauntey Wayans who's she's part of the Way Into Yeah, and she's a lesbian comic. And I loved how unapologetic she was on stage, and I remember watching her thinking and envying her, thinking, that's what you do. Just be on stage and be yourself, doesn't matter. And it got to the point where you know, I'd done all the things that I'm supposed to do, be happy, smiley, non threatening Geena for years to try and get on and it hadn't worked, and I was like, you know what, I'm just going to do me. I'm going to just do me. And I just and I didn't make a big dealer of coming out. I just slipped a joke in here and there, slipped a line in here there. I didn't make a big deal of it because it's just one facet of my personality. 01:08:52 Speaker 1: It doesn't define you exactly, but. 01:08:54 Speaker 4: It just means that I was completely open and there was nothing that I was hiding, and my comedy got better. 01:09:01 Speaker 1: How did that feel like? Having a realization? How did it feel so good? 01:09:04 Speaker 4: And I just like why did I wait so long? Like, oh my god, I wish I'd done this years ago. But when I you know, back, people going, oh, you're you know you're black. 01:09:14 Speaker 8: A Williams will desert you because you know, black people are homophobing me, and so people are telling me, but it is because I'm like, look, I built up a reputation of being a really good comic and really funny, and so people like me. 01:09:27 Speaker 4: Even if you don't, well, then off you go. For every one person I lose, I gain another five. So yeah, so I wish I'd done it years ago. But yeah, good, you know, I'm glad I did. But as for Kat Williams, yeah, I was on tour twenty twelve, and you know, Cat one of the most generous, giving, supportive people, smartest people I've ever met. 01:09:53 Speaker 1: Yes, but if you watch. 01:09:55 Speaker 4: His comedy take Out all the Motherfuckers, the guy is a genius. 01:09:59 Speaker 3: Cat is brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. I tell you, Yeah, they just let the pimp shit get in the way. 01:10:05 Speaker 4: But that if you key away all of that highly intelligent man. Hi, we had wonderful conversations, but I have wonderful conversations. And the next day he was like, hey, he was so I was like, I don't know what's getting on, but you know, I just he respected me because again I didn't kiss ass. I didn't, you know, But yeah, I was on that tour. We shouldn't you know. I was left on stage doing hour and a half sets because he I tell you, I'll tell you one story, Wow, encapsulate a craziness. 01:10:39 Speaker 3: And at the time did you have an hour and a half did you have okay? 01:10:44 Speaker 1: Was it just proud work or okay? 01:10:46 Speaker 4: Oh no, I've been in comedies since ninety six. 01:10:48 Speaker 5: I already had the Queen in twenty twelve. 01:10:50 Speaker 4: I'd already shot two specials, so yeah, gotcha how it was here? Let me tell your story, encapsulate the whole thing. So I'm on tour, I mean, very generous the first time Cats taking me on tour, and he calls me out, you know, the first time I met Cat. I'm in New York. It's the New York Comedy Festival. Cat is appearing at the Carnigie Hall, sold out, and I'm going just to watch the show because my friend Will Sylvins was opening for him. So I'm turning up at the theater. I'm about to walk in the front to watch the show. Will Sylvants calls me where are you? And I'm like, I'm about to walk in the theater and take my seat. He goes, come out to the stage door. So come aroun to the stage door and they go, Cat's not here. He's been arrested on the way to the show. So can you go up and do twenty minutes? And I'm like, canniegi who fuck? 01:11:37 Speaker 9: Yeah? 01:11:39 Speaker 4: So Will went on did his time. Then I went on and did mine and killed and being towards the end of my set, Cat Williams had been released by the police, and he made it in caught the end of my set, and afterwards he was like, I like you, I'm gonna take you on tour and I was like, yeah, yeah, I've had that shit before whatever. And I was visiting New York from LA so I was staying at Will's house. Next day, I get a call from the woman who books Cat shows and she's like, so, Gina, you did color you for Cat? Cat me like you. He wants to take you. He's doing what's that place in Jersey that's supposed to be like Vegas but it's not. He goes, Cat's doing Atlantic City tonight. He wants you to open for him. How much did they pay you for Carnegie Hall? Now, they didn't pay me a penny. I just went up and did twenty minutes, but I wen't going to say that, so I was like two thousand dollars and she goes, done, we'll see you tonight and a car Mercedes turned out twenty and I was like fuck, I should have said eight anyway. So the car picked me up and took me to Atlantic City and I opened for Cat at Atlantic City and he's he's backstage. Was like a scene out of New Jack City. Remember when they had the naked girls just counting money. Yeah, that's because Cat used to insist that you go get the cash from the box office and pay him. So they used to have to get box up then we can and so all these girls will be just there just counting all these money and go bitch, Paig and just come over. 01:13:14 Speaker 1: Scene. 