QLS Classic: David Alan Grier

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of Course.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode
was produced by the team at Pandora.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
What up, y'all, it's Layah and this week's QLs classic.

Speaker 4 (00:15):
It's a good one. I'm talking about David Alan Grier.

Speaker 5 (00:18):
Yo.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
This episode, he goes all the way back to his
days at Yale Drama when he was Angela Bassett's old
head and all the greatness that came out of that school,
to talking about his days on Broadway. You got about that,
and of course he dished into some in living color.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
You don't want to miss this.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
You think you know David Allen Greer, you don't, So
listen and find out. This episode was originally released November fourteenth,
twenty eighteen.

Speaker 6 (00:44):
Enjoy Suprema Sun Suck Supremo role called Suprema Suck Suck
Primo roll call Supremo su su Supremo role called Suprema sunk.

Speaker 5 (01:08):
Here a roll call, I'm skilled quest the three and
if he starts with my jam, yeah, I had a verse.
I'm fresh Sugar.

Speaker 7 (01:17):
Supremo Sun Supremo role called Suprema son.

Speaker 5 (01:23):
So Supremo role call.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
My name is fante, Yeah, I stay so fly Yeah,
so I'm in this verse. Yeah, Supremo Supremo role call,
Supremo su s Supremo role call.

Speaker 5 (01:41):
My name is Sugar. Yeah, now listen here.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yeah my favorite comedian, yeah is a mirror.

Speaker 7 (01:50):
U Supremo roll call Subremo Sun Sun Supremo role calls.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Favorite Yeah, record to listen.

Speaker 5 (02:00):
Yeah, that classic platter.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
From h No, So Simmons, whoa Supremo sock sup.

Speaker 5 (02:09):
Suprema So Supremo roll call.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
It's lie Yeah, yeah, oh my god.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
Thirty years later, Yeah, you would have all picked.

Speaker 5 (02:19):
Your run.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Smo Suprema see it Sepremire. My name is Dave v J.

Speaker 5 (02:30):
Y'all know me.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
I'm up in this mo we on the top tail three.

Speaker 7 (02:38):
Supremo roll call, Supremo Supremo, Supremo Supremo roll call Suprema.

Speaker 5 (02:51):
Supremo roll call, Ladies, Man, I might not make it.
Let's just cut to the chase. Ladies, John, we have David.
That was probably your best road call.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
In means a lot to me. I worked on my
had like three alternates. You've done a lot, mister Christ
for Dome.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
You know, dint write nothing down.

Speaker 4 (03:17):
Okay, you didn't have to do that to me he was.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Getting from an iPhone. I don't that's not him, that
is not really that's nerd. You can't be like, can
you try the lights up place this? Can you roll
it back? Can you roll the back place?

Speaker 5 (03:37):
Damn?

Speaker 4 (03:38):
I owe to you, you know.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Oh sorry you tried to hug me, but I'm not.
I'm not. You know, there's too many hugs. Hugs have
been diminished because everybody wants a damn hug. Used to
be for your grandma, you know, your sick mama, when
you're leaving home. Now it's just every woman. Every everybody
wants a damn hug. And it's too intimate. I don't
want to hug strangers. You know, he's got to mean something.

Speaker 4 (04:03):
How long it takes for me to give him on?

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Months?

Speaker 5 (04:08):
Months to trusted?

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Jesus am the only one. It used to be a handshake.
You can't shake a look person in the eye. Oh
your questions, Nice to meet you. Now, I'm like, see
that's even worse. That's even worse. He's trying to not
catch America.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
We need to love. I think that's what it is.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Please, I ain't trying to lose my job, man, Kanye.
Kanye apologized today. Yes that sorry, I just tweeted. Apology accepted.
Let's move on to talk about this. Yeah, talking about right,
we're gonna pray for him, any let's let it out.

Speaker 4 (04:51):
I was just saying I was saving my prayers something.

Speaker 5 (04:54):
Just like that, going.

Speaker 4 (04:58):
I'm not gonna say no, no, no, it' still times.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Time him and Tiger Tiger Woods and King and up
name some other questionable black folks. Always like, I know
we all got a family member. That's like exactly my mother,
May she rest in peace. I said. She was like,

(05:20):
what are you gonna say Republican? I mean, if you
want to say we're going to vote it, why would
you even say the word. I was like, my mom,
come relaxed, I'm not even I just said Republicans. She's like,
but no, she.

