Speaker 1: Of Course.
Speaker 2: Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode
Speaker 2: was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 3: What up, y'all, it's Layah and this week's QLs classic.
Speaker 4: It's a good one. I'm talking about David Alan Grier.
Speaker 5: Yo.
Speaker 3: This episode, he goes all the way back to his
Speaker 3: days at Yale Drama when he was Angela Bassett's old
Speaker 3: head and all the greatness that came out of that school,
Speaker 3: to talking about his days on Broadway. You got about that,
Speaker 3: and of course he dished into some in living color.
Speaker 4: You don't want to miss this.
Speaker 3: You think you know David Allen Greer, you don't, So
Speaker 3: listen and find out. This episode was originally released November fourteenth,
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen.
Speaker 6: Enjoy Suprema Sun Suck Supremo role called Suprema Suck Suck
Speaker 6: Primo roll call Supremo su su Supremo role called Suprema sunk.
Speaker 5: Here a roll call, I'm skilled quest the three and
Speaker 5: if he starts with my jam, yeah, I had a verse.
Speaker 5: I'm fresh Sugar.
Speaker 7: Supremo Sun Supremo role called Suprema son.
Speaker 5: So Supremo role call.
Speaker 1: My name is fante, Yeah, I stay so fly Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm in this verse. Yeah, Supremo Supremo role call,
Speaker 1: Supremo su s Supremo role call.
Speaker 5: My name is Sugar. Yeah, now listen here.
Speaker 1: Yeah my favorite comedian, yeah is a mirror.
Speaker 7: U Supremo roll call Subremo Sun Sun Supremo role calls.
Speaker 1: Favorite Yeah, record to listen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that classic platter.
Speaker 1: From h No, So Simmons, whoa Supremo sock sup.
Speaker 5: Suprema So Supremo roll call.
Speaker 4: It's lie Yeah, yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Thirty years later, Yeah, you would have all picked.
Speaker 5: Your run.
Speaker 1: Smo Suprema see it Sepremire. My name is Dave v J.
Speaker 5: Y'all know me.
Speaker 1: I'm up in this mo we on the top tail three.
Speaker 7: Supremo roll call, Supremo Supremo, Supremo Supremo roll call Suprema.
Speaker 5: Supremo roll call, Ladies, Man, I might not make it.
Speaker 5: Let's just cut to the chase. Ladies, John, we have David.
Speaker 5: That was probably your best road call.
Speaker 3: In means a lot to me. I worked on my
Speaker 3: had like three alternates. You've done a lot, mister Christ
Speaker 3: for Dome.
Speaker 1: You know, dint write nothing down.
Speaker 4: Okay, you didn't have to do that to me he was.
Speaker 1: Getting from an iPhone. I don't that's not him, that
Speaker 1: is not really that's nerd. You can't be like, can
Speaker 1: you try the lights up place this? Can you roll
Speaker 1: it back? Can you roll the back place?
Speaker 5: Damn?
Speaker 4: I owe to you, you know.
Speaker 1: Oh sorry you tried to hug me, but I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm not. You know, there's too many hugs. Hugs have
Speaker 1: been diminished because everybody wants a damn hug. Used to
Speaker 1: be for your grandma, you know, your sick mama, when
Speaker 1: you're leaving home. Now it's just every woman. Every everybody
Speaker 1: wants a damn hug. And it's too intimate. I don't
Speaker 1: want to hug strangers. You know, he's got to mean something.
Speaker 4: How long it takes for me to give him on?
Speaker 1: Months?
Speaker 5: Months to trusted?
Speaker 1: Jesus am the only one. It used to be a handshake.
Speaker 1: You can't shake a look person in the eye. Oh
Speaker 1: your questions, Nice to meet you. Now, I'm like, see
Speaker 1: that's even worse. That's even worse. He's trying to not
Speaker 1: catch America.
Speaker 4: We need to love. I think that's what it is.
Speaker 1: Please, I ain't trying to lose my job, man, Kanye.
Speaker 1: Kanye apologized today. Yes that sorry, I just tweeted. Apology accepted.
Speaker 1: Let's move on to talk about this. Yeah, talking about right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna pray for him, any let's let it out.
Speaker 4: I was just saying I was saving my prayers something.
Speaker 5: Just like that, going.
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna say no, no, no, it' still times.
Speaker 1: Time him and Tiger Tiger Woods and King and up
Speaker 1: name some other questionable black folks. Always like, I know
Speaker 1: we all got a family member. That's like exactly my mother,
Speaker 1: May she rest in peace. I said. She was like,
Speaker 1: what are you gonna say Republican? I mean, if you
Speaker 1: want to say we're going to vote it, why would
Speaker 1: you even say the word. I was like, my mom,
Speaker 1: come relaxed, I'm not even I just said Republicans. She's like,
Speaker 1: but no, she.
Speaker 4: Where your mama fromd Well.
Speaker 1: My mother was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, from Michigan.
Speaker 1: She was light skinned. Did you know she said she
Speaker 1: was freeman. I'm just telling you the family she said,
Speaker 1: we weren't slaves, we were freedman. I'm like, okay, the
Speaker 1: whole time. My father's side field workers, field workers, So
Speaker 1: make no doubt about it, that can happen you know
Speaker 1: what they did the history of local Jay's family.
Speaker 8: None of his family members had to go through slavery
Speaker 8: when it came to the United States. Were immigrants they
Speaker 8: got no, they were African American. For some strange reason,
Speaker 8: they they came immediately to.
Speaker 5: Ohio and something. Luckily, I don't know what the story was,
Speaker 5: but it's on finding your roots with Skip Gates on PBS,
Speaker 5: which you did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you did it, Yeah, I did. It was
Speaker 1: there when my grandfather.
Speaker 5: Was the last my great great great grandfather was the
Speaker 5: last slave.
Speaker 1: Did you read this book that was recently published? Come on,
Speaker 1: you looked at me.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: What's it called? I just got to reading it. I'm
Speaker 1: foggy right now, sorry watching God. You know. Yes, Well, well,
Speaker 1: I'm mentioning this because this guy in the book, his testimonial,
Speaker 1: he was on one of the last slaves, Clotilda. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my grandfather Clotilda. You know that's some evil ship right there,
Speaker 1: the clitoral bondage over in this blasphemous name.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was a it was a bet. It was
Speaker 5: a flip. Slavery was over. They flipped the coin and
Speaker 5: the bet was whether or not he could get a
Speaker 5: hook up. Uh, and and over in Nigeria to bring
Speaker 5: some back on the sneak tip because it was it
Speaker 5: was what this book was.
Speaker 1: Basically, it's the same deal. It was technically over, but
Speaker 1: they snuck this ship in and contraband cargo.
Speaker 5: And all that, you know, exactly, like slaves were like
Speaker 5: having cocaine on you like, you know, the British were like, wow,
Speaker 5: what you got in the trunk? Oh, you got some.
Speaker 4: They were the biggest culprits.
Speaker 1: But then all the all the what I'm trying to say,
Speaker 1: all the European moneyed families, you know, these people who
Speaker 1: quote unquote built this nation. Nobody had as slave trader
Speaker 1: on there because that was removed long time ago, because
Speaker 1: that's not kosher. Nobody wants to be known as that.
Speaker 1: They're like, well we sold tobacco, yeah, were probably, yeah,
Speaker 1: so they got here. And then if they owned a
Speaker 1: farm in the eighteen hundreds, yeah, yeah, exactly, tractor. I
Speaker 1: don't think, no, not yet, So can we move on.
Speaker 5: I'm not allowed to laugh at the slave.
Speaker 1: Can't nobody see you? But dig Man I did twenty
Speaker 1: three and me and there were no surprises. It was
Speaker 1: just okay, black black Irish Scottish. Okay, well Western though,
Speaker 1: Uh well it's I don't know everybody here in this
Speaker 1: room has greater or lesser knowledge of their family. I
Speaker 1: would assume, you know, uh, their lineage, and I have
Speaker 1: some knowledge. I mean in uh, there just was no
Speaker 1: crazy story. You know. It wasn't like you know, you're
Speaker 1: one third tie. No, it was none of that. It
Speaker 1: was a straight slave ship plantation Detroit.
Speaker 5: Here we are. So yeah, well I did that initially,
Speaker 5: and they tried to tell me that was from Sierra Leone.
Speaker 5: And when Skip Gates got to me, he was like, no,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna do a thorough DNA search, and you know,
Speaker 5: he had the receipts and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: That's what I need. Man. Yeah, I got the thirty dollars.
Speaker 4: I was about to.
Speaker 3: Say, you're not scared, because I was all for this
Speaker 3: until like recently they really want us to do this
Speaker 3: real bad and they're doing crazy things with your DNA.
Speaker 3: In that moment, what are they doing with Listen, they're
Speaker 3: finding criminals with the DNA.
Speaker 4: You know, it's just the beginning.
Speaker 5: Did you do anything criminal?
Speaker 3: And they're finding it in your family, like in your lineage.
Speaker 3: You're like, so you're related so and so. Oh, that's
Speaker 3: how we can get so and so in the system.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, it's I never even thought about that. That's happened.
Speaker 1: It means a relative of yours did something and they
Speaker 1: can they can trace it. Also, our DNA information is
Speaker 1: not secured twenty three. Once you do that, once you
Speaker 1: enter that database, it's not like you can I don't
Speaker 1: know where that is. I spit in the test tube,
Speaker 1: I send it off in the mail?
Speaker 4: Right, did they sell it?
Speaker 1: What they do exactly? Something modify what it's like posting
Speaker 1: a picture on Instagram. You don't know.
Speaker 4: But you're good. You did George with skip seeing so
Speaker 4: that's right, you say.
Speaker 1: Skip is good for now.
Speaker 9: My homie did a sketch about that on the on
Speaker 9: the show Random Acts of Flying It, so he's real.
Speaker 9: It's it's super true. So it is a sketch where
Speaker 9: it's a reparations Yeah, turns he did. It's a reparation
Speaker 9: sketch where there's an app where you give your DNA
Speaker 9: and they're able to trace who are the family, who's
Speaker 9: the white family that owned you?
Speaker 5: And this is where it is where you're getting your reparation.
Speaker 1: This is where you get your reparations from and like,
Speaker 1: and they like, and I also takes into account things
Speaker 1: such as redlining and like all like it.
Speaker 9: It's funny as hell, but it's oh sketch oh. In
Speaker 9: my mind, I was like word.
Speaker 5: That was.
Speaker 1: But you know what, we did something when I did
Speaker 1: Chocolate News. But it was based on the thing where
Speaker 1: Skip gates. You never all all of your relatives are
Speaker 1: always wonderful. With Skip. I never seen him say, hey, dog,
Speaker 1: you'll people ain't ship you know, white people. Doctor Phil
Speaker 1: got it.
Speaker 5: He tried to said let's not let's get the show.
Speaker 1: Can take musht off gave him that bottle of hooch
Speaker 1: and said go sit over there, brother, get your life together.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Michigan, Sir, Detroit, Michigan, east Side of west Side,
Speaker 1: west Side, barely. I grew up in one house. My
Speaker 1: parents bought this house two days before I was one.
Speaker 1: I'm the youngest of three, nineteen fifty six, sixty two
Speaker 1: years old. And that's the one house I grew up in.
Speaker 1: And I left at eighteen and my mom sold the house,
Speaker 1: you know, when she got remarried and college. But that's
Speaker 1: just one house because but it was I'm sorry, to
Speaker 1: answer your question, it was four blocks west of Woodward,
Speaker 1: which is the dividing line between east and west, so
Speaker 1: it's barely west.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because I often hear stories of people that are
Speaker 5: from the west side of the Detroit that will lie
Speaker 5: and say they're from the east side of Detroit for credibility,
Speaker 5: Like its seemed that the west side is the bougy
Speaker 5: side and the east side's supposed to be in the
Speaker 5: real side.
Speaker 1: And have you been to Detroit, Yeah, it's all real,
Speaker 1: Like just man, please, Detroit is so black.
Speaker 5: Is on to come up now though it is always.
Speaker 1: A different vibe. I mean once they settled. I met
Speaker 1: this twenty five year old white girl and I was
Speaker 1: performing in a club and she was there like as
Speaker 1: a as an intern because she wanted to go back
Speaker 1: to Detroit and open a club in downtown Detroit. And
Speaker 1: you know that's what you need, you need the folly
Speaker 1: of youth. I was like what She was like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be great and I'm gonna do it and
Speaker 1: we're all going to succeed. I was like, how you gonna,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna do it. You know it can happen.
Speaker 1: So I was like, oh, that's what you need, not me,
Speaker 1: bro start up capital.
Speaker 5: You never want to go back to Detroit.
Speaker 1: I do. I go back all the time. I mean
Speaker 1: I've gone back to my high school. I did a
Speaker 1: master class with the kids there at cast Tech. I
Speaker 1: go back to my university. I went to University of Michigan.
Speaker 1: So I try to go back. I went for It's weird.
Speaker 1: I was like inducted into the Detroit Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: It was me Ben Carson that you didn't show up.
Speaker 1: I was there with popcorn. I was like, did he
Speaker 1: get in? I'm called in sick. So he didn't show up.
Speaker 1: But he's a doctor. He's a brain surgeon. Knucklehead too.
Speaker 1: It's like damn Chris. But yeah, yeah, yeah. So I
Speaker 1: try to do that. I mean I try to do
Speaker 1: it when it's like I said, applicable and I have time.
Speaker 1: It's mostly with kids. Like when I went back, you know,
Speaker 1: to work with actors, young actors and stuff, because I
Speaker 1: know when I was a student, anybody who had any
Speaker 1: connection to professional professional art community, we thirsted for that
Speaker 1: because you know, you really, you know, when you're a kid,
Speaker 1: you have like teachers, you know they're not really they're
Speaker 1: they're pedagogs, you know, so anybody who could bring that
Speaker 1: that fresh knowledge and we just ate it up.
Speaker 9: So, yeah, did you always have aspirations to be an
Speaker 9: actor first or or comedian first?
Speaker 1: I didn't want I wanted to be a musician. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm enjoy Yeah, yeah, I'm a very marginal guitar player.
Speaker 1: But I just remember the first time me and my
Speaker 1: best friend we discovered alternative radio. And our alternative radio
Speaker 1: station was WABX, so you figure I was eleven or twelve,
Speaker 1: and the first time we heard Jimmy Hendrix is like
Speaker 1: our minds exploded. Man, it was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: who is this? So we just ate all of that up,
Speaker 1: you know, all that hippie music and you know, our parents.
Speaker 5: It was wild. Yeah, it makes sense because now it
Speaker 5: just hit me that you were actually playing guitar as
Speaker 5: Calhoun Tubs.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, Well Calhoun Tubes was based on a guy.
Speaker 1: I went to the University of Michigan in ann Arbor,
Speaker 1: and there was this guy's campus mascot, this old black
Speaker 1: guy named Shaky Jake. He couldn't play, he couldn't say
Speaker 1: Shaky Jake, and you just that's basically how he sounded.
Speaker 1: So that was kind of the impetus and you know
Speaker 1: what that well, I was eighteen then, but you'd always
Speaker 1: see a blues dude. There was another dude named One
Speaker 1: String Sam and I'm not making this, but this guy
Speaker 1: he he recorded to like in the fifties, but he
Speaker 1: had a He took two liquor bottles, a two by
Speaker 1: four and a string and it was one string and
Speaker 1: he had a hit. It was like, all, I need
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars? Why do I need one hundred dollars?
Speaker 1: So I saw him, and I mean, you know, once
Speaker 1: I got into the blues, I was like, do you
Speaker 1: know Robert Johnson?
Speaker 10: Sir?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, yeah, I know, you know that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, and uh so I was. I was into it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you guitar or I did. I mean it was mostly
Speaker 1: self taught. Back in the day. It was you had
Speaker 1: to just wear the grooves out the record. You could
Speaker 1: take we could take a thirty three and a third.
Speaker 1: We'd put it down to sixteen r rpm so it'll
Speaker 1: be slow record, but then it wasn't in the right tune.
Speaker 1: And so it was all about or when we got
Speaker 1: a little portable cassette recorders and we just tape it
Speaker 1: and go over and over and over and over. No
Speaker 1: YouTube cheat sheet. The whole open tuning thing was just
Speaker 1: that you had to look on the back of an
Speaker 1: album and try and match it to the recording. So
Speaker 1: that's how we did.
Speaker 4: What were you in school for at the time, Uh,
Speaker 4: you mean college?
Speaker 1: Well, I went to college. Yeah, by you know, when
Speaker 1: I went to college, you know, my mother told me,
Speaker 1: she said, look, I will not pay for an education
Speaker 1: for acting, you know. And I wasn't really into acting
Speaker 1: then no music, you know, and by then I really
Speaker 1: still wanted to do music. She would not let me
Speaker 1: play in a band because that meant you had to
Speaker 1: go out at night, and she's trying to keep me
Speaker 1: off the streets, you know. But I had a good
Speaker 1: friend whose father owned a recording studio on Grand River,
Speaker 1: and I would hang out there all day and night.
Speaker 1: You know. They were not Motown.
Speaker 5: By the way.
Speaker 1: They were not. He had a record label. It's called
Speaker 1: Sound Detroit Sound something like that. They put out some singles,
Speaker 1: but mostly we just hang out in the studio.
Speaker 3: And just so, who did your mother what does she
Speaker 3: What were her designs for you?
