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