Speaker 4 (05:34):
Where your mama fromd Well.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
My mother was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, from Michigan.
She was light skinned. Did you know she said she
was freeman. I'm just telling you the family she said,
we weren't slaves, we were freedman. I'm like, okay, the
whole time. My father's side field workers, field workers, So

(05:56):
make no doubt about it, that can happen you know
what they did the history of local Jay's family.

Speaker 8 (06:04):
None of his family members had to go through slavery
when it came to the United States. Were immigrants they
got no, they were African American. For some strange reason,
they they came immediately to.

Speaker 5 (06:17):
Ohio and something. Luckily, I don't know what the story was,
but it's on finding your roots with Skip Gates on PBS,
which you did.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah, but you did it, Yeah, I did. It was
there when my grandfather.

Speaker 5 (06:30):
Was the last my great great great grandfather was the
last slave.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Did you read this book that was recently published? Come on,
you looked at me.

Speaker 4 (06:43):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
What's it called? I just got to reading it. I'm
foggy right now, sorry watching God. You know. Yes, Well, well,
I'm mentioning this because this guy in the book, his testimonial,
he was on one of the last slaves, Clotilda. Yeah,

(07:04):
my grandfather Clotilda. You know that's some evil ship right there,
the clitoral bondage over in this blasphemous name.

Speaker 5 (07:18):
Yeah, it was a it was a bet. It was
a flip. Slavery was over. They flipped the coin and
the bet was whether or not he could get a
hook up. Uh, and and over in Nigeria to bring
some back on the sneak tip because it was it
was what this book was.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Basically, it's the same deal. It was technically over, but
they snuck this ship in and contraband cargo.

Speaker 5 (07:41):
And all that, you know, exactly, like slaves were like
having cocaine on you like, you know, the British were like, wow,
what you got in the trunk? Oh, you got some.

Speaker 4 (07:49):
They were the biggest culprits.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
But then all the all the what I'm trying to say,
all the European moneyed families, you know, these people who
quote unquote built this nation. Nobody had as slave trader
on there because that was removed long time ago, because
that's not kosher. Nobody wants to be known as that.
They're like, well we sold tobacco, yeah, were probably, yeah,

(08:12):
so they got here. And then if they owned a
farm in the eighteen hundreds, yeah, yeah, exactly, tractor. I
don't think, no, not yet, So can we move on.

Speaker 5 (08:25):
I'm not allowed to laugh at the slave.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
Can't nobody see you? But dig Man I did twenty
three and me and there were no surprises. It was
just okay, black black Irish Scottish. Okay, well Western though,
Uh well it's I don't know everybody here in this

(08:49):
room has greater or lesser knowledge of their family. I
would assume, you know, uh, their lineage, and I have
some knowledge. I mean in uh, there just was no
crazy story. You know. It wasn't like you know, you're
one third tie. No, it was none of that. It
was a straight slave ship plantation Detroit.

Speaker 5 (09:10):
Here we are. So yeah, well I did that initially,
and they tried to tell me that was from Sierra Leone.
And when Skip Gates got to me, he was like, no,
I'm gonna do a thorough DNA search, and you know,
he had the receipts and all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
That's what I need. Man. Yeah, I got the thirty dollars.

Speaker 4 (09:28):
I was about to.

Speaker 3 (09:28):
Say, you're not scared, because I was all for this
until like recently they really want us to do this
real bad and they're doing crazy things with your DNA.
In that moment, what are they doing with Listen, they're
finding criminals with the DNA.

Speaker 4 (09:42):
You know, it's just the beginning.

Speaker 5 (09:44):
Did you do anything criminal?

Speaker 3 (09:46):
And they're finding it in your family, like in your lineage.
You're like, so you're related so and so. Oh, that's
how we can get so and so in the system.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Like, yeah, it's I never even thought about that. That's happened.
It means a relative of yours did something and they
can they can trace it. Also, our DNA information is
not secured twenty three. Once you do that, once you
enter that database, it's not like you can I don't
know where that is. I spit in the test tube,

(10:13):
I send it off in the mail?

Speaker 4 (10:14):
Right, did they sell it?

Speaker 1 (10:16):
What they do exactly? Something modify what it's like posting
a picture on Instagram. You don't know.

Speaker 4 (10:25):
But you're good. You did George with skip seeing so
that's right, you say.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
Skip is good for now.