Speaker 1: When I was in Jack and Jill. Yeah, like this,
Speaker 1: I went back. I think I didn't remember Jack and
Speaker 1: Jill being that niggers, but it was like.
Speaker 3: We should explain what Jack and Jill is people outside
Speaker 3: the community.
Speaker 1: Outside the community to do that, you dominate you.
Speaker 3: Jack and Jill is basically a nationwide organization for people
Speaker 3: who want who want their children to be in like minded,
Speaker 3: bougie ass situations.
Speaker 1: Doctors, lawyers, dennis.
Speaker 3: Yes, the middle class, upper black people who want their
Speaker 3: kids to be around like minded kids and families.
Speaker 4: So these chapters are in every different city.
Speaker 5: But like a girl version was like a lot of colorism, right,
Speaker 5: because I had aunts that were or like people of
Speaker 5: that age in the seventies that were they kind of
Speaker 5: used the paperback test, like oh yeah, if you were
Speaker 5: lighter than a paper bag, then you got treated certain ways.
Speaker 1: Christ Yeah, Well, like I said, my father was you know,
Speaker 1: deep dark, semi sweet chocolate e brown. Moms was kind
Speaker 1: of you know, beige, and they got together. But we
Speaker 1: were in Uh That's how I was raised, and so
Speaker 1: the Huxtables, that's pretty much how I was. You know,
Speaker 1: my doctor was a lawyer, I mean a doctor. He's
Speaker 1: my dad was a doctor. He's a psychiatrist and as
Speaker 1: a young kid in our neighborhood. We lived in this
Speaker 1: neighborhood that was kind of like Hancock Park, big old
Speaker 1: houses in a certain part Boston medicine area, and most
Speaker 1: of the kids I played with were, you know, doctors
Speaker 1: and dentists and that kind of professional folks.
Speaker 5: Can I ask, did your father did you know if
Speaker 5: he had black clientele only because for me, a lot
Speaker 5: of here's the thing for where I come from, like
Speaker 5: black people in therapy. It's like they were like, oh,
Speaker 5: I rather go to my preacher, my pastor, you know,
Speaker 5: like that's for crazy white people. Depression away.
Speaker 1: Take it to guy my dad. He yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: He told me a great story. He said, this one
Speaker 1: guy came in. This dude came from the autoplant, you know,
Speaker 1: and friends brought him in. He was all fucked up.
Speaker 1: He said, Doc, you gotta help me. This woman put
Speaker 1: a mojo on me. And at first my father did
Speaker 1: not know how to deal with it because he said,
Speaker 1: I can't help you. Doesn't Yeah, you do. Stude believed
Speaker 1: in me. Said I need you to She put a
Speaker 1: hand on me, and I need you to release this hand.
Speaker 1: So he said he had to go and get in
Speaker 1: this dude's mindset. At first he said, I can't you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a psychiatrist. So finally he said, okay, you got
Speaker 1: to talk on that level. So he said, well, okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna work with this, get this evil off you.
Speaker 1: And he worked with them and came up with some bullshit.
Speaker 1: The dude around three times and say on a monopa
Speaker 1: backwards and exactly. He had to make some stuff up,
Speaker 1: you understand. So, no, he had black clients, He had
Speaker 1: black clients. He had a real cute white secretary though
Speaker 1: at one point, which was my parents had passed away,
Speaker 1: so I can tell you all this ship now. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's funny you asked that. I don't you know, I
Speaker 1: couldn't tell you if every patient was black or white.
Speaker 1: I'm sure the vast majority were black. You have to
Speaker 1: understand Detroit at that time, you know, the forties and
Speaker 1: fifties and sixties, had a lot of moneyed black people.
Speaker 1: It had a professional, upper middle class, large black community.
Speaker 1: Even I mean just working at the car plan you know,
Speaker 1: back in the day, you can make a good living, exactly,
Speaker 1: make very good living, you know, and so so so
Speaker 1: there was a large unity Detroit, Chicago where else Philly,
Speaker 1: you know, New York. So so yeah, he was good.
Speaker 5: Did you did you have any interaction with any other
Speaker 5: notable figures from Detroit and you're growing up like a.
Speaker 1: Church Well, you know, my dad when my parents broke up,
Speaker 1: my dad moved to San Francisco in nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: and it started in sixty six sixty seven. So he
Speaker 1: came out there into the Summer of Love and we
Speaker 1: went to visit him, and he was working on a book.
Speaker 1: So I met Alex Haley Claude Brown junior. He would
Speaker 1: introduce me to all these people, man, and I'd just
Speaker 1: be like, hey, what's up, man? Can I get a
Speaker 1: mini bike? You know? He was like, no, you know,
Speaker 1: we marched. I marched with Martin Luther King Junior in
Speaker 1: Detroit in sixty three. Yeah, our family did. And so
Speaker 1: it was it was you know, cl Franklin. Franklin's dad
Speaker 1: was a prominent minister in Detroit, so he was he
Speaker 1: was instrumental in bringing doctor King to Detroit. And that
Speaker 1: was the summer of the March on Washington, you understand.
Speaker 1: And so in Detroit he actually did the I Have
Speaker 1: a Dream speech. Uh, it was an earlier version practice
Speaker 1: exactly this typical Detroit. We got the we got the
Speaker 1: last run through. Yeah, so uh and you know, just
Speaker 1: a sidebar. You know, Aretha Franklin, she reached out to
Speaker 1: me several times, you know, just as well. I remember
Speaker 1: Damon and I Damon Waynams and I reperformed at the
Speaker 1: Fox Theater, you know, in downtown Detroit, and I came
Speaker 1: in my dress room. I mean this big, big, big,
Speaker 1: huge bouquet of flowers and it was from Aretha Franklin.
Speaker 1: She said, David, You've always been one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: I have something special for you. Call me. And I
Speaker 1: was so tripped out by the note. I never called
Speaker 1: her because I was like trying to holler. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, she was good, but I mean I think
Speaker 1: that she because I'm from Detroit. She always whenever I
Speaker 1: came in town, or like, because we finally hooked up,
Speaker 1: she came to see Porgy and Bess where her husband
Speaker 1: they came and we hung out afterwards. There was this
Speaker 1: thing at I forget that, this armory. It was like
Speaker 1: to Honor and Living Color and Radio City Music Hall
Speaker 1: all in that time. And we talked and she was
Speaker 1: real cool, I mean just real friendly and real nice
Speaker 1: and reached out, meaning, here's my number. Let's keep in touch,
Speaker 1: you know, let's let's kick it. I mean it was nice.
Speaker 1: She was cool.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, she was nice to you.
Speaker 1: Too soon soon anybody have any Lauren Hill? Because you
Speaker 1: know she she she clapped back, clap.
Speaker 5: Back to me. Was too much, plea copping. It's too much.
Speaker 5: It was a whole bunch of word salad, a lot
Speaker 5: of words.
Speaker 1: It wasn't even about what she said. It was about
Speaker 1: the comments. Yeah, yes, you know, you can make it
Speaker 1: on Twitter on time, but not to your concert. That's
Speaker 1: all I'm saying. Waited two hours. Okay, clap right back
Speaker 1: on Twitter. In the comments. I looked at the comments
Speaker 1: for one time. They were actually worth reading, really hilarious.
Speaker 1: You know, I can't say, I can't believe I'm about
Speaker 1: to say this. Okay, So I read the whole whole thing.
Speaker 1: I read it, but part of me was legit proud
Speaker 1: that she knew what emojis were. Yeah, right, there tells
Speaker 1: you the message failed when you the mojis.
Speaker 5: E emojis to make your point. She got kids. That
Speaker 5: That's I spent at least ten minutes trying to analyze like,
Speaker 5: imagine Laurence Hill knowing what that that skeptical, the cynic
Speaker 5: on your chin with the eyebrow.
Speaker 3: But it was it was like got co writers on that. No,
Speaker 3: I don't want the sister to come give me.
Speaker 1: But I was like, who wrote this? Because I can't
Speaker 1: imagine her. I think I think she actually wrote the
Speaker 1: opening paragraph. Was like, it's mighty presumptuous for you to
Speaker 1: think that I would presume assumptions worthwith real Oswald Banks.
Speaker 5: Answer?
Speaker 1: This is medium a blog? Or is it it's a site.
Speaker 5: Where anybody can post anything? Oh? Because I was like,
Speaker 5: why aren't the medium people spell checking and all that stuff?
Speaker 5: Now it's just you can type that shit on your phone.
Speaker 1: And they want they want you real.
Speaker 5: Oh I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: A big fan of Lauren Hills.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I love breakfast. I'm a punishment actually.
Speaker 1: First of all, you know some whoopez has come to
Speaker 1: anybody quest love real quick? A big fan, by the way,
Speaker 1: big fant, you should run then, don't wait anything that's
Speaker 1: out A big fan, brother? Can I ask you some please? No?
Speaker 5: Yeah? I was proud that she not since Okay, when
Speaker 5: I graduated high school, LL's walking with a panther came out. Wow,
Speaker 5: And my big surprise was okay, because again LL's from
Speaker 5: like the eighty five era, so I was trying to
Speaker 5: imagine LL over modern breakbeats and to hear him over
Speaker 5: modern hip hop of eighty nine was like a shocker, like, oh, okay,
Speaker 5: LL's new man. That's how I felt about Lauren, Like
Speaker 5: she knew what a hashtag was in an emoji, Like
Speaker 5: I was legit proud.
Speaker 1: Because I mean it's been around for like fifteen years now.
Speaker 5: Well, he was actually taking a selfie and remember when
Speaker 5: Prince took that selfie and Princess selfie, it was awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 5: but I think he did it on purpose.
Speaker 1: So I think the greatest selfie was Reverend Al selfie.
Speaker 5: Had to show you the whole fish. Yeah, like I
Speaker 5: got to see all this.
Speaker 1: He's a man. I just saw him. I was in
Speaker 1: Brooklyn last Yeah.
Speaker 9: Yeah, he was at the Spike Lee has a Michael
Speaker 9: Jackson party he does every year.
Speaker 1: Al was at there dancing. I saw a video he was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I kicked it with man. He was chasing me down
Speaker 1: for years, like Reven would like to talk to you.
Speaker 4: I'm going.
Speaker 1: Finally we finally we touched the base and he's good. Man. No,
Speaker 1: it was back, you know, in the nineties. One Living
Speaker 1: Color was on and I was just trying. I'm trying
Speaker 1: feather Man sterile at that point, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I was trying. But anyway, are you one of.
Speaker 5: Those people that you're literally on meeting your idols or
Speaker 5: or have you ever had a situation in which you
Speaker 5: met someone and they disappointed you because they weren't like.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you one, but I mean, I didn't hate
Speaker 1: on him. I'm just telling you how it happened. Like
Speaker 1: I was doing this award show and Cab Calloway was
Speaker 1: the Cab Calloway as a kid. You know, he wrote
Speaker 1: his memoir. I forget what it was called, but it
Speaker 1: was beautiful. Man. I'll tell you a quick story from
Speaker 1: his memoir, Like when Cab Calloway had his band, Disney
Speaker 1: Gillespie played in it, and Disney Gillespie and them, when
Speaker 1: they're on the bandstand, they used to shoot spitballs at
Speaker 1: each other, and Cab Callaway hated that shit, you know,
Speaker 1: because she would get wild when they're gig in and
Speaker 1: one or two spit balls will hit hit him. So
Speaker 1: he and Dizzy had it out. Now The story is,
Speaker 1: you know, he always wore a white tuxedo, and so
Speaker 1: he got in a fight with Dizzey Gillespie and they
Speaker 1: said he went past the room and he came by
Speaker 1: the white tuxedo was blood on it. He said, I
Speaker 1: guess y'all heard. I had to fire the nigga. Cap
Speaker 1: tried to swing on him, and Dizzy pulled out a
Speaker 1: knife and stuck it.
Speaker 5: Now, I got to cut it.
Speaker 1: Real black, and forgive me if I get the story slightly.
Speaker 1: This was many years ago. But anyway, I see Cap
Speaker 1: Callaway and I just totally fanned out. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god. You know, he was talking to another
Speaker 1: dude I knew who was like, you know, stage managing
Speaker 1: the whole thing. I was like, oh my god, mister Calloway,
Speaker 1: you are my hero, You're my idol. I've been watching
Speaker 1: you since my whole life. I've read every anything, I
Speaker 1: have posters of him. And he just went, that's beautiful. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I understood there. I was like, oh man, I heard
Speaker 1: flowing off, blown off by Camp CALLI, but it's all good.
Speaker 1: He didn't know who I was. You know, it was
Speaker 1: all good, So that's not you know it wasn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would like to talk to him longer, but he didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't go home, like I hate you, man.
Speaker 5: You just WoT Cuba Cuba. Gooding Senior did that to
Speaker 5: me once, Like he was sitting there. Yeah, he was
Speaker 5: sitting We were at uh uh the movie that Junior
Speaker 5: was in with Denzel Washington Drug Frank White. Uh. Yeah.
Speaker 5: We were at like an after party and Cuba scene.
Speaker 5: He was sitting alone, like isolated, and I was just
Speaker 5: like yo, like, dude, you're my hero main ingredient. I
Speaker 5: love all your music, YadA YadA, YadA, and instantly like
Speaker 5: he shook my hand, but then he saw iced tea
Speaker 5: and Cocoa walked in and he just pushed me out
Speaker 5: the way I grew up on mean ingredients. D d
Speaker 5: da da dada.
Speaker 1: Oh my god boy, how did you feel? I mean,
Speaker 1: people are human beings, Coco.
Speaker 5: So I got curd of Coco. I guess I kind
Speaker 5: of got it.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I'm sure people would tell you, you know,
Speaker 1: I curbed them. It depends if you roll upon me
Speaker 1: at five forty five at the airport and want to
Speaker 1: take a selfie. If you roll up on me in
Speaker 1: a nightclub with a you know, cell phone, talk to
Speaker 1: my nephew.
Speaker 5: You might get curved.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm not gonna FaceTime with your mama. Yeah I
Speaker 1: don't know you. I mean with your mom. I would
Speaker 1: because I know you. But you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: sometimes you have to be like now, you have.
Speaker 5: To put up those boundaries.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, dude, like that is longer, but thank you for
Speaker 3: the short of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know sometimes and it's just that way.
Speaker 1: So I give people. I give people latitude as long
Speaker 1: as it's not too foul. I mean, you know, nobody's
Speaker 1: ever like swung on me like that.
Speaker 5: Established.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be stabbed. Nobody wants to get
Speaker 1: stabs right right. Evant is gonna be my new You
Speaker 1: can use it because people they won't even know, they
Speaker 1: won't know.
Speaker 5: No good.
Speaker 1: Well, I wanted to tell you my sl Stone. You
Speaker 1: guys are talking. Yeah, First of all, sly Stone, sling
Speaker 1: of family Stone where there was a record store on
Speaker 1: twelfth Street. Twelve Street in Detroit is the Black Street.
Speaker 1: We had to walk a few blocks to get to
Speaker 1: twelve Street, twelve Street. There's a store in there called
Speaker 1: Being Bob's and that's where me and my friend we
Speaker 1: go and get our singles. You know, it was like
Speaker 1: so the Soda Shop records, uh palmade you know, m yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: Murray by the way, Detroit Company, look on the ten
Speaker 1: New Nile, New Nile. But so we heard dance to
Speaker 1: the music again on the local radio station. Sly's music
Speaker 1: was so different, so new. I had never heard no
Speaker 1: kind of ship like that, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I was like, damn, you know, boom boom boom, boom boom.
Speaker 1: We're like, oh my god, I got to get some
Speaker 1: of this. So we went and that's where I got
Speaker 1: that first single. And watching him back then, there was
Speaker 1: no all it was was Ed Sullivan and what Hollywood
Speaker 1: Palace you know. Uh so you had to just wait
Speaker 1: American band stand. Yeah yeah yeah. But watching size, seeing Sly,
Speaker 1: his style was so different and fresh, the way he
Speaker 1: combined gospel. He was an inventor of funk, I mean
Speaker 1: he really was. And his drum patterns, I mean he
Speaker 1: had the fun honest drummers I've ever heard. I mean
Speaker 1: his bass player, his bass player, man Mary Graham, invented
Speaker 1: a whole style that changed bass playing. So all that
Speaker 1: in one group. So I saw him at Olympia at
Speaker 1: the Olympia Auditorium that was the hockey ring in Detroit.
Speaker 1: I had to be fifteen, okay. So this was the
Speaker 1: first time we talked, me and my crew. We talked
Speaker 1: one of the moms into dropping us off then they
Speaker 1: would pick us up. It's got to be seventy one, okay, seventy.
Speaker 5: One right, all right, So he would get there.
Speaker 1: Everybody was there, all all the crew from school, you know,
Speaker 1: we all piling there, and we were well, we take
Speaker 1: the cheapest tickets and then just bum rush, That's what
Speaker 1: we did. So as soon as the lights went down,
Speaker 1: Slide came out and you know, it's all white on stage.