01:13:15 Speaker 10: Yeah yeah with the milk titties. 01:13:27 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. 01:13:28 Speaker 4: They He paid me cash and then he just he said I'm going to take you on tour, and I was like, betts. So he calls me up. Cat calls me up and he goes, Okay, so I'm going to take you on tour. I've got a hundred books around, book to the country. We're going to make a load of money. How much do you get paid? So I was like, I was like ah, So I was thinking if I say three thousand, he will knock me down to two. I'll get two grander show one hundred shows sets. I go three thousand, and Cat goes, I'll give you five. I'll see you next on Saturday. 01:14:01 Speaker 1: And I was like what. 01:14:03 Speaker 4: And when I first met up with Cat on the tour, I says I asked for three. Why would you get Why did you say you give me five? And he goes, because I know you how good you are, because I know how good, know you're worth, do know your work. You're worth more than that, and you're better than that. And he paid me five thousand shows. Now I was like, oh, my days, one hundred shows. I don't like half a billion dollars. But after that first show, I was like, oh, we're not going to make it to three shows. 01:14:33 Speaker 1: And so it was sure was sure night touring was he? 01:14:35 Speaker 4: He was, yeah, sure the night was touring with that. So let me tell you this quick story. So first night we're in Denver, we do the show, packed out, do the show, I do my set, I kill have fun. Short as I said, it's great. Cat goes on and it's a crazy show. Put it that way. It was when he was not having good shows, didn't go well, go backstage and he goes to the promoter, go the live Nation was was doing the show. And he goes to the promote, go go get my money, and they're going, look, people are walking out and they're demanding their money back, so we can't give you the money. And I'm like and and Cat's like, go get my motherfucking money. And I'm like, oh God, back to go. And I turned around and I don't even know what happened. I turned around and I just hear and I turned back and the Live Nation guys on the floor and I'm like, oh god, I gotta get out here. I gotta get. 01:15:29 Speaker 5: The way. 01:15:30 Speaker 4: The Live Nation guy got punched in the face. I'm not gonna say you did it. I didn't see it. I turned around. 01:15:34 Speaker 1: I just heard a noise and then and then you saw he was on the ground. 01:15:37 Speaker 4: So I was like, oh god, this is crazy. This is this tour is not I'm not gonna make half a million dollars. 01:15:42 Speaker 5: But they can't get but they can't get his money. 01:15:45 Speaker 4: That night, oh he got his money. So that so that was the next day. The day that was Denver. The next day we're supposed to be in Sacramento. So they go right me, it's all in the love be at nine am, the plane will get on the plane, we'll go to the Sacramento Cool. We're in the lobby nine am, ten am, eleven am, twelve pm. One We're all just sitting in the lobby for hours and I'm like, where's Cat, what's going on? So I'm like, I go up to these I just knocking it off. Yo, Cat, We've been down there for four hours. What's happening right? No way, we'll be down to So he sent me and I'm like, what is going on? Anyway? I was like, am we going to miss these flights? And the woman who's booking the show's like, oh no, it's a private jet. They're waiting for us on the runway. Anyway. They charged Cat thirty thousand dollars in late fees. I remember that. We get to the runway, so we all get in a convoy, you know, they put our luggage in all the cars. We all go to the runway where the jet is waking waiting. We get on the jet. I'm on the jet with sub Night, Bishop Magic Don't. 01:16:52 Speaker 5: Want is that? 01:16:53 Speaker 1: Yes? 01:16:53 Speaker 5: Yes? 01:16:54 Speaker 1: Yes, Green is for the money, goal is for the honey. 01:16:57 Speaker 5: Yeah. 01:16:58 Speaker 4: I'm on the jet with them and cats kids and a bunch of other people. And everybody's like, where's Cat, Where's Cat? 01:17:04 Speaker 5: Why is it? 01:17:05 Speaker 4: And I was like, he was in a car just behind us, So I don't know where's Cat. This was at four o'clock in the afternoon at this point the show and Sacramento was in seven. At seven, we are in Denver, Oh, show's the Sacramento. I go where we go? Where Cat? Where's Cat? Where's Cat? Cat has decided he's going to drive, Oh, from Denver to Sacramento. So I'm like, maybe I don't know America that well, Hell on Google, how long does it take to drive? 