Speaker 9 (10:30):
My homie did a sketch about that on the on
the show Random Acts of Flying It, so he's real.
It's it's super true. So it is a sketch where
it's a reparations Yeah, turns he did. It's a reparation
sketch where there's an app where you give your DNA
and they're able to trace who are the family, who's
the white family that owned you?

Speaker 5 (10:54):
And this is where it is where you're getting your reparation.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
This is where you get your reparations from and like,
and they like, and I also takes into account things
such as redlining and like all like it.

Speaker 9 (11:04):
It's funny as hell, but it's oh sketch oh. In
my mind, I was like word.

Speaker 5 (11:11):
That was.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
But you know what, we did something when I did
Chocolate News. But it was based on the thing where
Skip gates. You never all all of your relatives are
always wonderful. With Skip. I never seen him say, hey, dog,
you'll people ain't ship you know, white people. Doctor Phil
got it.

Speaker 5 (11:35):
He tried to said let's not let's get the show.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Can take musht off gave him that bottle of hooch
and said go sit over there, brother, get your life together.

Speaker 5 (11:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
So Michigan, Sir, Detroit, Michigan, east Side of west Side,
west Side, barely. I grew up in one house. My
parents bought this house two days before I was one.
I'm the youngest of three, nineteen fifty six, sixty two
years old. And that's the one house I grew up in.
And I left at eighteen and my mom sold the house,

(12:11):
you know, when she got remarried and college. But that's
just one house because but it was I'm sorry, to
answer your question, it was four blocks west of Woodward,
which is the dividing line between east and west, so
it's barely west.

Speaker 5 (12:24):
Yeah, because I often hear stories of people that are
from the west side of the Detroit that will lie
and say they're from the east side of Detroit for credibility,
Like its seemed that the west side is the bougy
side and the east side's supposed to be in the
real side.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
And have you been to Detroit, Yeah, it's all real,
Like just man, please, Detroit is so black.

Speaker 5 (12:50):
Is on to come up now though it is always.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
A different vibe. I mean once they settled. I met
this twenty five year old white girl and I was
performing in a club and she was there like as
a as an intern because she wanted to go back
to Detroit and open a club in downtown Detroit. And
you know that's what you need, you need the folly
of youth. I was like what She was like, Yeah,
it's gonna be great and I'm gonna do it and
we're all going to succeed. I was like, how you gonna,

(13:16):
I'm just gonna do it. You know it can happen.
So I was like, oh, that's what you need, not me,
bro start up capital.

Speaker 5 (13:23):
You never want to go back to Detroit.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
I do. I go back all the time. I mean
I've gone back to my high school. I did a
master class with the kids there at cast Tech. I
go back to my university. I went to University of Michigan.
So I try to go back. I went for It's weird.
I was like inducted into the Detroit Hall of Fame.

(13:46):
It was me Ben Carson that you didn't show up.
I was there with popcorn. I was like, did he
get in? I'm called in sick. So he didn't show up.
But he's a doctor. He's a brain surgeon. Knucklehead too.
It's like damn Chris. But yeah, yeah, yeah. So I
try to do that. I mean I try to do

(14:07):
it when it's like I said, applicable and I have time.
It's mostly with kids. Like when I went back, you know,
to work with actors, young actors and stuff, because I
know when I was a student, anybody who had any
connection to professional professional art community, we thirsted for that

(14:28):
because you know, you really, you know, when you're a kid,
you have like teachers, you know they're not really they're
they're pedagogs, you know, so anybody who could bring that
that fresh knowledge and we just ate it up.

Speaker 9 (14:39):
So, yeah, did you always have aspirations to be an
actor first or or comedian first?

Speaker 1 (14:46):
I didn't want I wanted to be a musician. Yeah,
I'm enjoy Yeah, yeah, I'm a very marginal guitar player.
But I just remember the first time me and my
best friend we discovered alternative radio. And our alternative radio
station was WABX, so you figure I was eleven or twelve,

(15:10):
and the first time we heard Jimmy Hendrix is like
our minds exploded. Man, it was like, oh my god,
who is this? So we just ate all of that up,
you know, all that hippie music and you know, our parents.