Speaker 1: He had those tufted custom amps. And by the way,
Speaker 1: we're always you know, equipment heads. We just look what
Speaker 1: is he playing? What is what is that? What is
Speaker 1: the gear? What is the chord? The guitars? All that
Speaker 1: far fiesia organ. So he comes out and he starts jamming,
Speaker 1: and it was like as soon as he hit that
Speaker 1: first note, people turned and started whooping. Ass They just
Speaker 1: it was a riot immediately. So Slide stopped and he said,
Speaker 1: look man, he said, look man, if you if you
Speaker 1: all gonna stop beating these kids. We're gonna we're gonna go.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go, man, And so it was like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: don't go. Everybody's calm down. He started up again. It
Speaker 1: was like robots bam. We just started swinging. And so
Speaker 1: that went on and on. So we got about twenty
Speaker 1: minutes of music. So he got to I want to
Speaker 1: take it, and I'm out fucking it was quite as
Speaker 1: interrupt just like a motherfucker. And so then he went
Speaker 1: on the news and he apologized and he said I'm
Speaker 1: coming back. You know, he had the knit hat, the
Speaker 1: gass boots. We fucking loved the slide. There was a
Speaker 1: dude I went to school with who dressed like Slice
Speaker 1: do every single day summer went. He had the fuzzy boots,
Speaker 1: he had those you know, knit hats, all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So sly Stone was he was huge, huge, huge. I
Speaker 1: loved him. I saw him then, and then I saw
Speaker 1: him another time at the Fisher Theater. This has got
Speaker 1: to be seventy four or five. And again this was
Speaker 1: at twelve noon. He had skipped out on another concert
Speaker 1: and I just happened to have a ticket, like I'd
Speaker 1: been in town home from school, and I heard he
Speaker 1: was there and I just went it was a half
Speaker 1: full house, but that was that drummer there. I don't
Speaker 1: know who this dude was, but he on one handed.
Speaker 5: Was not Greg Rico.
Speaker 1: But no, it was not gregor Rico because Greg and I.
Speaker 5: Gotta look him up. Yeah, I know you're talking about
Speaker 5: who was.
Speaker 1: Sugarfoot with somebody else, but I'm just telling you it
Speaker 1: was still. It was just I just loved Slot Sly.
Speaker 1: I mean I would go see him anywhere.
Speaker 5: He wasn't late because I know, like he was the
Speaker 5: original original Lauren Hill.
Speaker 1: Out Lauren, Lauren Hill, you out Lauren Well to go back.
Speaker 1: But I loved him, okay, so to tie in, not
Speaker 1: to take him to and okay, So I was looking
Speaker 1: at guitars and stuff because soon as I got flushed,
Speaker 1: you know, as soon as I got a TV show,
Speaker 1: I just start buying guitars.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: They were like, we'll play I get it, I'll take it,
Speaker 1: give me the go play it straight. I'll take it.
Speaker 1: So I met a dude, when I met a dude
Speaker 1: who is just the equipment guy, and he said that
Speaker 1: he got a call one day to take up all
Speaker 1: this equipment had been ordered from their music store here
Speaker 1: in LA and take it up to this house. And
Speaker 1: and when he took it to deliver it, Slye was there.
Speaker 1: It was sly Stone and I was like, what is
Speaker 1: going on? So this in the nineties. He said, Man,
Speaker 1: this young dude, he said, sly brought him in and
Speaker 1: he played him some of the music he was working on,
Speaker 1: and he said, he said, he just start crying because
Speaker 1: it was just so beautiful and so amazing. And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, never heard never heard anything.
Speaker 5: One we know has a gazillion I went to here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wait he released I went on itune. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: did a cover covered his own stuff and released that
Speaker 1: a few years back.
Speaker 5: It was weird.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, Jesse Johnson was able to get you know,
Speaker 1: get that one tune out. It's funny. Yeah, yeah, when
Speaker 1: you got it. If you ever talked to him, Jesse Johnson,
Speaker 1: I love his guitar playing, man, love him.
Speaker 4: Talked to him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but dig so like when Lenny Kravic's first like broke,
Speaker 1: you know, there was that whole young heads who were like, oh,
Speaker 1: we want to sound like dirty like the seventies. That's
Speaker 1: something like there's a riot going on. But what really happened.
Speaker 1: I mean what I remember back in the day is
Speaker 1: like you know, by then, the drugs and everything and
Speaker 1: taken hold and they were doing so many takes retakes.
Speaker 1: It wasn't that they wore the tape out. That's why
Speaker 1: it sounds so funky, That's what. That's what, Like, what's
Speaker 1: the dude, brown Sugar, come on the Angelo? You know
Speaker 1: that's what they were going for. Whoever that is? Man,
Speaker 1: But you did, you know what I'm saying. But I
Speaker 1: was there. I remember that ship. That's why, because it
Speaker 1: was like they owed this album. They had done eight
Speaker 1: hundred over dubs and at one point I think Slide
Speaker 1: was recording on a boat in like Sosolito. That was
Speaker 1: the story, you know whatever. Sixteen thirty two tracks and
Speaker 1: just taping over, taping over, taping over. It's not good.
Speaker 10: Yeah, but that's what they tell you you should not be.
Speaker 10: You shouldn't print over anything, just in case any remnants
Speaker 10: remain of the of the earlier takes. But maybe you
Speaker 10: just wear the ship out. You get a certain sound
Speaker 10: that way. Listen to it.
Speaker 1: Listen to it. You can hear like like damn. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I love Slide lovel.
Speaker 5: There's a story of that. George Clinton always tells a sly.
Speaker 5: The premise starts with Slide, David Ruffin and George Clinton.
Speaker 5: Yeah the story and this story is great. The story
Speaker 5: the way long story short is basically, uh, they found
Speaker 5: uh a dealer guy, uh to hook him up with
Speaker 5: stuff and pretty much uh sly new slacker charm. The
Speaker 5: I mean, he can tell you the Brooklyn Bridge if
Speaker 5: he wanted to. That's the kind of charm he had.
Speaker 5: So Slide told the the dealer guy who was such
Speaker 5: a massive Slide and Family Stone fan, you know, I
Speaker 5: don't have the money on me, but this is what
Speaker 5: I'm gonna do. I'm gonna give you. I'm gonna give
Speaker 5: you the new unreleased Slide the Family Stone Masters.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 5: And he had ten masters. Everything's drawn out like song
Speaker 5: titles and the tracking and the dB levels and all
Speaker 5: the eqs. And he gave it to this guy and
Speaker 5: something told George. Something told George Clinton to just level
Speaker 5: with the guy and tell him. George went up to him,
Speaker 5: was like, look, man, what I don't want is, you know,
Speaker 5: to get unnecessarily shot over some So I just want
Speaker 5: you to know that these things are blank.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, was anything like, He's like, no,
Speaker 1: these these are blank. Well I'm gonna I'm gonna pay
Speaker 1: your money. Just give me a second. Well dig when
Speaker 1: we did live in Color we did a sketch. It
Speaker 1: was Kim Wayne to and I. It was you don't
Speaker 1: know that. Wait, No, here's the deal. Listen. My sister
Speaker 1: was one of the was one of the gospel was
Speaker 1: one of the gospel.
Speaker 5: Sayings, Cynthia Rose or the younger one.
Speaker 1: I don't please, I don't remember. It was one of them,
Speaker 1: Cynthia one of them. Because I talked to her and
Speaker 1: I said, oh my god, Slie's her face dropped and
Speaker 1: went no, no, no, no, because I don't have any bad stories.
Speaker 1: It's all about Slot. I love them. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to say, I'm a big fan. I'm honored that you're
Speaker 1: even here. I was. I couldn't believe it, man, I
Speaker 1: couldn't believe.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But she was one of the gospel singers.
Speaker 5: Yeah, either Bellstone or or Roadstone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I forget now it was a million years ago.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so that was a whole big circle love slide.
Speaker 9: So you're you're like when you went to college, you
Speaker 9: you Yale, right.
Speaker 1: I did, but I did. My undergrad was at University
Speaker 1: of Mission where years ago Yale. I went to Yale
Speaker 1: from seventy six to eighty one. I went from well,
Speaker 1: seventy eight, seventy eight to eighty one. I went to
Speaker 1: Michigan from seventy four to seventy eight.
Speaker 4: So my Angela Bassett maybe, oh.
Speaker 1: Angela was there the whole year. She's one of the
Speaker 1: first people I met at Yale. And when I tell
Speaker 1: you I was there, Reggie Cathy, he and I were
Speaker 1: college college roommates Michigan. We're college roommates of Michigan. He
Speaker 1: was a Detroit guy too. He was from you know,
Speaker 1: he was from Huntsville, Alabama. But I met him as actors,
Speaker 1: you know, University of Michigan. So we were roommates there.
Speaker 1: I applied to Yelle. I told Reggie I was applying,
Speaker 1: he applied to. We both got in. So that's how
Speaker 1: we rolled up such.
Speaker 5: An amazing voice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he always said that he always had the voice.
Speaker 1: But the problem was he was real skinny, dorky looking kid,
Speaker 1: and he sounded like James Earl Jones. So we all knew, like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: come thirty two years brother, you just wait thirty two
Speaker 1: years though. Yeah, he smoked. He always smoked, like forever,
Speaker 1: all day and night. So yeahs So.
Speaker 9: From the time you were at Yale, were you involved
Speaker 9: in any like what you're doing theater?
Speaker 5: Like how did you kind of get you went there?
Speaker 1: I went to the acting school.
Speaker 5: He was in school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, but but you know, Angela was undergraduate. So
Speaker 1: we would do our little productions and like we did
Speaker 1: this play a series of one acts about Lester Young
Speaker 1: and Angela as an undergrad, we tapped her and she
Speaker 1: would come and act with us. Charles Dutton came like
Speaker 1: when I was in a sophomore I mean or like
Speaker 1: my second year because his graduate school he was there,
Speaker 1: and so we all worked and stuff, and yeah, Angela,
Speaker 1: I just saw her. Man, we're doing press. She's a
Speaker 1: nine nine one one and I'm doing this other show.
Speaker 1: But yeah, She's what I'm saying is Angela was Angela
Speaker 1: back then. I remember sitting backstage in this little funky
Speaker 1: theater and I was like, so, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: And She's like I don't know, And I'm like, you
Speaker 1: don't know, like maybe you should be an actress. But
Speaker 1: she had already been at Yale for four years, so
Speaker 1: for her to stay another three, that's seven years she did,
Speaker 1: which was its great because well Courtney was after I left,
Speaker 1: after she left, but so uh I saw her do
Speaker 1: antigony as a student and when they could have gave
Speaker 1: her oscar then, I mean she just ripped it up.
Speaker 5: I was like, damn, what was what was the Ivy
Speaker 5: League experience like back then? Because I mean now it
Speaker 5: seems like there's an adjustment. Like I went to Harvard
Speaker 5: like a year and a half ago, and the students
Speaker 5: seemed well adjusted and you know, like themselves funny.
Speaker 1: You know it's funny. Yeah. Reggie and I when we
Speaker 1: got there, we just I felt like and you know,
Speaker 1: I felt like just a kid in a candy store, like,
Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna run this motherfucker because we just
Speaker 1: did what we wanted to do. I mean, we were
Speaker 1: just running out there. But it was different for me
Speaker 1: and my class as an actor, as a black actor. People,
Speaker 1: black kids, students who were in the acting who came
Speaker 1: to see us told us, you know when they were there,
Speaker 1: they played butler's and maids. You know, that's it.
Speaker 5: That's it.
Speaker 1: That's it, that's it. That was it, you know. And
Speaker 1: by the time we got there, we were doing everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, because we were just like, no, give me
Speaker 1: that said, now give me that, I'm gonna have a
Speaker 1: piece of yo steak. I'm gonna take some of your fries.
Speaker 1: We just did it. So that was a change over
Speaker 1: this That's the only thing we knew and that's how
Speaker 1: we moved in the world. But those older students who
Speaker 1: had been there before us came back and they told us,
Speaker 1: they were like, oh man, you all are living good.
Speaker 1: This place has changed, and we just happened to come
Speaker 1: in in that new wave and energy.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: After that, then, black kids, it's still not as diverse.
Speaker 1: It wasn't as diverse back then as it could have been. No,
Speaker 1: I don't remember. There were Asian students, but not really actors,
Speaker 1: you know, not that I remember of brown, Hispanic, not
Speaker 1: none of that, I think, But you know, a couple
Speaker 1: of black kids.
Speaker 5: What was Charles that's done like back then? My favorite man.
Speaker 1: Well, there was a woman that was in my classroom
Speaker 1: name is Eazy Monk, and she knew Charles because they
Speaker 1: went to Towson State. Yeah, Charles came in, Rock came in,
Speaker 1: and we just yeah, we kicked it real hard. And
Speaker 1: he was just a beautiful dude.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 1: I mean he still is. I haven't talked to him
Speaker 1: in a while, but he came in with such a
Speaker 1: force of nature, you know. I mean if you if
Speaker 1: you ever got to see him on stage, he would
Speaker 1: just rip it up. But he really was a great guy.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, if you befriended him, that's a friend
Speaker 1: for life. I mean, he came from some real ship.
Speaker 1: I'm not really gonna tell his stories because that's for
Speaker 1: him to tell that, but I mean yeah, but I
Speaker 1: mean he's written about it.
Speaker 5: Before he went to prison or was it it was after?
Speaker 1: It after? It was after? But see, the story was
Speaker 1: like when I first met Rock, I was like, that's
Speaker 1: meeting me and Reggie. So what's up man? What they
Speaker 1: put you in there for? Now? The story told us
Speaker 1: at the time. He said, well, I got busted for
Speaker 1: possession of bank paraphernalia and we were like, yeah, so
Speaker 1: the police caught him and you know that means like
Speaker 1: bank money and the accouterments of robbery, you know, and
Speaker 1: that they put him in jail for that. So that
Speaker 1: was the story that we got. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: if Rock's talking to you, you will accept that story.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're not gonna be like I object question,
Speaker 1: you know. And later we found out, you know, after
Speaker 1: he came out and he did My Rainey's Black Bottom,
Speaker 1: the story was I think maybe a tabloid was threatening
Speaker 1: to expose him, you know, about what he really did,
Speaker 1: and Rock just gave an interview and just you know,
Speaker 1: his own story. Yeah, got in front of it. So
Speaker 1: that that's when I really heard the other half of it.
Speaker 1: And I was like, damn at that.
Speaker 3: Just at the time for you, when you were at Yale,
Speaker 3: what was really floating your boat and moving your passion
Speaker 3: because you're such a multifaceted actor, funny person, in music
Speaker 3: person as well as kind of like.
Speaker 1: Well at that point, I mean, I was my passion
Speaker 1: was acting and what I always did from Michigan. Again,
Speaker 1: when I started acting at Michigan, they had the Black
Speaker 1: Kids and we had this one it was called Black Theater,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's very much an extension of the
Speaker 1: sixties that black arts movement, studying black playwrights and putting
Speaker 1: on these plays. But the culture at Michigan was such
Speaker 1: that they did one black production a year, and all
Speaker 1: the Black kids would wait for that production. Well, soon
Speaker 1: as I hit the ground, I was auditioned for everything
Speaker 1: Jacobean tragedies, Uh, you know, parlor mysteries. I mean, Lady
Speaker 1: Olivia Man. I approached it, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming in, buddy. But my thing was like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep auditioning. Man, You're not gonna you know,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna deny me forever. And I auditioned for everything.
Speaker 1: Uh it was Othello, it was and my professor, Vaughan
Speaker 1: Washington played Othello, but me Reggie was in it, and
Speaker 1: uh so we were in there. I'll tell you a
Speaker 1: funny story. So every night, you know, at the very
Speaker 1: end of Otello, you know, the whole company comes in.
Speaker 1: It's a fellow's death scene. But soft you a word
Speaker 1: before you go. I've done the state some service.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: It goes on and on. Now. Usually we'd be standing
Speaker 1: on the stairs because me and Reggie we had like
Speaker 1: three lines. I remember my life a messenger from the galleys.
Speaker 1: Here's more news. Reggie had some ship. So we would
Speaker 1: be fucking around and we'd be like, were we gonna
Speaker 1: hang out tonight? Man, We're going to pizza Hud or
Speaker 1: bloody bloody blue. So every night we'd be kicking it, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do, man, whatever? And so I look
Speaker 1: over and see Reggie and I'm like, I'm asking, man,
Speaker 1: what's up, what we're gonna do tonight? And he wouldn't answer,
Speaker 1: and I look at him and he's just blubberd crying.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Man? He
Speaker 1: looked at me and he said, the motherfucker got to me, man, going,
Speaker 1: I know all of you. You know, you know, I
Speaker 1: know you, you know you know. He gives this big
Speaker 1: monologue in it cracked me the fuck up. I can't
Speaker 1: help you, man, some words on my ship's fucking me up. Man.
Speaker 9: From the time that you after, like othello and your
Speaker 9: time at Yale, how did you what was kind of
Speaker 9: one of your first breaks or you know, what did
Speaker 9: you do in between them?
Speaker 1: Well, my first job I played Jackie Robinson on Broadway.
Speaker 1: It was in a musical called The First. That was
Speaker 1: my first professional job. I started auditioning while I was
Speaker 1: still in my final year at Yale because the casting
Speaker 1: directors for the First were the same people who cast
Speaker 1: the repertory theater there, and they said they came to
Speaker 1: me and they said, well, do you mind if we
Speaker 1: submit you. I was like, fuck you guy. So it
Speaker 1: was over months and months, and as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: the guy who wrote the lyrics and directed Annie the
Speaker 1: music O, Martin Sharnan, was directing and co writing the
Speaker 1: first with Joel Siegel. Martin Sharton, he's eighty five. I
Speaker 1: just did Daddy Warbucks at the Hollywood Bowl. Martin came
Speaker 1: to see me, and you know, Alan Johnson passed away.
Speaker 1: These people are dropping like flies. So here's what I did.
Speaker 1: I got Martin in my dressing room, my closes door.