01:17:35 Speaker 1: I'm doing that right now from. 01:17:38 Speaker 4: Denver to sacrament And I remember it going that. It was like, oh, it will be nineteen hours or something like that, and I was like, we're not gonna make the show. It's fo o'clock the shows and seventh what is So we sat on the wrong way, everybody trying to get hold of Cats. So in the end, the pilot goes, listen, we gotta go otherwise, this flight is done. We got to take off. So we take off with that cat and we had to divert the plane halfway through the journey to go pick up Cat in the middle of the desert somewhere. We had to divert the plane and land and pick up Cat gets on the plane and he's furious to us. I don't know what was going on. He gots on the plane like you might go fuck it and just cursing, and I'm sitting there like, what the hell is, what the hell is going on? 01:18:23 Speaker 1: What is going on right now? To make it? 01:18:26 Speaker 4: Yeah, So we get to we get to Sancramento. We are two hours late for the show. 01:18:31 Speaker 9: Now. 01:18:32 Speaker 4: John Witherspoon, God bless him, God rest his soul, was also on the tour. But John Witherspoon had learned early on in the tour You're not to get on a plane with Cat. He was like, I'll get my own jet there, I'll meet you at the gig. So John was already at the gig. But unfortunately they told John, Oh, yeah, Cat's on his way. 01:18:50 Speaker 1: Just go on stage stretch. Oh E been on. 01:18:54 Speaker 4: Stage two hours when we got there. When we got there, my god, poor mister Witherspoon had swept through his entire suit him. I was staged in two hours. And when we got there, he had two girls on stage doing a dance competition because he'd run out of jokes. 01:19:10 Speaker 1: He came up and oh my god, Now. 01:19:21 Speaker 4: Bury in mind, my stuff was still in a convoy. So I had to go on stage at this theater to ten thousand people wearing a T shirt. No bra, jeans and flip flops because my clothes were still in a convoy driving halfway across the country somewhere. So that was the second night. So I was like, oh, this isn't work. After every night they paid me my five thousand cash. So at one point I did three shows, I had fifteen thousand dollars, and I was like, shouldn't I any boys. I don't. I don't want them to come at my hotel women in the middle of the night and dangle me out the window for this money. So as soon as we got to the next time, I run straight to the chase, like can I put this money in the And they're all looking at me like I'm a drunk dealer because I've got a private cat. I can I pay this in please? And they were looking at me like and they counting the money, just looking at me sideways. But yeah, it was a crazy tour, you know. I was there in Seattle. The next night was in Seattle again, Kat got arrested on the way to the show, so I will Sae. Vince did an hour set. I did an hour set. John Witherspoon did an hour set, and by three hours in the crowd is like, what is it? Yeah, and the crowd started to destroy the theater like it was a beautiful theater. And see how the crowd went mad because arrested on the way. It was crazy. And the next day we were supposed to be in. 01:20:43 Speaker 1: Texas and who routed this tour? 01:20:49 Speaker 4: We were in Texas the next day ten thousand people sold out. The people who ran the the the venue were like, we ain't opening these doors until we know that the cat is in the city, because we heard about what happened in Yeat, we heard about what happened in Sacramento. We ain't opening these doors. And the tour manager's like, oh no, no, cat's on these ways. But the cat is still in freaking kat is still in California. He ain't even left it. They're like, no, he's checked into a hotel and the guy's like, no, he hasn't, because we called all the hotels in the area and he's not there, so we ain't. In fact, if he ain't here by seven o'clock, we're cancling the show. And obviously he was never going to they canceled the show. Ten thousand people outside. They canceled the show. So John Riversprey at this point was like I'm out, I'm out, and he got on a plane and he went back home, and I was like, well, my flight home was booked from the next sea, so I had to get on the tour bus and go to the next sea. And obviously cat never just turned it just didn't turn up. And then I just got a plane and went back to. 01:21:56 Speaker 1: I did. 01:21:57 Speaker 4: I did five shows. I was paid for free. 01:22:00 Speaker 1: Wow, that's how he was in. 01:22:03 Speaker 4: But you know what, he paid me more for those shows than I'd asked than i'd ask for, So as far as I'm concerned, he didn't know me nothing. Because I'd asked the three expected to he paid me five. 01:22:13 Speaker 2: So yeah, he's crazy like that, you know, can't once chased me on a dirt bike. I was driving my car. We did a show. Do you remember the show we did with Lauren Hill for like the BET Awards, like the BT Awards weekend. It was like Lauren, I forget who it was, but this this guy kept trying to I thought he's trying to car jack me or something. And the last thing I was expecting was and it was like those you know the bicycles where it's like an adult tricycle. 01:22:46 Speaker 4: Oh yeah, the cord blind things. 