Speaker 1: I said, listen, man, I'm not gonna post on Facebook. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna wait to you dead. I just want
Speaker 1: to tell you now I love you. You started my career.
Speaker 1: He really pulled me out of school, and you gave
Speaker 1: me my first break, you know, and I appreciate you
Speaker 1: and I love you. Let's get this pound in now
Speaker 1: while we're alive and breathing. So that was fun. That
Speaker 1: was good to know. Yeah, so that was my first job.
Speaker 1: We ran like three weeks. But what year was this,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one? Oh wow?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Dream Girls had come in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember
Speaker 1: sitting in there. We used to hang out this place
Speaker 1: called Corumbas, and these three finance black girls come in.
Speaker 1: They're like the dreamers. That's going to be a hit.
Speaker 1: And there was Loretta Divine, Kelly Ralph, Jennifer All, Jennifer Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jennifer Lewis. Jennifer Lewis was in it too. Yeah she
Speaker 1: not not when I was in there, but Jennifer Lewis
Speaker 1: was again. Jennifer Lewis was Jennifer Lewis back in eighty one.
Speaker 5: She's one of the first. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: She worked with Workshop the World of and then yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, and they worked off for like three years.
Speaker 1: I mean it was long. And so by the time
Speaker 1: I came in and took over for Cleveant Dereks while
Speaker 1: he was on vacation. And then I stayed and stood
Speaker 1: by and you know, making that money man, that Broadway money.
Speaker 1: But that's how I brought good money to me back then.
Speaker 1: And eighty one college my college a couple of grand.
Speaker 1: It was a couple of grand a week. Man. Please,
Speaker 1: I was big. I thought I was rich. I had
Speaker 1: I had a nineteen and sony train. How dare you
Speaker 1: looking up and down? Looking up and down. Man. I
Speaker 1: had this jay. I had this green and blue Nike
Speaker 1: tracksuit that I bought on one hundred and twenty fifth Street.
Speaker 1: This ship was fly baby. I would that I'd like.
Speaker 5: It was.
Speaker 1: It was hell. Yeah, I thought I was Flushing living
Speaker 1: in the city I lived, you know, I lived in
Speaker 1: like a little apartment up on one hundred and third,
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventh and Broadway, and then I moved
Speaker 1: to my own joint and like this is duplex, but
Speaker 1: it really was an apartment. They cut a hole in it,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I was right next to the furnace, you know,
Speaker 1: like it used to be coal. So I actually my
Speaker 1: my bedroom was the old coal bind whatever you call that.
Speaker 1: But but again I was like Upper east Side Ni duplex. Man.
Speaker 5: The thing is is that I and I've heard in
Speaker 5: past interviews where you're like, you know, I started out
Speaker 5: a serious actor and everything, but where do you is it?
Speaker 5: Your theory that comedy really depends on how good your
Speaker 5: timing is, because I would have if had I not
Speaker 5: known your serious back background and acting, I would have
Speaker 5: thought that, you know, you were in a like a
Speaker 5: groundlings or a way I.
Speaker 1: Was, you know, I started doing I mean we did
Speaker 1: a stand up show at Yale, and clearly I was
Speaker 1: enamored with comedy. When we were doing Porgy and Best,
Speaker 1: a woman came and gave me the playbill from the
Speaker 1: first and when I looked at my bio, I had
Speaker 1: no credits. This is my first professional job. But what
Speaker 1: I put down there is David has appeared in comedy
Speaker 1: clubs across the nation. And you know so clearly spot
Speaker 1: because you gotta figure Eddie Murphy had just it was
Speaker 1: just about to come on. All the energy was in comedy.
Speaker 1: I snuck down and performed like open mics a couple
Speaker 1: times at the Improv in Manhattan and I met Keenan there.
Speaker 1: That's actually the first place I met him. This gotta
Speaker 1: be eighty wow, seventy nine or eighty yeah. And I
Speaker 1: waited in line and he was the only regular that
Speaker 1: would talk to me. And I was like, dude, what
Speaker 1: should I do? And he said, okay, well I'll watch.
Speaker 1: You know. I went on like two in the morning.
Speaker 1: Basically you get three minutes. So I just yelled and
Speaker 1: scream did some car wheels and Keen was like, okay,
Speaker 1: will you have energy?
Speaker 5: And Keene he was a coming. He would go up
Speaker 5: then he was. He was working up.
Speaker 1: Man, he was already I mean he was. When I
Speaker 1: say he was a regular, that means you know, you passed, well,
Speaker 1: you passed this audition and so you were able to
Speaker 1: do spots. That's how the old system.
Speaker 5: He was just a regular.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no. A regular means he stood in line until
Speaker 1: the owner goes, okay, you are pasted. That means you
Speaker 1: get spots and all that. The rest of us were
Speaker 1: just out there. So uh yeah, man, So clearly, to
Speaker 1: answer your question, I've always been a class clown. I've
Speaker 1: always been this dude. But I was just trying to
Speaker 1: be like, you know, like because back then I wanted
Speaker 1: to be like the black doctor or lawyer. So when
Speaker 1: Denzel got Saint elsewhere, we all auditioned. I auditioned everybody.
Speaker 1: Man scuple please, she needs to have her appendix taken out.
Speaker 1: You know, he got it. But we all auditioned, and
Speaker 1: then you know, I did Soldiers play the Man. This
Speaker 1: was after the first and that's where I met Adel Caesar,
Speaker 1: Sam Jackson, Sam. Let me tell you about Sam. Oh
Speaker 1: my god. We had all the dudes wet. We shared
Speaker 1: one big room and there was this twelve inch TV
Speaker 1: black and white TV that was in the corner and
Speaker 1: they watched Family Feud every day and Sam Jackson ruled
Speaker 1: that dressing room talked about comment y, I will save
Speaker 1: this actor's name. But one time understudy went on and
Speaker 1: Sam was just rare. It's like, motherfucker, what was you doing? Nigga?
Speaker 1: What the fuck was that? And you know he kept
Speaker 1: going at him and to douing, fuck you, Sam, and Sam,
Speaker 1: we're not missing a be said, fore you put your
Speaker 1: dick in me. You need to put your dick in
Speaker 1: the second act.
Speaker 4: Man, listen to me.
Speaker 1: I ran out the bill ding, I ran out the building.
Speaker 1: Adolph Caesar, he was, yeah, he's putting this makeup with.
Speaker 1: Sam was in the corners like, man, what the fuck
Speaker 1: is you doing with this old kabookie makeup? ONDI motherfucker he' here.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the rest of us were sweaty, funky. We'd
Speaker 1: just be like, I'm ready. What was Adolf like? As
Speaker 1: a as an?
Speaker 5: That guy?
Speaker 1: My god, we loved Adolf. Adolph Caesar, man, please, he
Speaker 1: was first of all, a little short, light skinned dude
Speaker 1: grew up in Harlem named Adolph Caesar. Yeah, what parent
Speaker 1: would name Adolph.
Speaker 5: Caesar in the early nine Yeah.
Speaker 1: Man, but Adolph had great sorges. I mean I talked
Speaker 1: to him. I remember he said, you know, he was
Speaker 1: caught in a trick bag, whereas he was not black
Speaker 1: enough in Hugh, because when you know black consciousness the sixties,
Speaker 1: all that big ass afros, chocolate brown skin. He didn't
Speaker 1: fit in that mold. Yet he wasn't white enough. He
Speaker 1: described going to the Guthrie as a young actor and
Speaker 1: Tyrone Guthrie and white. They sent him home. They said, Adolf,
Speaker 1: we really we don't have anything for you. So you
Speaker 1: need to go back to New York, you know, because
Speaker 1: we can't really help you. And uh so that was
Speaker 1: really a poignant story. And when he came in he
Speaker 1: had been on a roll. But Sergeant Waters listen.
Speaker 9: Man, Okay, so who was because a soldier story? Like
Speaker 9: that's one of my favorite movies. I used to watch
Speaker 9: that coming home from school, like that was like my
Speaker 9: babysitter and I.
Speaker 1: Didn't think we'd get into it. Sam didn't get in
Speaker 1: Oh yeah I was, I say, because yeah, who was Sam?
Speaker 1: Who was Sam? You know Sam? I think they, as
Speaker 1: I remember, they wrote his character out like he was
Speaker 1: good because his character would always read all his love letters,
Speaker 1: you know, from all his girlfriends. That wasn't in the movie,
Speaker 1: but to watch it. Okay, So Reggie Cathy, he called
Speaker 1: me up. He said, look, man, there's a part for
Speaker 1: you in Soldier Story because Soldiers play. Yeah, Larry Riley
Speaker 1: who played he played play guitar, played slide. You know,
Speaker 1: everybody knew I played guitar. And he's like, man, you
Speaker 1: could kill this. So I went over there and I
Speaker 1: got the part immediately in the play. Yes, first, the
Speaker 1: first first play. The play came first, so you know
Speaker 1: people would come. But you know, at that time, I
Speaker 1: didn't think any of us would get in to the
Speaker 1: movie because I just thought they would use Hollywood actors
Speaker 1: and but Norman Jewison auditioned all of us and he
Speaker 1: put us in there. Man.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so what was that experience? Like?
Speaker 9: Man, like working with great Howard Rollins, I mean that
Speaker 9: was yeah, it was, man.
Speaker 1: You know Howard most of it was. You know, that
Speaker 1: was a six million dollar movie and that the vibe
Speaker 1: around it, you know, everybody was like, don't fuck up.
Speaker 1: You know, this is your big not since Bingle Long
Speaker 1: and the Traveling All Stars.
Speaker 5: You know, this.
Speaker 1: Is gonna be Black Panther, you know, nineteen eighty one
Speaker 1: version saw.
Speaker 5: It watching but it was just like you're gonna watch
Speaker 5: this movie.
Speaker 1: No, we hung out. I mean it was a brotherhood, man, Denzel.
Speaker 1: Everybody was putting in work. But the story one to
Speaker 1: tell you. When I finally met Eddie Murphy, Eddie said,
Speaker 1: the first time you ever saw me was in a
Speaker 1: soldier story. And he didn't know me, He didn't know
Speaker 1: who I was. He said, Dude, when you came on,
Speaker 1: he said, who the fuck is this country ass? Dude?
Speaker 1: Where the fuck did they get him from? You know,
Speaker 1: because we're all doing the Southern accents, which was a
Speaker 1: great compliment. But it was funny. Yeah, ce j don't
Speaker 1: talk quick talking. Yeah, No, we had big fun and
Speaker 1: Norman Judson was beautiful man. Yeah, man, it was.
Speaker 9: Nice second movie to my son's did I mean, I
Speaker 9: used to watch it as a kid, but it didn't
Speaker 9: really resonate until you know, I got older and really understood.
Speaker 5: But yeah, that that was a class. That's one of
Speaker 5: my favorite.
Speaker 1: It was big fun, man, big fun. We went fishing,
Speaker 1: We did everything man in that little ass, funky fucking
Speaker 1: Arkansas man. Yeah, oh damn fort Smith, Arkansas. One location
Speaker 1: for Smith, Arkansas. You have three months, So what was it?
Speaker 5: Oh? I was going to ask, what, uh, what was
Speaker 5: the first television thing that you did?
Speaker 1: As far as the first television thing I did is
Speaker 1: I did a presentation, a pilot presentation that's like a
Speaker 1: fifteen minute presentation, and it was me and two white guys.
Speaker 1: David Steinberg directed it, and it was for CBS, and
Speaker 1: you know, it was just some innocuous comedy. But I
Speaker 1: remember I would call CBS every day and there's this
Speaker 1: cute Puerto Rican two who worked at the reception. I'd
Speaker 1: be like, because I wanted to know if a show
Speaker 1: got picked up. I had a pad and pencil I
Speaker 1: was at calculating. I said, shit, if this bad WI
Speaker 1: gets picked up, you know, fifteen thousand a week, I'll
Speaker 1: be a thousand ares lush. Yeah. It didn't get picked up.
Speaker 1: So that was the first thing I did, you know.
Speaker 1: But the first show I did was called All This Forgiven.
Speaker 1: That was in nineteen eighty six, and it was the
Speaker 1: Charles Brothers who did Cheers. That was their first show
Speaker 1: after that. So again I was like, well I was
Speaker 1: at the Ferrari dealership. Well yeah, notoriously. I had a calculator.
Speaker 1: I'm like in two and a half years, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's what we did, and we got an order
Speaker 1: for thirteen and Dick I was telling people when I
Speaker 1: was on The Carmichael Show, talk about ratings, and we
Speaker 1: looked it up. We followed cheers. So our premiere week
Speaker 1: we pulled in twenty million viewers and at that time
Speaker 1: the network was like what yeah, because and at that
Speaker 1: time it's like you held it, but yeah, and when
Speaker 1: they canceled us, we were pulling in like eighteen million. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had an order for thirteen. We did nine episodes,
Speaker 1: and you know, then they took it. They had a
Speaker 1: big meeting and they said, listen, we're so good. We're
Speaker 1: not going to do the rest of our order because
Speaker 1: we don't need it. And I was like, wow, nigga.
Speaker 1: I was on the phone immediately the ship is sinking.
Speaker 1: That was like going, hey, dog, we're gonna record this album.
Speaker 1: We're not gonna release it because it's so good. People
Speaker 1: will find it. And you're like, no, man, like a
Speaker 1: Perroro remix album, box it okay, everything.
Speaker 9: Whatever, How did you So from the time from the Soldier.
Speaker 4: Story, I was just laughing at it was fast.
Speaker 1: Oh no, from the time of a Soldier story to
Speaker 1: you know, you're doing the positive how are you supporting yourself?
Speaker 5: Were you still just doing theater?
Speaker 1: I always worked, I mean I never I only did theater.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean I only did acting. So I
Speaker 1: was doing everything in my whole But but my parents
Speaker 1: never helped me. It was just money.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 1: Well I was single, costly just gig that gig, that gig,
Speaker 1: that gig. I mean, that was my reality as you
Speaker 1: know older, like you know, there are people would mentor me.
Speaker 1: I remember Anna Marie Horsford had a sister who was
Speaker 1: like at Columbia, and Columbia did Soldier story and I
Speaker 1: remember I was eating, you know, at her house. She
Speaker 1: had this really nice apartment West End Avenue, and they
Speaker 1: were asking me back then, They're like, you know, well
Speaker 1: you'll know when you're out of work. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I've never been out of work, and they're like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, this is motherfucker. I'm not saying I was
Speaker 1: doing like you know, I just was working. We're doing
Speaker 1: everything we do, voistovers, commercial, you know anything.
Speaker 9: Man, how did you get how did you get hooked
Speaker 9: up with Hollywood Shuffle.
Speaker 5: How did you get that?
Speaker 1: Well, Robert Townsend. I met Robert Townsend on Soldiers Play Soldier.
Speaker 1: We shared that honey We shared a honey wagon. So
Speaker 1: I will tell you like I thought, Robert was the
Speaker 1: funniest dude I ever in the world. Like he was
Speaker 1: doing everybody's material, you know, like he was doing he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's my boy, Damon, and he did all the more
Speaker 1: money ship and I'd be like crying, like, who the
Speaker 1: fuck me and him? Him and Denzel were always already
Speaker 1: tight and just crying. I'm talking about fifteen hours a day,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're young. We couldn't get enough. We
Speaker 1: would make each other laugh until we just passed our sleep.
Speaker 1: I remember sitting on the bed in I think it
Speaker 1: was Denzel's room and watching Keenan on Soul Train, you know,
Speaker 1: do and on the Night Show when he did his
Speaker 1: first spot. He was in the centerfold of Right On Magazine,
Speaker 1: you know. But Robert broke it down to me in
Speaker 1: our little trail. He said, look, man, we're gonna have
Speaker 1: a film company, him and Keenan. We're doing these movies
Speaker 1: we're doing. So he broke it all down there. He said, man,
Speaker 1: if you down, don't want you to do this, you know,
Speaker 1: Hollywood Shuffle and all that stuff. So I heard about it,
Speaker 1: and when I came out for to do my pilot
Speaker 1: season that following year, I stayed with Robert and he
Speaker 1: introduced me to Keenan Damon, who Damon was the size
Speaker 1: of like Marlin, like like one, and Damon always had
Speaker 1: kids like he had kids. From the first time I
Speaker 1: met him, I was like, damn, yeah, yeah, so dig
Speaker 1: So that led to I'm gonna show you how I
Speaker 1: get to got to live in color So Keenan, all
Speaker 1: those guys knew me just from hanging out. So I
Speaker 1: would hang out with them every and go to these
Speaker 1: comedy clubs. I didn't do comedy until Robert and those
Speaker 1: guys just shamed me into it. They were like, look, man,
Speaker 1: you can't be just rolling with us. You gotta do spots.
Speaker 1: So I started doing spots just for fun and uh
Speaker 1: so through that, Keenan knew me, you know. So when
Speaker 1: we did I'm Gonna get you, sucker, and that broke
Speaker 1: Keenan was like, look, I know how funny you are.
Speaker 5: Wait what did you do? I'm trying to play the
Speaker 5: news again.
Speaker 1: That was basically.
Speaker 5: He was the one that was in the Springsteen I.
Speaker 3: Was.
Speaker 1: I was like, bre Springsteen is amazing. You guys heard
Speaker 1: him because he's really good. Yeah, so so they Basically
Speaker 1: Keena just said do you think so? So he goes,
Speaker 1: look look man, I'm doing this show. You know, this
Speaker 1: sketch show, black sketch show. I want you to be
Speaker 1: on it. Now. Robert already we had been talking about
Speaker 1: The Five Heartbeats. Now the original cast was supposed to
Speaker 1: be me, Denzel, I think, Damon, No, Keenan, and Robert.