01:22:48 Speaker 1: Yeah, he had like an adult tricycle. It was scary. One of dude roll up on you right, And I was like, I. 01:22:54 Speaker 2: Was near skid Row, Like we were leaving the Staples Centers, but you know, like skid Row's near there. 01:22:59 Speaker 1: So that's what I thought. Was he kept now it's like it's Cat Williams nigga And I was like aicycle. Yeah, he hit my cat story. I met Cat one time. I met Cat. Yeah, there's yo, everyone, dude. I met him once. 01:23:14 Speaker 3: Yeah, he was at the We did a show and uh, this is a House of Blues back you know when House of Blues in La on sunset and it was like us. I think, like us dolated people's quality and like some other people and uh a little brother, I think we will be like first or second going whatever. But we did the show and it was dope and went off and so afterwards we went up to like the little area where they were just having drinks and just kind of social area and Cat is there and he just comes up to me and like, you know, I think it's his people's wedding. 01:23:40 Speaker 1: He's like, yo, it's Cat whatever, you know, he loved the show whatever. I'm like, oh, this is dope's up. So I just walk up to way. What's uthing, man? He gets it to me, leans in. 01:23:47 Speaker 3: He's like, when Obama get in office, the people's gonna be looking for something different and they're gonna be wanting something new, and y'all are gonna be part of that something new and up until the time when you really take off. If you need twenty thirty g's just to put in your pockets, you come holler at me. I was like, what the fuck is So then he calls his girl, Alwa's like get my number. What So I'm just talking to this girl like I don't know who she is. I'm just like okay, I don't. 01:24:17 Speaker 1: Wait and bro, that's what he said. And I was like okay. 01:24:22 Speaker 3: And he gave me well, I mean, he didn't give me like no money, but she gave me a number and I gave her number to my manager at the time, and I just walked away. 01:24:28 Speaker 1: I was just like, Okay, I don't know what. 01:24:30 Speaker 4: That was, but that's what he does. He's set at the back of comedy clubs and if he liked your set, he'd call you over and go. Whatever I got in my pocket is yours? Just money? Wow, that's another time I met him. I didn't show and he just called me over and he's like, where did I got my money in my pucket? He took out five hundred dollars and just gave it to me. That's what he used to do. 01:24:48 Speaker 5: Look, he's a and he was right about your future. How about this? 01:24:51 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, he saw it. He saw whatever they said about. He's a good dude, a genius comic, genius comics, one of the best comics working today, without a doubt, just one of the best and a good dude. His heart is good. He's crazy, but hot heart is good. 01:25:12 Speaker 3: My question was totally I say mine for last because it's a totally kind of off beat question, but I'll let you go. 01:25:17 Speaker 1: No. 01:25:18 Speaker 2: Well, I wanted to not like what what comedians do you enjoy working with? Or who do you not even working with? Like who do you laugh at? Like who's your favorite? 01:25:28 Speaker 1: Gosh, there are so many I works general, too general to ask. 01:25:32 Speaker 4: You know, obviously, the the usual suspects. For I like to name comics that people might never have at off please do like there's a comedian called Erin Jackson. Okay, ye finding black woman Hilo, and she just did one of Tiffany's specials. Okay, I gotta give Tiffany a shout out, like she bringing people through, like she's money. She put her own money in to make these specials, to make sure that everybody got paid properly. She put her own money in. That's what I'm talking about. She's bringing people through. Like you know, a lot of people make it and they just don't really go back to pull the others forward, pull others up with them. Tiffany is not that person. She goes back and she goes so, you know, shout out to Tiffany. She's a she's a diamond. But yeah, Eron Jackson hilarious. Young comedian called Joe L. Johnson hilarious. Like there's a lot of black women are out there just doing good things and they need breaks. There's so many good ones out there, So I like to name, I like. 01:26:33 Speaker 5: To name, but look z Way and my sister got the comedy special. 01:26:38 Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, we're all out. They're doing it. We're all out, they're doing it. But yeah, these are comics that should be getting you know, I'm glad Eron got her specials, she got her shine. But yeah, it's a long time in this business. We need more, we need more like that. I could name the usual suspects, but that's boring. Everybody names the same. 01:26:58 Speaker 1: All right. So now you know now that the the book is out there and. 01:27:03 Speaker 4: Handed, please buy it. It's out today, Yes, it's out. I was going to say, it's a good book. 01:27:09 Speaker 1: Do you do you hope to option it for movie rights to do your life story. 