Speaker 1: So I got in long story short, I got in
Speaker 1: in living color. And then Robert called and said, man,
Speaker 1: I got the money. We're doing the Five Heartbeats. I'm
Speaker 1: like what. I was like, shit, I gotta get out
Speaker 1: this deal. He said, man, what the fuck? Why'd you
Speaker 1: sign the deal?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 1: And I called Keenan. I was like, Keenan, I need
Speaker 1: to talk to you because I'm very unhappy about this contract.
Speaker 1: I need to be let go to do this movie.
Speaker 1: He was like, dude, I can't. I mean, you signed
Speaker 1: a contract. It's not me. I mean Fox will sue,
Speaker 1: you know, saying I don't think you want me in
Speaker 1: your show I'm going to be very angry. Was like, Dave, look,
Speaker 1: shake it off. I mean I wish I could help you,
Speaker 1: but I could. I mean, I was just it was
Speaker 1: one of those things. So I didn't do it. Keenan
Speaker 1: couldn't do it, Damon didn't do it.
Speaker 4: Who were you supposed to be?
Speaker 1: I forgot, I honestly forget which.
Speaker 5: One of those dudes. But yeah, who's the original lineup again?
Speaker 1: Me by you know, Robert Townsend, Damon, Keenan, Denzel, who
Speaker 1: who would have been? I mean, well, there's a documentary
Speaker 1: that I haven't seen.
Speaker 5: Yet but were working.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe maybe it's in there. But yeah, so all
Speaker 1: that and like, uh yeah it was Wold.
Speaker 3: So when ahead, no, I was just going to say,
Speaker 3: it's it's deep because you worked with so many like
Speaker 3: dope ensemble casts that I just I was going to
Speaker 3: ask you, like, what who has challenged you the most
Speaker 3: and the best ways?
Speaker 5: Is that obvious?
Speaker 1: It was because you know, coming in doing Living Color,
Speaker 1: I did not have a comedy background. I mean, you know, Keenan, Damon,
Speaker 1: all those guys were in the trenches. They can came
Speaker 1: in with their pockets full. I didn't any characters. Damon
Speaker 1: actually came to me. That's how Calhoun Tubbs was written.
Speaker 1: He said, look, man, you gotta have some characters to
Speaker 1: think of something, you know. I was like, well, there's
Speaker 1: this blues dude, and he said, let's write it down.
Speaker 1: So we came up with that. Then we did men On,
Speaker 1: so it just kind of built. Yeah, it kind of built.
Speaker 1: I forgot, But originally that was Keenanan Damon, and they
Speaker 1: were supposed to be Dicky and somebody their brothers, you know,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna be and then Stephens and REESI was listen,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, who was it? It was the dudes
Speaker 1: from Motown, the writers, So that was what it was
Speaker 1: based on, but a ghetto ass version of it.
Speaker 5: And Howard tis the third based on.
Speaker 1: Real people because when when Little Color first popped, I mean,
Speaker 1: dudes would just hang out and I remember sitting in
Speaker 1: the makeup room and dudes would just roll in be like,
Speaker 1: oh look here, brother, can you give this card to Damien?
Speaker 1: And then you know, you know, you know how black
Speaker 1: folks do a lot of it. There was a table
Speaker 1: that was in our rehearsal studio and we would have
Speaker 1: breakfast and then we start our day and most of
Speaker 1: those characters started. We were just ragging on each other,
Speaker 1: you know, And that was one of those things where me,
Speaker 1: everybody would do it because we all saw those guys
Speaker 1: until finally, after a few days, you'd be like, yo, man,
Speaker 1: that shit is funny. You need to put that on
Speaker 1: the show. So that's kind of how it evolved. And
Speaker 1: then it was me and Tommy.
Speaker 5: Man, how often did y'all crack up?
Speaker 9: Because like some of my funniest times watching even Color
Speaker 9: was watching y'all about to last suck up.
Speaker 5: Dude, that shit was so funny.
Speaker 1: There's a sketch who I saw a while ago because
Speaker 1: I remember we were doing it and I was tired.
Speaker 1: It was late. I'm like, man, they ain't gonna tape
Speaker 1: this shit, and Terry the director goes got it and
Speaker 1: I'm like, what I told you, We were taping it.
Speaker 1: So I was watching what is sitch? You see me
Speaker 1: in there? Like because I thought we were rehearsing. Man,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh shit, she was right.
Speaker 5: Where did prison tiny come from? I did?
Speaker 1: I wrote that with Like I went to college with
Speaker 1: this guy fax Bar and he was white dude, and
Speaker 1: he was in our theater company. Like way back we
Speaker 1: did short eyes and stuff. So I brought him and
Speaker 1: his writing partner onto the show and he me and
Speaker 1: him and Adam Small we all wrote the prison Cable
Speaker 1: Channel Networks. And the reason why it was so much
Speaker 1: fun is because if you look back the first one, especially,
Speaker 1: everybody was in it. He didn't really didn't. He would,
Speaker 1: he would do stuff, but he was in it. Jim
Speaker 1: was in it, everybody all together, and that's what made
Speaker 1: it so fun because usually it would be like, you know,
Speaker 1: this is your sketch. You know, I don't know microphone man,
Speaker 1: and we do smaller stuff and support you and go on.
Speaker 1: But to get everybody down and that was what was
Speaker 1: fun about it.
Speaker 5: How did because of the kind of the rapid level
Speaker 5: of how that show just exploded across America? How different
Speaker 5: was your life after season one?
Speaker 1: Well, I'll give you an example. I auditioned for a
Speaker 1: Living Color with Chris Rock. We did our final like
Speaker 1: this improvs me and him and Susie Esmond. Susie Susie
Speaker 1: didn't really want to do this, so she's like, you guys,
Speaker 1: do it. I don't really want to do No. She
Speaker 1: wanted to stay. She was I'm not moving to l A.
Speaker 5: I want to who watch the audition for the show.
Speaker 1: Martin, Martin, Martin, Lawrence Audi. I auditioned with Martin. Me
Speaker 1: and him were friends from way back, and he didn't
Speaker 1: get it, so he would come in. No, he didn't
Speaker 1: get it.
Speaker 5: So wait, other people auditioned for this. I felt like
Speaker 5: you eleven were specifically chosen.
Speaker 1: Well, we were, but still there was an audition process.
Speaker 1: Martin auditioned and.
Speaker 5: Everybody from the Comedy Act Theory.
Speaker 1: No, not everybody.
Speaker 5: Robin Harrison he was on. At one point, I feel like, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 5: no no.
Speaker 1: But but I went to the Comediac Theater a million times.
Speaker 1: I performed there a million times. I saw Robin, you know,
Speaker 1: a trillion times. No, as I remember, he was not
Speaker 1: on it. But I just I'm telling you. I auditioned
Speaker 1: with Martin. I auditioned with Chris Rock. Chris did Saturday
Speaker 1: Night Live. So I went to visit Chris. And that's
Speaker 1: when I really thought, well, damn shit, I guess I'm
Speaker 1: doing something, because you know, everybody at Saturday Night treated
Speaker 1: me like I was famous. You know, Lauren Michael's they
Speaker 1: were like, oh my god, you know, the whole cast,
Speaker 1: they were like, dude, well, you know, they're treated me
Speaker 1: like I was about some shit. And I was like,
Speaker 1: damn man, because you know when we did a living color,
Speaker 1: we would you know, we would do our work, then
Speaker 1: we would go have Thai food or go hang out
Speaker 1: at Cate Mantalini's. That was a big joint on Wheelshire.
Speaker 1: It's closed now, but and then we go home. It
Speaker 1: wasn't you know when you go to Saturday Night Live,
Speaker 1: they got limos after party Hopper Rozzi. Nah, man, I
Speaker 1: got my little I forget what I had. My father
Speaker 1: gave me a chocolate brown nineteen eighty one Coop Deville. Wow,
Speaker 1: and you could outrun that motherfucker. Yeah, it was not
Speaker 1: like that, you know. So so coming to visit Chris
Speaker 1: and I was like, Chris, is it like this all
Speaker 1: the time? He said, yeah, man, yeah, So Chris came
Speaker 1: on after that, he came Lady, Yeah, he came later.
Speaker 1: But Chris. I knew Chris since probably nineteen fuck, I
Speaker 1: don't know eighty something.
Speaker 5: Where did y'all come up with the little Miss Magic?
Speaker 1: It was a picture walking in Little Magic. It was
Speaker 1: at the back of it.
Speaker 5: It was given kim right.
Speaker 1: It was, yeah, the back of a Jet magazine. We
Speaker 1: found this picture of this little black girl. It was
Speaker 1: so obnoxious because she was like, we just started riffing.
Speaker 1: We just I forget who named it a little magic,
Speaker 1: but it was Kim And I didn't want to play
Speaker 1: the mom because I was like, why are you putting
Speaker 1: on this drag ship? And then listen, motherfucker, I have
Speaker 1: the dress on. Okay, it's like, well ship, let me
Speaker 1: just gonna do it. Because we would play around the stuff.
Speaker 1: So that's how that happened. I mean, it's just a
Speaker 1: lot of it's very organic. You know, if we made
Speaker 1: each other laugh, then it was obvious you got to
Speaker 1: do that. You got to make a sketch out of that.
Speaker 5: So all right, so here's something I always wanted to know.
Speaker 4: That's what I was what happened to her.
Speaker 1: I was trying to get married.
Speaker 4: She acted, she was like the first many seasons she was.
Speaker 1: The wasn't she the whole show? I mean she mean
Speaker 1: because Alexandra, well Kelly was there from the beginning, hilarious,
Speaker 1: Well she want. I mean, it's like anything. I mean,
Speaker 1: Keenan said something really funny, like when it first popped off,
Speaker 1: he said, look, I'm gonna tell you what's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Somebody's gonna cheat on their wife, somebody's gonna fuck, somebody's
Speaker 1: go girlfriend, somebody's gonna have a drug problem, somebody's gonna
Speaker 1: come out the closets, and you know all that stuff.
Speaker 1: It's what happens in every group basically. And basically that's
Speaker 1: what happened. I mean, you know, you you you, you
Speaker 1: get a groove going, it's really famous, and then you
Speaker 1: know people want more. You have more lines than me.
Speaker 1: You know, that's the kind of stuff. So that's basically
Speaker 1: what happened. And it just once Keenan left. He left
Speaker 1: after the second year.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I just felt like he was there longer.
Speaker 1: But no, you're right, no, but but what we all
Speaker 1: stayed and then the Waiyans gradually, I think Damon left
Speaker 1: and then so it was Kim and Sean and you
Speaker 1: know so and it just kind of dissipated after that.
Speaker 5: What I want to do is, Okay, so when you
Speaker 5: were in your your bag and in your zone with
Speaker 5: doing like Broadway and occasional movies whatever, and you had
Speaker 5: you said like you weren't super broken, you didn't have
Speaker 5: to get a regular job. You made a modest living.
Speaker 5: But okay, so when you're on a cultural phenomenon like
Speaker 5: Living Color and you're in LA and you make that
Speaker 5: decision to jump into the river, which is like, Okay,
Speaker 5: you're making good money and the show looks like it's
Speaker 5: going to be a hit, so you're probably saying to yourself, Okay,
Speaker 5: this should be no reason why we're not on the
Speaker 5: air for at least seven years or whatever. So how
Speaker 5: risky is it to really lay down roots in Los Angeles?
Speaker 5: As in, I'm going to hit show? Do I get
Speaker 5: the ball out the car? Do I do I get
Speaker 5: the you know, I'm giving an example I'm given is that, Okay,
Speaker 5: when Ugly Betty was on the air and it was
Speaker 5: such a hit and all that stuff, a mayor could
Speaker 5: purchase this house and everything, and then like it got
Speaker 5: canceled in three years and she couldn't sell that house
Speaker 5: for shit, it took nine years. Again.
Speaker 1: That never happened to me, But well, just in.
Speaker 5: General, like once you decide to not be meager, and.
Speaker 1: We'll tell you what that happened. That happened, Like I
Speaker 1: was doing. I started auditioning for this Bob Fosse musical,
Speaker 1: and I went to England to visit a friend of
Speaker 1: my Matthew Modine, who is doing Full Metal g and
Speaker 1: I remember my agents called and they said, David, if
Speaker 1: you come back, we know you're going to get this musical.
Speaker 1: And at that point, you know, I had done dream
Speaker 1: Girls on and off. I was really getting tired of
Speaker 1: New York. That scene, I really wanted to buy a car.
Speaker 1: I wanted to buy a drop top Mustang GT five
Speaker 1: point zero. That was my dream car. And I said,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get this man in New York. That's
Speaker 1: when I really emotion said I'm going to La Okay.
Speaker 1: So I didn't go back. I didn't go back to
Speaker 1: do that final call for the Bob Fosse musical. I
Speaker 1: went out to La that for that pilot season and
Speaker 1: I booked my first pilot. So basically from that I
Speaker 1: would move back. I came back once after we did
Speaker 1: the pilot of in Living Color, because once we did
Speaker 1: the pilot, it took over a year for them to
Speaker 1: pick it up. You know, when I would go and
Speaker 1: do guest I did this guest spot on alf but
Speaker 1: wherever I would go, right wherever I would go, all
Speaker 1: the crew had seen. We did an hour pilot of
Speaker 1: in Living Color. It became like a bootleg. Hey, and
Speaker 1: these dudes on the crew be like, yo, man, that
Speaker 1: was the funniest shit. What are they going to do
Speaker 1: with it? And I was like, I don't know. It
Speaker 1: got so bad that Vanity Fair printed an article about
Speaker 1: in Living Color, you know, something like this is the
Speaker 1: hottest underground tape. You know, it's like a black Saturday
Speaker 1: Night Live. Everybody had seen it. Yeah, it was over.
Speaker 5: What took long? What took so long to iron it? Well?
Speaker 1: See, you know the concept of a living colored Eddie
Speaker 1: Murphy had it, that idea to do a black SNL,
Speaker 1: a black sketch show. Everybody had that idea, but Keenan
Speaker 1: is the one who actually did it. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean it was Barry Diller was running.
Speaker 5: Fox and they didn't see this SEO, it's gonna be
Speaker 5: instant hit.
Speaker 1: I'm just telling you, man. It took a while. Finally
Speaker 1: we got picked up, and that's what I went And
Speaker 1: I said no three times. You know, I said no because,
Speaker 1: like I told you, I'm not that's not my thing.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't really I don't have a bunch
Speaker 1: of characters. I'm not deep in this improv thing. But
Speaker 1: Kim Wayans I moved back to New York. And when
Speaker 1: I moved back after being in LA, I realized that
Speaker 1: was the wrong thing, because the next day I was
Speaker 1: back in the same call, same two dudes. Hey Man,
Speaker 1: what's up? Where you been? Man? I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, yeah, And she said, David, trust me, this
Speaker 1: is the right decision. So I trusted her. And because
Speaker 1: out of all the shit I auditioned for, it was
Speaker 1: at a time where I must audition for thirty pilots,
Speaker 1: I was the dude or like, well, I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll go black, David, Yeah, you know, so I
Speaker 1: would read I didn't get it, but I always knew
Speaker 1: that Living Color would be the most fun. It wasn't
Speaker 1: the most money. But finally I just told my agents.
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm just going to do this because
Speaker 1: I'm tired of, you know, audition for stuff. I didn't
Speaker 1: really care because you on it to the very end, right, Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was, Yeah, yeah I was. And so once I
Speaker 1: got in there, dude, we did the pilot, we did
Speaker 1: men on and I remember my agent call the next
Speaker 1: day and she said, they're doing snaps over at Tom
Speaker 1: MGM David. They're doing snapsid Columbia. People are snapping all
Speaker 1: over the city and I was like, damn. And this
Speaker 1: was for the first time, for the first time in
Speaker 1: my life, everybody was in like our green room. Everybody,
Speaker 1: all the biggest stars, you know, everybody wanted to come
Speaker 1: and hang out with us. And I was like, damn,
Speaker 1: for one, for once in my life, I was on
Speaker 1: the coolest show. I went, I got my burglar alarm installed,
Speaker 1: and the white dude he said, he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: he just went crazy. He was like, oh my god.
Speaker 1: The cab driver. I was like, damn, this supposed to
Speaker 1: be what it feels like.
Speaker 9: No, it's It's funny you say that characters were your thing,
Speaker 9: because you created some of my favorite characters like Stevens
Speaker 9: and REESI.
Speaker 1: Like, I mean, I got into it. I'm just saying
Speaker 1: that as an actor, as an artist, we all are apprehensive.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just everybody has insecurity. I mean I
Speaker 1: just heard a story that like what'sy Jones talked about it.
Speaker 1: He talked about like he was supposed to jam with
Speaker 1: Hendrix a bunch of times, but he said Hendricks never
Speaker 1: showed up because he said he felt like he knew
Speaker 1: he was intimidated by these jazz musicians. You know, he
Speaker 1: didn't have his knowledge was different, you know, him and
Speaker 1: Miles Davis kicked it. They were supposed to record a
Speaker 1: bunch of shit, but it just never got together. Everybody
Speaker 1: has an insecurity, even the most brilliant people. They do.
Speaker 1: Every artist, you know, ship where they I'm not ready,
Speaker 1: you know this kind of thing, but you know I
Speaker 1: jumped in. I said fuck it. You know, so it
Speaker 1: all worked.
Speaker 9: Out after the Living Color? What were your Where did
Speaker 9: you go from there?
Speaker 1: I'll tell you know. After in Living Color, I figured
Speaker 1: because I was doing stand up and stuff, I said, well,
Speaker 1: I probably can headline for about eighteen months. You know,
Speaker 1: there's no YouTube, there's no nothing.
Speaker 5: How long did they announce to you that the season
Speaker 5: five is our last one? Was it just like last ten?
Speaker 1: It happened.
Speaker 5: Here's the cake.
Speaker 1: I was in New York. I was doing Shakespeare in
Speaker 1: the Park. And now after that, you know, Jim Carrey
Speaker 1: had always already blown up with Yes, was that the
Speaker 1: first one was his first movie? Which I turned that down?
Speaker 1: Everybody it was. It was a script that was passed around,
Speaker 1: but Jim it because he said, look, I'll take this,
Speaker 1: but you gotta let me do my thing. So they
Speaker 1: gave him all the power and he said, fuck it.
Speaker 1: You know, so now I can tell you another story.
Speaker 1: So we went to the opening of ace Ventura and
Speaker 1: so the press check goes, Oh, I got an excitement.
Speaker 1: You know, I have exciting news. I've sat you next
Speaker 1: to Jim and you know yet Jim Carrey, and Jim
Speaker 1: was so nervous. He literally was climbing out of his skin.
Speaker 1: So I'm sitting right there and I want to I'm
Speaker 1: gonna laugh because it's my boy. Whatever, I'm gonna laugh.
Speaker 1: And I laughed myself dizzy sick. Now I'm watching it
Speaker 1: and I'm like, Jim is too crazy, man, Jim, Jim, Jim.
Speaker 1: He did that movie like they gave him six months
Speaker 1: to live. So he was just telling every joke, every joke.
Speaker 1: He just worked it. And so I come out in
Speaker 1: the lobby. I see Chris and I was like, Chris,
Speaker 1: what's up. He goes, Nobody's gonna see this movie, and
Speaker 1: I was like, no, because it was too crazy. I
Speaker 1: just thought America's not ready. We used to joke with Jim.
Speaker 1: I said, look, man, if I won the lottery. I
Speaker 1: wanted to give Jim five million dollars just to do
Speaker 1: his movie. He used to do this thing called Colon Man.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 1: He would whip out, you know, his three twenty five
Speaker 1: feet of colon and he would last suit people and
Speaker 1: suck him in his ass. This is the kind of
Speaker 1: shit we would do. This is the kind of shit
Speaker 1: we we're we're comedian. We'd just do. Dude. I was crying.
Speaker 1: I was like, Jim, please please, I'm gonna give you
Speaker 1: some money. I want you to do Colon Man. He
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, So we would just be messing around,
Speaker 1: making each other laugh. But what I'm saying is I
Speaker 1: didn't think. I just saw. You know, in a couple
Speaker 1: of years, people forget about the show. I go back to,
Speaker 1: you know, I do what I really want to do,
Speaker 1: which is I want to do like a sitcom like
Speaker 1: The Black Seinfeld, you know, and I just that's where
Speaker 1: my head was at. I did not see the legacy
Speaker 1: of In Living Color. And I'll tell you who did
Speaker 1: was Jim Carrey. I mean from the very beginning, we'd
Speaker 1: be sitting in the dress room. He said, Man, this
Speaker 1: is history. This is I was like, man, please, it's like, really,
Speaker 1: I didn't know because I just didn't. I just did
Speaker 1: not see, like.
Speaker 5: You didn't read your own pressions were in Time magazine,
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 1: But I didn't. My son's watching in color, Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I also didn't. I'm gonna put it like this, what
Speaker 1: I did. I remember I did this play and they
Speaker 1: had the men's dressing room the women's dressing room at
Speaker 1: this point. You know, this is like two thousand and six.
Speaker 1: So everybody had their laptop all laid up, and all
Speaker 1: these dudes had catalog their favorite in living color sketches.
Speaker 1: They could press a button dial it in. You know,
Speaker 1: that technology wasn't there when we did in Living Color
Speaker 1: in ninety one to ninety four. I didn't anticipate that longevity.
Speaker 1: As I toured the country, I started performing for guys
Speaker 1: who were kids, say ten or eleven or twelve, who
Speaker 1: snuck and watched the show. Now they're teenagers, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Now they're teenagers. And from there the
Speaker 1: people who saw the next generation under them, who saw
Speaker 1: it on be e T or whatever you know on
Speaker 1: I forgot what.
Speaker 5: It's It's on a bunch of channels.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a point where it was on every day.
Speaker 1: I mean it was somewhere every day, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: I just I didn't see all that. I didn't see YouTube.
Speaker 1: Come on, man, I didn't see it.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 3: I was going to I was gonna ask was was
Speaker 3: boom I felt like Boomerang was closer than Living Color
Speaker 3: than that.
Speaker 1: Boomerang was during in Living Color. And what I didn't
Speaker 1: know is so I get Boomerang and Keenan said go
Speaker 1: ahead and do it, and I figured he I was
Speaker 1: cleared by Fox. But Keenan never told Fox. He just
Speaker 1: told me he went to the Hudling Brothers and he said,
Speaker 1: make sure you have David back on tape day.
Speaker 4: So with that the make up for the Robert Townson Joe.
Speaker 1: No, but I'm talking about you talk about doing someone
Speaker 1: a solid.
Speaker 4: Ranting himself out there.
Speaker 1: And I didn't find out till many years later. I
Speaker 1: was like what, and he goes, yeah, what.
Speaker 5: Was that scene? Do the table scene?
Speaker 1: Well, there's what happened. We were doing. We were doing
Speaker 1: the scene and I'm sitting there and I go, what
Speaker 1: is the most embarrassing thing that could happen? Your parents?
Speaker 1: Fucking So We're at the table and I'm sitting next
Speaker 1: to Eddie so I whispered Eddie, and Eddie fell out laughing.
Speaker 1: So I see him get up and go around, because
Speaker 1: we were shooting in this big loft. He goes around
Speaker 1: and he tells Warrington, who's a producer, and it's all
Speaker 1: in pantomime. I see Warrington just fall out laughing. He
Speaker 1: goes and tells Reggie, the director, who's on the other
Speaker 1: side behind the monitor. He falls out laughing. So at
Speaker 1: the very end of the day, Eddie says, we're gonna
Speaker 1: film it. So every time we tried to do the
Speaker 1: scene you know where John and them come out and
Speaker 1: Eddie's looking at me. Eddie never kept a straight face,
Speaker 1: so I always thought, well, we can't use it because
Speaker 1: we didn't get a good take. So that's why I
Speaker 1: went away from it. The brilliance of Eddie Murphy again
Speaker 1: is that he allowed that in the moment we got
Speaker 1: to put this on film, and it was became one
Speaker 1: of the funniest you know, my character was just the
Speaker 1: best friend. You know. When I read the script, I
Speaker 1: kind of was like, well, I'm in an Eddie Murphy movie,
Speaker 1: but what am I doing? But the brilliant thing is
Speaker 1: we rehearsed for three weeks and rehearsed, well, we actually improvised.
Speaker 1: It was controlled improvisation, so all of like the scenes
Speaker 1: with me, Martin and Eddie mostly like we we improved it,
Speaker 1: you know. So so Reggie would go, look, you know,
Speaker 1: you guys are working out. Just go and we would
Speaker 1: start improvising. There was a well, there was a woman
Speaker 1: there taking notes and when I say guided, he would go, okay, stop,
Speaker 1: stay in that area, stay in that area. So he
Speaker 1: would guide it. All the best bits they wrote them down,
Speaker 1: and that's how the script was rewritten. That's how it
Speaker 1: really became ours. That's funny. That's funny. That's fine. I
Speaker 1: mean it was guy.
Speaker 5: So that was rehearsed well, it was like a table read.
Speaker 1: And then we would Eddie was living Eddie life like
Speaker 1: he was in Washington. Then they would fly us to Washington.
Speaker 1: I think it was for I don't know something, you no,
Speaker 1: he was just there hanging out in DC. And we
Speaker 1: hung out at the Four Seasons for a few days
Speaker 1: and we rehearsed there. There was improvisation that happened on
Speaker 1: the set, but it was already formed and for us
Speaker 1: to succeed, and also what that did, I didn't know
Speaker 1: Eddie at all. I kind of knew Martin, you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, me and him were boys, but it
Speaker 1: bonded us because we're supposed to be best friends. So
Speaker 1: it was really that's the only time I've ever done
Speaker 1: that on a film, and I think that's the only
Speaker 1: time I heard Eddie did. It worked like that, But
Speaker 1: that's what made that film so good.
Speaker 5: So that's not standard, right telling.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been acting for thirty five years. I've
Speaker 1: never had a month long rehearsal period before we start filming.
Speaker 5: What if something was so magical and there was no
Speaker 5: camera to capture it just lost? I mean because as
Speaker 5: I were things that happened in rehearsal that was like,
Speaker 5: damn that shit is. You know, I will never would
Speaker 5: never get that magic again.
Speaker 1: You got you got the good ship, trust me. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll give you one thing that happened when I left
Speaker 1: the loft. You know, after my parents fucked, we did
Speaker 1: an improv all the way down the stairs, all the
Speaker 1: way out in the street. So they said cup, but
Speaker 1: me and John we kept going, how could you do this?
Speaker 1: I'm trying to do my thing. I was like, man, what, Daddy, why?
Speaker 1: And we kept going, We kept going. All that was lost,
Speaker 1: but we were so in it. It was so much fun.
Speaker 1: Is with mom, Mom, Mom, this is why could you do?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 1: We kept going back and forth and you know, so
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff was lost, but it just but
Speaker 1: we I don't you know, they didn't videotape it. They
Speaker 1: may have recorded it, but I don't think so.
Speaker 3: I just so in contrast with the halle Berry scenes,
Speaker 3: that was completely like off on book No.
Speaker 1: Because I'll tell you what, because because like I'll give
Speaker 1: you an example, when halle Berry go when Halle goes,
Speaker 1: that was me. That was then improv I did, but
Speaker 1: it didn't make sense that I would do that, you know,
Speaker 1: in the kind of the scene. So I gave that
Speaker 1: to her. But you just and that was in the moment.
Speaker 1: That was in the moment. So so they encourage that.
Speaker 5: And how did the shooting go on?
Speaker 1: Martin told me he just let me go. But me
Speaker 1: and Martin, I love Martin man. I met him like
Speaker 1: from way back, you know, and Martin was always Martin,
Speaker 1: like he told me from way back when this like
Speaker 1: white lady owned the clubs, like sit down, you can't
Speaker 1: do what you're doing. It's foul. You know, you can't
Speaker 1: be talking like that. Martin was always like, this is
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do. Fuck it you. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So when Martin did his show, uh, he brought me on.
Speaker 1: And the only thing I remember, there's a guy named
Speaker 1: John Bowman who used to be on The Living Color.
Speaker 1: Then he went over and was working with Martin, and
Speaker 1: I just said, I want to play a preacher. I
Speaker 1: just want to play okay, because they they were saying,
Speaker 1: we want you to come on. Martin wants you to
Speaker 1: come on. What do you want to play? And I said,
Speaker 1: let me play a preacher. And from there it just
Speaker 1: and I did it a bunch of times. That's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite characters of yours, dude, and the way
Speaker 1: he scooped back to school. Don't let the death for you.
Speaker 5: He's here.
Speaker 1: It's a spare, even spar saying there. So that's why
Speaker 1: I spot get your buyer.
Speaker 5: Tell us about blank Man.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, damon, here's here's a story before you start.
Speaker 1: When everybody was out watching Black Panthers when that came out,
Speaker 1: I was at home watching Blank Man, the only one
Speaker 1: because I saw Black Panther on the film. Going to England,
Speaker 1: I was like, I was crying.
Speaker 5: I want to jump the.
Speaker 1: Panthers. You still haven't seen I haven't seen it.
Speaker 4: Out of the club until you come.
Speaker 5: Wait.
Speaker 1: I'm not a Marvel person, so this is a real
Speaker 1: black nerve, like a Marvel person all clothed the orgy.
Speaker 1: I don't told shoes, you don't, man, Black Panthers is
Speaker 1: not true. I went to the movies with this girl
Speaker 1: and this is when the first weekend at Black Panther open.
Speaker 1: I saw this one brother. It was at the what
Speaker 1: was it at the arc Light. He had his young
Speaker 1: but it was too small and he was waiting around
Speaker 1: and he got stood up and they were like, sir,
Speaker 1: the movie starting, and he was like I didn't want
Speaker 1: to be that dude. So I was like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: wait until people stopped dressing up and I can just
Speaker 1: go see.
Speaker 3: It was turned up. Everybody tell you something the wrong
Speaker 3: Black Panthers. A lot of you know, Callie Didy get
Speaker 3: it wrong. It was a lot of leather jackets.
Speaker 1: Well we try, we try, but no Black Panther was beautiful. Man.
Speaker 1: I love this ship.
Speaker 5: Eventually, yeah, what was that? Like?
Speaker 1: You and Damon Damian told me he was doing this
Speaker 1: thing you know again. We were on the Living Color
Speaker 1: and uh, he said, you know, I want you to
Speaker 1: do this. I said, cool, man, let's do it. Robin Gibbons,
Speaker 1: I don't think I had met her. Everybody heard about her,
Speaker 1: you know, she was just that girl.
Speaker 5: You didn't meet her on the they didn't do it. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I don't think they had anything to No.
Speaker 1: I met her. I met at the party. I met her.
Speaker 1: I met her. I mean we I knew her as
Speaker 1: a friend, you know, like that, and loved her. She's cool.
Speaker 1: We just did it. I mean it was great. It
Speaker 1: was a beautiful thing. And uh but I you know,
Speaker 1: when we were doing Black Man, like, I don't know
Speaker 1: if meteor Man came out first, but I know they're
Speaker 1: kind of competing. But you know, back then there were
Speaker 1: two things. There are a couple uh scenarios for black
Speaker 1: comedians reformers. Wouldn't it be great if there were a
Speaker 1: black superhero? Every black comedian talked about the possibility of
Speaker 1: a black president. That was in everybody's We all did,
Speaker 1: We all talked, we all had some riff on that,
Speaker 1: you know, those kinds of things, and to live and
Speaker 1: see all this shit, that's what makes it amazing. But
Speaker 1: I never got to meet Obama, but because I always
Speaker 1: wanted to meet him in the White House. But I
Speaker 1: didn't want to have to like donate money. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to be like no, I wanted it to be organic.
Speaker 1: I wanted it to be like David this Brock and Michelle,
Speaker 1: not like you to come to the house, you know,
Speaker 1: like that. I know you met. And then at the
Speaker 1: end when it was like they started throwing parties, it
Speaker 1: was like DJ Scribble, you know everybody. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I'm good, I'm good. I met Michelle. I'll meet him eventually.
Speaker 1: But I did want to meet him while he was
Speaker 1: in office.
Speaker 5: You know, trust me, he's still president.
Speaker 4: Would you ever do it? Or have you done a special?
Speaker 5: Yeah? I did one.
Speaker 1: I did a stand up special while ago. Would I
Speaker 1: do another one?
Speaker 4: It's a Netflix world, so.
Speaker 1: It's beyond that now. I mean, Jerrod just directed a
Speaker 1: special where there's no laughter. I'm like that. No, he
Speaker 1: directed this white dude where there's no audience.
Speaker 3: It's just him talking to I don't understand what it was,
Speaker 3: but I saw his name and I saw what he
Speaker 3: directed it.
Speaker 1: Like I said, okay, now, y'all are given lectures, no audience,
Speaker 1: call me old school, but tell us about chocolate news,
Speaker 1: and like, well, chocolate news.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: This was happening after the Chappelle Show. Everybody I heard
Speaker 1: everybody was pitching to Comedy Central. They wanted to be
Speaker 1: the next Chapelle. So I just looked at that, and
Speaker 1: from what I heard was all of the next Chapelle
Speaker 1: stuff was a trap. Nobody could be the next Dave Chappelle.
Speaker 1: So I avoided that. And then it was the like
Speaker 1: I wanted to do like the Black Daily Show kind
Speaker 1: of but in a sketch scenario, meaning everything was written.
Speaker 1: It wasn't based on real news. It was all fake.
Speaker 1: So I just you went in there and I talked
Speaker 1: to them and used the template of real sports, because
Speaker 1: if you mentioned Chappelle, they'd be like, now we've done that.
Speaker 1: It's always failed. Oh I want to do the Daily
Speaker 1: As soon as you say the Daily Show, that's John
Speaker 1: Stewart's territory. You got to go through him. No, we
Speaker 1: won't do that. So I purposely never said that, and
Speaker 1: they were like, wow, okay, so they bought it, and
Speaker 1: I was only on for one year or one season.
Speaker 1: It was ten episodes, but that's the purest me, unfiltered
Speaker 1: from my own hand written performed that you're gonna get.
Speaker 1: So I just I just did everything I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: I mean they gave me pretty much free rain. Probably
Speaker 1: the one idea we wanted to do a Kwanza special
Speaker 1: and they said no, and we wanted to do the
Speaker 1: origin story of Kwanza. But inclamation people, there's a whole
Speaker 1: we don't get it. So short of that, I did
Speaker 1: everything I wanted to do. Man, they just so that
Speaker 1: was cool, even if it was just.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think a couple we have our homies, was it?