01:27:16 Speaker 4: Or absolutely there are crazy stories in there. I've led a life and I've had a journey and I definitely want to option it serialization. 01:27:25 Speaker 3: So so what so my question, what American actress plays Gina Yashia in your movie? 01:27:35 Speaker 1: Who would you cast to play you? 01:27:37 Speaker 4: Cynthia Rivo? 01:27:42 Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, check it, yeah, check it. This might be an unpopular opinion. Arisa loved her and that Aretha John For me, the only thing, yeah, it was the only that the Retha joint. I loved it. 01:27:56 Speaker 3: The only place where it fell apart was the singing, and not because simply can't sing. Like I thought they should have pulled the ray but I don't know if they had rights to the music. 01:28:04 Speaker 1: But where they don't think. 01:28:06 Speaker 4: Yeah, the family were not. They didn't give permissions, so they couldn't get all the guy the famous for songs. She let it go. 01:28:18 Speaker 1: She killed that role. I thought she did. Everybody showed up. Yeah, okay, gen a black britg Yeah, yeah, who see Privo. 01:28:27 Speaker 3: That's who plays Gina on the Lifetime special, the Lifetime version of it, A cutter version of me. 01:28:36 Speaker 4: Yeah. 01:28:39 Speaker 3: So this is a question I need to know for as black brid it's very it's rare that we get like black Brits on this show. 01:28:45 Speaker 1: So this is this is a question. 01:28:47 Speaker 3: I just asked, what, in your opinion is the greatest Black British song? And why is it Return of the Mac. 01:29:01 Speaker 1: The show's over. 01:29:04 Speaker 5: Yo on Tuesday, Yet let's talk come on the other day. 01:29:12 Speaker 4: I was watching some movie some TV shows and they used. 01:29:15 Speaker 9: It and I was like, it was it might have been it was a girl of I was like, what was that song like in Europe? Like what was it going off? 01:29:26 Speaker 7: Like? 01:29:27 Speaker 4: He was about to be a big star. He was about to be a big star and then he just like getting and the press started turning against him and his career disappeared. But he was he was gonna be a fixed. People were singing that song. He was huge. 01:29:39 Speaker 10: It was a big song. 01:29:39 Speaker 1: I love im still saying that song. 01:29:41 Speaker 6: I was. 01:29:42 Speaker 1: I was a first hand witness to that song working. Yeah, I was. I was first hand witness. 01:29:49 Speaker 2: But I think he kept like trying to I think in ninety five the thing was sort of like, I gotta get more pressed by being more thanks. I always felt like all those arrests that he was getting into. 01:30:04 Speaker 4: It was like on purpose just to yeah, and no career because the press turned against him and that was the end of that. It was stupid. Yeah, I don't know where it is now. And you got me with it. 01:30:15 Speaker 5: You got me with that. 01:30:17 Speaker 1: We got to find Mark Morrison. Well, we thank you for coming on the show so much fun. 01:30:23 Speaker 6: Congratulations, congratulations are some extra freedom. I know you ain't totally free, but you've seen freer than most. I'm sorry, And I want to come up that podcast with Jewe Scott too. 01:30:35 Speaker 1: I love you Scott, all right, I'm going you on that podcast. 01:30:38 Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that love Jiel Scott. I met her once and she gave me a number and I lost that some mad. I was at the BET Awards in two thousand and eight and I was doing red carpet stuff and they her people tried to drag that past me and I was like, no, you ain't, Jill Scott. I come all away from England to this kip. You better walk past me on this head carpet. And then she came back and she was like a little girl from the comedy Javel. I was like yes, and she was like, oh, you're funny, and I was like yeah. And then she performed later on in the evening and it was for all these BT executives and they were being all too cool for school, like sitting there taking and I got up and I was dancing and mouthing all the words to her songs and she was like, yank you, and she was like, here's my number if you ever needed anything cooling, and then that fucking fun crush and I never got in touch with your Scott and I was so mad at myself. 01:31:24 Speaker 5: So tell her that it's done on the show. You got a book there, It's done, It's done. 01:31:29 Speaker 1: It's gonna be crazy. 01:31:30 Speaker 2: Well, thank you for coming on the show on behalf of Team Supreme, fran Tikeolo and Sugar Steve. 01:31:37 Speaker 4: Thank you, Gina, thank you very much. 01:31:39 Speaker 1: That there it is, and this is this question that we'll see you on the next go around, of course, the Supreme. Thank you, yoh, what's up? 01:31:49 Speaker 3: This is fante. Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at QLs and let us know what you think and who should be next to sit down with us. 01:31:56 Speaker 1: Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast, all right, Peace mus Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.