Speaker 5: I think he right? That was their first job? What
Speaker 5: were they then? Working with them?
Speaker 1: They were hungry, man. I mean I dug them because
Speaker 1: they were intelligent and just smart. I mean I was
Speaker 1: in there every day writing with the writers, and I
Speaker 1: just wanted people who were as excited as me to
Speaker 1: be there. I mean what I didn't want is you know,
Speaker 1: like as a musician, you know you want the people
Speaker 1: that have a passion for your project. Okay, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a lot of really great musicians are great artists.
Speaker 1: But you know, if you're not down with what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: that's good. But it's not gonna help me, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So so I was just trying to
Speaker 1: find people that were hungry and saw the vision and
Speaker 1: we did. We had fun, man. I remember we were
Speaker 1: talking about I just talked about the other day. I
Speaker 1: was talking to facts. So we were planning the inaugurate festivities.
Speaker 1: That Lunelle came in. I've been watching Binge watching My
Speaker 1: Super sixteen, you know, because that was really popular. So
Speaker 1: we just did the ghetto version. It was like she
Speaker 1: was the party planner for the It's going to be
Speaker 1: real class y. Barrock is gonna be carried in on
Speaker 1: the throne and Michelle will be his lady and waiting,
Speaker 1: and so he just plotted out like it's a super
Speaker 1: sweet sixteen. So it was funny. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: really fun. I mean it was fun to plan all
Speaker 1: that stuff. It was exhausting at the end. I was
Speaker 1: just woo the fuck out. But that the night that
Speaker 1: Barack Obama was elected, I went and I was to
Speaker 1: host the Democratic election party in Century City. So by
Speaker 1: the time I got there after working at the studio,
Speaker 1: it was like seven o'clock and the party was almost
Speaker 1: it was that capacity. Okay, the police were going to
Speaker 1: shut it down. So I go on stage and I'm
Speaker 1: watching as it's official. You know, it says like Barack
Speaker 1: Obama's a president. I remember standing there because I wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure, so I kept watching them. I kept watching, dude,
Speaker 1: the emotion that night. I remember this white lady fell
Speaker 1: out on the stage. Her dress just went over her head,
Speaker 1: just crying. This grown ass photographer who was on stage,
Speaker 1: he's just weeping, and I started crying. I start. You know,
Speaker 1: my grandmother was born in nineteen hundred, and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, if my grandmother could see this, you know.
Speaker 1: And I remember as a kid listening to all these stories.
Speaker 1: I could tell you stories man. My aunt, my aunt
Speaker 1: ethel in Alabama. She was traveling to see her friend
Speaker 1: on the Trailway's bus and they didn't have enough seats
Speaker 1: for the white folks. And the bus driver she said,
Speaker 1: they're in the middle of the country. He said, look, nigga,
Speaker 1: you can either get off the bus or you get
Speaker 1: under the bus and ride with the baggage. And she said,
Speaker 1: you know, she had her best dress on, her hair
Speaker 1: was done because she was going to see her friend.
Speaker 1: She got under that bus and she had to ride
Speaker 1: the rest of the way under the bus with the baggage.
Speaker 1: And she said, when they got to where she was going,
Speaker 1: they left her there. And she said she because she
Speaker 1: had claust her phobia and she's banging. And she said,
Speaker 1: but you know, as a little child, when she told
Speaker 1: me this, we would laugh because she told it and laughed.
Speaker 1: She said, Oh, my hair was all messed up, I
Speaker 1: was all sweating, my dress was all made. We would laugh,
Speaker 1: and I would tell her. But as I grew older,
Speaker 1: and she would retell that story because I would make
Speaker 1: her and it was no longer funny. And and I
Speaker 1: realized all that I thought about, all that stuff, man,
Speaker 1: and this is where we're at. You know, this is this,
Speaker 1: This is what I'm witnessing. That's how big that moment was.
Speaker 1: That was for not just me, this is my point
Speaker 1: of view, but for everybody in this room. Man.
Speaker 5: Come on, and now I can't even yeah, but let.
Speaker 1: Me tell you something. Even when people to this day,
Speaker 1: when they go, you know, well, Barack didn't do enough
Speaker 1: for black people, I'm like, didn't do do you know
Speaker 1: what he was going through? They said everything, but call
Speaker 1: him a nigga every.
Speaker 5: Day, every day, every day they cock blocked everything he
Speaker 5: wanted to do, said.
Speaker 4: It loud and proud, we ain't supporting ship.
Speaker 1: Now you this is it. So I'm not for it.
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear I don't want to hear it,
Speaker 1: you know. And and you see what's happening anything but
Speaker 1: a nigga anything, I'm idiot.
Speaker 4: They got the opposite.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, So I'm just you were talking politics. I
Speaker 1: don't know what's going to happen. I really don't. I
Speaker 1: want to know.
Speaker 5: Like, were you guys fine with the Carmichael Show just
Speaker 5: being three seasons?
Speaker 9: No, it was such a revolution to me. I thought
Speaker 9: it was just finding his but no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: Listen. First of all, it wasn't even a season because
Speaker 1: you know, we came on around with Blackish. I think
Speaker 1: we did about thirty episode and they had done like
Speaker 1: sixty seventy because you know, they would pick the Carmichaels
Speaker 1: up for like six shows, ten shows, and you know
Speaker 1: when we got there, you know, after we were on
Speaker 1: the air and I'd sign the contract there, you know,
Speaker 1: Jeff Greenblat, Robert Bob Greenblat rather the head of NBC,
Speaker 1: was going, well, we want to do this, like a
Speaker 1: specialty show. I didn't know nothing about that. They didn't
Speaker 1: tell me when audition, we may only pick you up
Speaker 1: for six episodes, ten episodes. Have you locked down for
Speaker 1: five years because that's the contract, you know. I thought
Speaker 1: we were doing a regular show, you know, twenty episodes
Speaker 1: a season. We never got that. They only put us
Speaker 1: on in the summer. That's the summer dump. We were
Speaker 1: never on the fall schedule, you know. So, But the
Speaker 1: flip side is you trade that with Gerard got to
Speaker 1: do the show he wanted to do, so I would
Speaker 1: rather do thirty good episodes than seventy bullshit episode, so
Speaker 1: that is it. But no, we were never down with that.
Speaker 1: I was no. We always and I can speak for
Speaker 1: Gerard on this. We all wanted to be not the
Speaker 1: step child, but the child. You know. Put us on
Speaker 1: in the fall, give us a full order, you know.
Speaker 5: But were they too afraid to say that, we are
Speaker 5: afraid of the show, And now.
Speaker 1: They yes they were, because they were like, you know.
Speaker 5: On surface, they seemed like, hey, we supported, but you
Speaker 5: could not go.
Speaker 1: Back and read what the critics said. There's no other
Speaker 1: show at that at the network that was getting the criticism.
Speaker 1: The critics fucking loved us. No, they would say you're
Speaker 1: hard to program around. You know. That's you know, they
Speaker 1: always tell you you're unique. Well, you're an acquired taste.
Speaker 1: You know, you got all that bullshit.
Speaker 9: I was, man, I love that show. I really like
Speaker 9: like this the episode where the mom kills herself. I
Speaker 9: was gonna bring that one up, like that ship was.
Speaker 9: I mean, that's never been don't tell.
Speaker 1: You you should have been there. Man, black folks in the audience.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to cut you off, but we got
Speaker 1: to it like that part, and I was like telling
Speaker 1: your you know, my character, Yeah, your grandma wants to
Speaker 1: kill usself in the audience, don't do it.
Speaker 5: No, no, yeah, I was like we were like trying
Speaker 5: not to. Oh there's a good well not good time.
Speaker 5: These were Christian people first offp like in good times
Speaker 5: in the audience, like they would have those outbursts.
Speaker 1: Quest questions you know, Oh yeah they were they were
Speaker 1: they were like so wait.
Speaker 3: Then the Bill Cosby episode, Oh, because that was.
Speaker 4: I mean, not for nothing, that was it was brave.
Speaker 5: It was was on NBC.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but NBC gave you both. It was perfection to
Speaker 3: be honest.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of times. It was an experiment,
Speaker 1: like when I say that, like we would read the stuff,
Speaker 1: but frankly, I didn't know how we we're going to
Speaker 1: do it until we actually did it like that. You know,
Speaker 1: you know this was from Grohid's mind. I don't. I
Speaker 1: didn't know, you know, how we're going to get out
Speaker 1: of this, you know, and people get it confused. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, my character voted for Trump. I mean, and
Speaker 1: you know the whole thing about Bill Cosby and stuff.
Speaker 1: These are characters, not me, these characters. But how are
Speaker 1: we going to get out of it? You know that
Speaker 1: until that very last thing, you know, that last line
Speaker 1: when Dryid goes, it's shame what he did to those women.
Speaker 1: It was fun to play with that. But but what
Speaker 1: became exhausting is for white journalists, that's all they wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about, you know, because it's it's I call
Speaker 1: it the nigga lit litmus test. You know, Ques, what
Speaker 1: do you think about Kanye? I love all your app
Speaker 1: Can we talk about Kanye? You know? It's like you know,
Speaker 1: it's like okay, you know, yeah, well can I say
Speaker 1: that when when I found out that it's this is
Speaker 1: a person who didn't see black panther, go ahead, your card
Speaker 1: has been biscated.
Speaker 5: Revote.
Speaker 1: I want to say that when I found out that
Speaker 1: you were playing opposite Loretta Divine, I was like, I'm in,
Speaker 1: I'm in.
Speaker 5: That was just perfect casting, Like I wanted to.
Speaker 1: I wanted to see the way you tube played against
Speaker 1: each other, and you guys did not disappoint. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like the comparents, you know, they were still getting it in.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. When I auditioned, you know, I met Gerard and Rel.
Speaker 1: I met Rell on like Twitter, and you know, we
Speaker 1: go back and forth to say, yea, I'm a big fan.
Speaker 1: I hope we get to work together. I'm like, yeah, cool, whatever.
Speaker 1: So then I saw Gerard and I was hosting this
Speaker 1: evening of stand up as part of the Montreal Comedy
Speaker 1: Festivals in twenty ten. I think, and if you've ever
Speaker 1: seen Gerard's comedy, well immediately he has an original voice.
Speaker 1: He's different from everybody else. So I always dug him
Speaker 1: as a comedian and so that that year, when I
Speaker 1: heard he was doing a show, I was like, do this.
Speaker 1: So I went in and I saw Loretta coming out
Speaker 1: of the building. I was like, Hey, what's up, Loretta,
Speaker 1: what's going on. We known each other for over thirty years,
Speaker 1: and she said, oh, they like you, David, everybody like him.
Speaker 5: Oh man.
Speaker 1: So I went in there and uh, it was just
Speaker 1: butter Man.
Speaker 9: You know, did you do any kind of outdoor like
Speaker 9: research or whatever, because me and Gerro grew up probably
Speaker 9: like thirty minute he grew up and say, I grew
Speaker 9: up in Greensborough And I'm telling you, man, your character,
Speaker 9: the way you played like, dude, that's like my uncle's.
Speaker 5: That was my family too.
Speaker 1: Though. The thing I loved about loved about the Carmichaels
Speaker 1: it was very much any real black family. Yeah, everybody
Speaker 1: got a hair. They say, like they could have been
Speaker 1: talking about the Canadian trade agreement. Everybody's gonna have they sit.
Speaker 1: Most of the people didn't read, they didn't know what
Speaker 1: informed they gonna say what they're gonna say. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I like that. I mean, I I really I I
Speaker 1: knew that character. I knew that black man. You understand. Uh,
Speaker 1: his kingdom was that barca lounger and that changer and
Speaker 1: that was about it. But he ruled it right there.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, man, I really felt like also, I
Speaker 1: felt like I had earned the right to play it
Speaker 1: in terms of age and experience, and just I didn't
Speaker 1: really have to act. I mean I knew that. And
Speaker 1: the thing I loved about the Carmichaels is from comedy
Speaker 1: to Tears. I mean I feel like, out of all
Speaker 1: the rules I've done, that encompassed everything. I mean, I
Speaker 1: was able to go you know plan is emotionally.
Speaker 9: Yeah, the scene where the episode where he has to
Speaker 9: confess to the wife that he had a kid.
Speaker 1: Every scene, like with the Porno episode, would take you look, man,
Speaker 1: come on and go, oh, actually, David, I did find
Speaker 1: my parents porno stas okay, whatever. And then when he said,
Speaker 1: you know, with the kid, he said this happened in
Speaker 1: his family. So after that I just stopped questioning him.
Speaker 1: I mean, whatever the script was, Jara would be like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to tell you, and his parents, everybody his
Speaker 1: family would come and hang out and watch.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I really felt blessed. Man. I remember, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: a good story. So Tiffany, I saw the trailer for
Speaker 1: A Girl's Trip. I had not seen the movie, just
Speaker 1: saw the trailer in the theater and I came back
Speaker 1: and Tiffany was begging me at that but David, can
Speaker 1: I open for you? I was like, can you wait
Speaker 1: like a month, I'm gonna be opening for you. She
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, but I want to. I was like, Tiffany,
Speaker 1: do you realize what is about to happen? Well?
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 1: I was like, you have to listen to me and
Speaker 1: everything it was right there, man, please her shit blew
Speaker 1: all the fuck the way up. And it was again
Speaker 1: she was I mean all the crazy stories that you
Speaker 1: hear her say. I heard that ship every day, and
Speaker 1: she has she has a cure for cancer.
Speaker 9: She has a cure. Tiffany had it has a cure
Speaker 9: for cancer. I'm not bullshitting you, man, Can you share?
Speaker 5: I don't.
Speaker 1: I went to at that point, I would just go
Speaker 1: to my dressing room. Why David disappear? I was like, Tiffany,
Speaker 1: I just gotta go.
Speaker 5: Now are you Are you allowed to talk about what
Speaker 5: your character on Little rail show is going to be?
Speaker 1: I'm not on a Little Rel's show. I'm on the
Speaker 1: Cool Kids, but somehow online they think I'm in his show,
Speaker 1: but I'm not.
Speaker 5: It is I did see some advertising. Everything was the movie.
Speaker 1: It is my show that I'm doing with Vicky Lawrence
Speaker 1: and Martin Mall and Vicky Lawrence.
Speaker 4: From and the last person who else is the fourth.
Speaker 1: Leslie Jordan's he's like a four Footje's the gayest man
Speaker 1: I've been in a senior citizen facility. But I saw
Speaker 1: this thing on Instagram where I don't I think someone
Speaker 1: had to put that together honestly, because it's not.
Speaker 5: Advertising.
Speaker 1: It's not And again just go to the comments. I'm in.
Speaker 1: I didn't have the heart because you know in the
Speaker 1: comments they don't they don't care.
Speaker 5: Accuracy doesn't No, they don't care.
Speaker 1: They were like going all I mean, you know the people,
Speaker 1: they got an alternate universe. Oh oh, I see what's
Speaker 1: going on. They're trying to keep it on the double
Speaker 1: down low. They make us a super surprise.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I didn't even get involved. But no, I saw it
Speaker 1: was looking.
Speaker 5: For like you syd bed and.
Speaker 4: No I'm Lawrence because I ain't seen Lauren.
Speaker 1: She's putting it down. But that's my show. I'm doing
Speaker 1: Cool Kids on Fox. Rail is on Fox. And as
Speaker 1: matter of fact, we're right next door to each other.
Speaker 1: Our sounds age. Wait before I go, we got to
Speaker 1: talk music. Yes, I need to tell you we didn't
Speaker 1: even talk whiz we could talk about are we out
Speaker 1: of times? No, the Whiz was the one. The Whiz
Speaker 1: was the one man.
Speaker 4: Thank you for saying that. I just wanted to be fair.
Speaker 1: I mean again. Okay. When me and Reggie Kathy, we
Speaker 1: we drove with a bunch of friends across country to
Speaker 1: come to New York for the first time or during
Speaker 1: spring break, and we to go see some Broadway shows
Speaker 1: and we went to see The Whiz. We bought the
Speaker 1: second to the last row Majestic Theater six dollars tickets
Speaker 1: half price, and after the matinee, I went in with
Speaker 1: my eight by ten to the stage door and I
Speaker 1: wanted to give him my picture. In the door goes,
Speaker 1: you want to what I said? I want to be
Speaker 1: on Broadway. He busted out laughing. So he got a
Speaker 1: the pia he said, a man, come up in here,
Speaker 1: please any any any cast They came up tell him
Speaker 1: what you just told me. And I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna act. I'm from I'm from Michigan and here's my
Speaker 1: but I want to be bro the stop. They laughed
Speaker 1: in my face and I was like, can I leave it?
Speaker 1: The clown me so hard. Yeah, I know, but they
Speaker 1: clown me so I'm telling you so to do the Wiz.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I had done this crazy version of
Speaker 1: the Wiz. Des Mackanov directed it at the La Joya
Speaker 1: Playhouse and I was in it, Nikki James, Titus Uhus.
Speaker 1: First of all, you all don't even know Titus has
Speaker 1: the voice. So he did the lion and they raised
Speaker 1: the keys. I mean, he would do just crazy stuff.
Speaker 1: So he was in it, and Michael Benjamin Washing, Michael Washington,
Speaker 1: Michael Benjamin He's gonna kill me.
Speaker 5: But whatever.
Speaker 1: Anyway, so that never made it. That never made it
Speaker 1: to Broadway. I knew Kenny Leon and when it was announced,
Speaker 1: I texted Kenny. I said, hey, man, I want to
Speaker 1: do the Wiz. And I played the Whiz in this
Speaker 1: production of some point I was trying to make and
Speaker 1: Kenny kind of hit me back. He say like, man,
Speaker 1: I don't even know what I'm doing. I mean, let
Speaker 1: me just hit you when I you know, when I
Speaker 1: meet with the network and figure out what we're going
Speaker 1: to do. So I was performing at Carolines a few
Speaker 1: A couple weeks later, he came with his assistant. But
Speaker 1: I was pushing the Wiz because that's what I played
Speaker 1: before I figured, you know, from the movie, that's kind
Speaker 1: of like Richard Pryor did it, so maybe I could
Speaker 1: get in here. And he goes, so what other what
Speaker 1: charat do you want to play as the Wiz? And
Speaker 1: he goes, okay, anything else? I mean, would you do
Speaker 1: another part? And I'm like inside, I'm like, shit, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: I just want to be a part of it. So
Speaker 1: he said, what about the Lion. I was like, oh fuck,
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, yeah, so from the un yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, but but the Whiz was the stuff, so
Speaker 1: long story shark, we do this thing and Kenny all along.
Speaker 1: It was like the way he directs us, Now this
Speaker 1: is motherfuckers, y'all got one shut shut you fuck this up?
Speaker 1: You know. He kept going and kept going, and so
Speaker 1: I turned my phone off, and I can feel, like,
Speaker 1: you know, people online, black folks were like, you know,
Speaker 1: they better not fucked us up, and they got real hot.
Speaker 1: So I was like, damn, well, let me just do
Speaker 1: my litt lunch. So I went to my trailer. They
Speaker 1: gave these big ass busses. After it was all done,
Speaker 1: it was good. I mean, you guys got the best version. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I turned my phone on and I was not
Speaker 1: expecting the response. I got emails, I got texts, messages, letters,
Speaker 1: I mean, from people I hadn't heard from in twenty years.
Speaker 1: A lot of them would start, David, is this still
Speaker 1: your email? Black women? And they were saying, I'm sitting
Speaker 1: on my bed with my daughter, I'm watching with my
Speaker 1: nieces and nephews. I'm crying, I'm dancing. It was just
Speaker 1: such a flood of love because I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: sure we're gonna get some bullshit. So no, it was.
Speaker 1: The response was so great, was so amazing that that's
Speaker 1: what was humbling about it. It was really great. It
Speaker 1: was such a great experience man, to be involved in that.
Speaker 4: I brought it back.
Speaker 3: That should always be a part of a black child's life.
Speaker 3: You should always know about the way.
Speaker 5: It was such a joy to watch that.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you real quick.
Speaker 5: You don't know.
Speaker 1: No, he didn't, man, you counterfit man stops. My daughter's ten.
Speaker 1: She was about seven and her mom showed her the
Speaker 1: movie first.
Speaker 4: Oh, she was scared.
Speaker 1: No, when I came, When Lulu came to visit me,
Speaker 1: I showed her The Wizard of Oz. So she was
Speaker 1: about five then, and she kept looking at it. She
Speaker 1: saw like seven times in one weekend because for me,
Speaker 1: we only got to see it once a year. So
Speaker 1: I had the DVD. I was like, you can watch
Speaker 1: this shit all day. So she would get up watching
Speaker 1: She's going, Daddy. I think they they took this from
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson's movie. I said, you think so, yeah, because
Speaker 1: you know kids at that age whatever they see first.
Speaker 1: When it came to I said, but you know this
Speaker 1: is an older movie, and she goes, Michael Jackson did
Speaker 1: this movie because it's real similar, don't you think? And
Speaker 1: I was like, she was like going, I said, which
Speaker 1: one do you like? She goes, I think I like
Speaker 1: the Michael Jackson one better. Yea. So it was so
Speaker 1: it was fun. It was fun. But people didn't know
Speaker 1: that we did the Broadway version. We never had the
Speaker 1: rights to the film because that was a whole different thing.
Speaker 1: That was a whole different money. And it was beautiful. Man,
Speaker 1: it was a beautiful experience. It was really fun. I've
Speaker 1: never done anything where you do one performance, you know,
Speaker 1: we rehearsed for two months. Man, Yeah, man, you did
Speaker 1: it again. But that lion outfit, the lion outfit, it was,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this thing when we started, we did
Speaker 1: our text the dancers like there's there's water on the stage,
Speaker 1: you know, this at the very end, and this after
Speaker 1: what's the Eviline comes in and it's you know, everybody rejoiced.
Speaker 1: And finally I put my hand up. I said, that's
Speaker 1: me sweating, and everybody said, oh, David, he's so crazy
Speaker 1: that lion outfit. Because it was TV, it had no ventilation.
Speaker 1: So by the time I got to that point, all
Speaker 1: the water, my sweat was puddled in my hands, in
Speaker 1: my feet, and it just started dripping out and it
Speaker 1: would be on the stage and they were slipping, slip. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was It was wild. We survived. We survived one wow.
Speaker 1: But wait quick, can I give you okay? Now, these
Speaker 1: are the greatest concerts I went to. In nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: I saw the Rolling Stones in Kobo Hall in Detroit.
Speaker 1: The opening act was Stevie Wonder Now seventy two. This
Speaker 1: is intervision. This is when Stevie had changed his background.
Speaker 1: Singers were Martha and the Vandellas. Oh wow, so dude,
Speaker 1: they rocked the house. The Stones come on, they played,
Speaker 1: and then they brought the entire Motown band Stevie Wonder,
Speaker 1: Martha and the Vandel's and they all did Uptight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they did Uptight and something else. I can't get no
Speaker 1: st it was just that was probably probably one of
Speaker 1: the greatest conscience. Of course, I saw the Motown Review
Speaker 1: as a kid, and back in the day, you go
Speaker 1: they had an early show where they'd showed a movie,
Speaker 1: then the band would be behind the screen and they
Speaker 1: pulled the screen up and then you did a Motown review.
Speaker 1: So I remember that.
Speaker 5: We were they Okay, I'm glad you you. I went
Speaker 5: thisess did this because I always wanted to know, because
Speaker 5: they would do at the Apollo, like five of those
Speaker 5: a day, and people tell me, like, you know, you
Speaker 5: go there, what did? They would show a cartoon first,
Speaker 5: then a movie, then a comedian.
Speaker 1: Then well, as I remember, they showed the movie and
Speaker 1: this was early because we were kids and it was wintertime.
Speaker 1: So we went and Willie Tyler and Lester were there.
Speaker 5: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: And then they had what was the name of this
Speaker 1: group it was, you know they did it was all
Speaker 1: white group and they did Cloud nine, Rare Earth, Rare Earth.
Speaker 1: Willie Tyrann and Lester were really big. But you know,
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonder played. The Supremes were gone by then, so
Speaker 1: this has gotta be sixty six. Okay, sixty probably nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty six, because after the riot everything was fucked up.
Speaker 1: So I'm pretty sure it's probably sixty six.
Speaker 5: Were you there in Detroit for those rights?
Speaker 1: Of course, as a matter of fact, the movie Detroit
Speaker 1: that's five blocks from my house. That's five blocks from
Speaker 1: my house, and so to watch that movie and that
Speaker 1: Algiers Motel, we used to drive bass there all the time.
Speaker 1: That movie. It's just no uh uh uh film. It
Speaker 1: was so big, it was so much bigger that city
Speaker 1: never recovered it never ever. Detroit never came back. It
Speaker 1: was so much bigger. It was funny. I talked to
Speaker 1: Eric Dyson about Detroit. He loved it. I didn't this because.
Speaker 5: Most black people Okay, I worked on the film scoring,
Speaker 5: but I most black people I know told me that
Speaker 5: it was hard for them to watch it because literally
Speaker 5: it was a snuff film. Yeah, and you know it
Speaker 5: was in twenty.
Speaker 9: Sixteen when we were watching actual stuff film. Yeah, fucking
Speaker 9: Twitter and Facebook.
Speaker 1: I'm just telling you, man, it was. It was much
Speaker 1: bigger than that movie. I mean, you know, the acting
Speaker 1: was awesome.
Speaker 5: I like she just wanted to tell one story, and
Speaker 5: you know the story of the dramatics really.
Speaker 1: Just yeah, yeah, I understand. There's a website that I
Speaker 1: found that someone put up, and this person researched as
Speaker 1: much as they could each fatality that happened during the riot,
Speaker 1: and so they try to do a background of the
Speaker 1: person and how they actually were killed. It's really creepy
Speaker 1: and spooky and weird. There is a film there. It's
Speaker 1: just also that's like the movie Ali, you know, living
Speaker 1: through Ali, the real person as a kid, to see
Speaker 1: it fictionalized. I was too close to that material. So
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. Be born and raised in Detroit,
Speaker 1: a few blocks from the im just too close to
Speaker 1: get some distance and really talk about it.
Speaker 3: But we're just starting to experience that now. And people
Speaker 3: said that, but like Biggie Movies and Tupac.
Speaker 1: Used to hang out at the at the set when
Speaker 1: we did in Living Color, I Wake Up Down was
Speaker 1: the living driver. Well, dig So the story was when
Speaker 1: I woke up, I see all these policemen. You know,
Speaker 1: I've been sleeping in my dressing room, like they got
Speaker 1: a fucking corral. These extras, man, they're all over the
Speaker 1: place and they were real policemen. So Tupac was there,
Speaker 1: and the story was he claimed that the limo driver
Speaker 1: had a gun. Now, the limo driver called the police.
Speaker 1: This is the story I heard, and they claimed Tupac
Speaker 1: had the gun. Gun, So they came and they took Tupac.
Speaker 1: But the next day they found a gun in the bushes.
Speaker 1: Like Tupac wasn't lying. Motherfucker had a gun. That was real.
Speaker 1: That was regular day. That was a regular day, a
Speaker 1: living color man. Tupac was little too. He was a
Speaker 1: little guy physically. All that voice, all that shit, man,
Speaker 1: it was deep man. Anyways, that's about it. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you one last music story. The craziest lineup. I saw Santana,
Speaker 1: Leonard Skinner, and Bobby Womack. It was all in the
Speaker 1: same bill. It was Bobby Womack first and it was
Speaker 1: Santana was headlining. Leonard Skinner came on second, and they
Speaker 1: gave us the finger and spit at the crowd, you know,
Speaker 1: because it was like people wasn't there to see them.
Speaker 1: And it was during Caravan Sarai. So this is after
Speaker 1: Santana had gotten knowledge, you know, Coltrane and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: But that, you know as a kid, because that's all
Speaker 1: we did is go to concerts. For me, that's I
Speaker 1: wasn't into sports. All we did is get high and
Speaker 1: go to concerts.
Speaker 5: Yes, do you miss that feeling now? Like? What? What?
Speaker 1: Well? I miss?
Speaker 5: That's still exciting. Maybe basketball is exciting. Like to see yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean someone genuine performing their craft.
Speaker 1: I would go see Moses Sumny Okay, yeah, he's a cat.
Speaker 1: I really like. I like him, but to get me
Speaker 1: out the house to see music. It's been a while.
Speaker 1: I went to see Charles Lloyd one time with my
Speaker 1: girlfriend here in LA and it was back in the
Speaker 1: nineties when he did you know, notes from Big sur
Speaker 1: and stuff. And he's playing and listen to me, man,
Speaker 1: it was so deep. It's like he levitated from the stage.
Speaker 1: He was hovering in space. He took me there, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting there going, oh my god, this is
Speaker 1: killing me. So I get in the car and I'm
Speaker 1: driving home and I asked my girlfriend call if I
Speaker 1: tell you something. We promised not to laugh. She goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: what what's up? Okay. I was listening to Charles Lloyd
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, he just was floating in
Speaker 1: space right in front of me. It was like we
Speaker 1: weren't even in that I think it was the Catalena
Speaker 1: barn girl. We weren't even in that space. We were
Speaker 1: just in the universe. And she went, yeah, I saw
Speaker 1: that too, That's what I'm talking about. Man, take me out.
Speaker 1: It was like so amazing, Like, oh my god, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to be taken away. Yeah, now it sounds crazy,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm just do you can somebody in the
Speaker 1: next question when you get in the zone, come on,
Speaker 1: now you're gonna back me up?
Speaker 5: Or no, there's some moment. I mean, you know, it's
Speaker 5: it's as far and few between, of course. I mean
Speaker 5: there's some rock shows. I mean, like I still when
Speaker 5: I see Radiohead, I'm still I still feel that way.
Speaker 5: But it's like you really got to widen your palate.
Speaker 5: But I mean just for the days were like it's weird,
Speaker 5: like watching blow like I have to play with Blao
Speaker 5: in order to get that joy. So sometimes I have
Speaker 5: an out of by experience when he has a good
Speaker 5: night and improvising.
Speaker 1: It's rare. This was that I feel over ten years ago.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I had great experiences. I saw David
Speaker 1: Bowie the Ziggy Starters tour. That changed everything. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was like sixteen, I've never seen no shit like that.
Speaker 1: I was like, damn, you know, what the fuck is this? Prince?
Speaker 1: I met Prince, but I could it was too much.
Speaker 9: We actually in the studio where Prince, oh yeah, I
Speaker 9: forgot to note that we are literally and we finally,
Speaker 9: ladies and gentlemen, we made it to Studio three.
Speaker 5: As many times we tried, This is Studio three where
Speaker 5: most of nineteen ninety nine was created. Purple Rain, all
Speaker 5: the B sides of Purple Raine, around the World in Today,
Speaker 5: and the Parade album and parts of Sign at the time.
Speaker 1: All right, I'll tell you a quick Prince story then
Speaker 1: I'll shut up. But I went to I performed at
Speaker 1: the All Star Game when it was in Minneapolis, and
Speaker 1: I performed at the Avenue Avenue Club or the First
Speaker 1: Avenue Club, and I took the whole gig because I'm yeah,
Speaker 1: because they booked me to do comedy. But the only
Speaker 1: reason I went is to meet Prince. So I go
Speaker 1: all the way there and they said, well, Princes in here.
Speaker 1: But his road manager took me to Paisley Park, you know,
Speaker 1: And at that time, it's got to be ninety five
Speaker 1: or ninety six Paisley Park. That was farmland out there,
Speaker 1: like we drove out, but it was all there. You
Speaker 1: could have done in living color at Paisley Park. I mean,
Speaker 1: they took me all through it, everything, And so he
Speaker 1: told me this story. He said, well, Nero on tour.
Speaker 1: It was about three three in the morning. He gets
Speaker 1: a call from Prince and he picks up the phone
Speaker 1: and Princess motherfucker is motherfucker's call. I get motherfucker voices
Speaker 1: coming from the motherfucking walls. And he's like, Princess three said, motherfucker,
Speaker 1: I'm hearing motherfucking voices coming from the motherfucking walls. And
Speaker 1: so he goes to Prince's room, knocks on the door
Speaker 1: of Prince answers and he has white satin pajamas, perm tight,
Speaker 1: white satin do rag, full makeup, and white satin high
Speaker 1: heeled boots and he says, dude, what's going on? He said, motherfucker,
Speaker 1: I told you here, and motherfucking voices coming from the
Speaker 1: motherfucking walls. So they come in like Princy tripping, and
Speaker 1: they go in there and they hear this voice. So
Speaker 1: they called the hotel security. They come in, they do
Speaker 1: a whole sweep of the floor, and they find a
Speaker 1: crawl space behind his bed, and they go into crawl
Speaker 1: space and they find this girl in there with a flashlight.
Speaker 1: Listen to me with a flashlight and a bible who
Speaker 1: has been reading verses? And the dude said as they
Speaker 1: took the woman out the police. Prince said at his
Speaker 1: coffee table with his legs crossed like this went. I
Speaker 1: told y'all motherfucker's walls. But y'all motherfuckers didn't believe. I
Speaker 1: fell out left. It was just like that.
Speaker 5: I was like, wow, thank you, thank.
Speaker 9: You, We love we appreciate you so much everything.
Speaker 1: Yes, I know Dave Chappelle. He was I think he
Speaker 1: was eighteen when he middled for me the first time
Speaker 1: I met him in New York. Really kill it, Yeah, Caroline.
Speaker 1: People will come in and go great sat Day. Who
Speaker 1: is that kid that went on before you? It was amazing.
Speaker 3: It's like ghetto's Dave Man, get him to stop by.
Speaker 1: He won't sign the release.
Speaker 5: One for the records anyway. On behalf of a team
Speaker 5: Supreme uh Layah and f Tickeelo and Boston Bill and
Speaker 5: I'm paid Bill and Sugar Stef you cool Sugar Steve.
Speaker 10: Yeah, man, just after Sugar Network and continuing my work there.
Speaker 5: Is sweet see what I did sweet Ghost David very
Speaker 5: much for doing our show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, I love it. I can't wait to see
Speaker 1: you hi, because remember we met at the toy party.
Speaker 5: Damn Yes, your memories awesome.
Speaker 1: Your mom was right there. Yeah, yeah, you gave me,
Speaker 1: you gave me. What's up man? Moms was like, I'm
Speaker 1: a very big fan. She was eating.
Speaker 5: Yeah. He remembers everything. Yo. This ist Love Cours Love
Speaker 5: Supreme only on Pandora. We will see you on the
Speaker 5: next go round. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Couest.
Speaker 2: Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode
Speaker 2: was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts
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