Speaker 5 (15:24):
It was wild. Yeah, it makes sense because now it
just hit me that you were actually playing guitar as
Calhoun Tubs.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
Oh yeah, yeah, Well Calhoun Tubes was based on a guy.
I went to the University of Michigan in ann Arbor,
and there was this guy's campus mascot, this old black
guy named Shaky Jake. He couldn't play, he couldn't say
Shaky Jake, and you just that's basically how he sounded.
So that was kind of the impetus and you know

(15:53):
what that well, I was eighteen then, but you'd always
see a blues dude. There was another dude named One
String Sam and I'm not making this, but this guy
he he recorded to like in the fifties, but he
had a He took two liquor bottles, a two by
four and a string and it was one string and

(16:14):
he had a hit. It was like, all, I need
one hundred dollars? Why do I need one hundred dollars?
So I saw him, and I mean, you know, once
I got into the blues, I was like, do you
know Robert Johnson?

Speaker 10 (16:28):
Sir?

Speaker 1 (16:30):
Yeah, I know, yeah, I know, you know that kind
of stuff, and uh so I was. I was into it. Yeah,
you guitar or I did. I mean it was mostly
self taught. Back in the day. It was you had
to just wear the grooves out the record. You could
take we could take a thirty three and a third.
We'd put it down to sixteen r rpm so it'll

(16:50):
be slow record, but then it wasn't in the right tune.
And so it was all about or when we got
a little portable cassette recorders and we just tape it
and go over and over and over and over. No
YouTube cheat sheet. The whole open tuning thing was just

(17:12):
that you had to look on the back of an
album and try and match it to the recording. So
that's how we did.

Speaker 4 (17:19):
What were you in school for at the time, Uh,
you mean college?

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Well, I went to college. Yeah, by you know, when
I went to college, you know, my mother told me,
she said, look, I will not pay for an education
for acting, you know. And I wasn't really into acting
then no music, you know, and by then I really
still wanted to do music. She would not let me
play in a band because that meant you had to
go out at night, and she's trying to keep me

(17:44):
off the streets, you know. But I had a good
friend whose father owned a recording studio on Grand River,
and I would hang out there all day and night.
You know. They were not Motown.

Speaker 5 (17:54):
By the way.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
They were not. He had a record label. It's called
Sound Detroit Sound something like that. They put out some singles,
but mostly we just hang out in the studio.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
And just so, who did your mother what does she
What were her designs for you?

Speaker 1 (18:11):
When I was in Jack and Jill. Yeah, like this,
I went back. I think I didn't remember Jack and
Jill being that niggers, but it was like.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
We should explain what Jack and Jill is people outside
the community.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
Outside the community to do that, you dominate you.

Speaker 3 (18:35):
Jack and Jill is basically a nationwide organization for people
who want who want their children to be in like minded,
bougie ass situations.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
Doctors, lawyers, dennis.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
Yes, the middle class, upper black people who want their
kids to be around like minded kids and families.

Speaker 4 (18:53):
So these chapters are in every different city.

Speaker 5 (18:55):
But like a girl version was like a lot of colorism, right,
because I had aunts that were or like people of
that age in the seventies that were they kind of
used the paperback test, like oh yeah, if you were
lighter than a paper bag, then you got treated certain ways.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
Christ Yeah, Well, like I said, my father was you know,
deep dark, semi sweet chocolate e brown. Moms was kind
of you know, beige, and they got together. But we
were in Uh That's how I was raised, and so
the Huxtables, that's pretty much how I was. You know,
my doctor was a lawyer, I mean a doctor. He's
my dad was a doctor. He's a psychiatrist and as

(19:33):
a young kid in our neighborhood. We lived in this
neighborhood that was kind of like Hancock Park, big old
houses in a certain part Boston medicine area, and most
of the kids I played with were, you know, doctors
and dentists and that kind of professional folks.

Speaker 5 (19:52):
Can I ask, did your father did you know if
he had black clientele only because for me, a lot
of here's the thing for where I come from, like
black people in therapy. It's like they were like, oh,
I rather go to my preacher, my pastor, you know,
like that's for crazy white people. Depression away.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
Take it to guy my dad. He yeah, yeah, yeah.
He told me a great story. He said, this one
guy came in. This dude came from the autoplant, you know,
and friends brought him in. He was all fucked up.
He said, Doc, you gotta help me. This woman put
a mojo on me. And at first my father did
not know how to deal with it because he said,

(20:35):
I can't help you. Doesn't Yeah, you do. Stude believed
in me. Said I need you to She put a
hand on me, and I need you to release this hand.
So he said he had to go and get in
this dude's mindset. At first he said, I can't you know,
I'm a psychiatrist. So finally he said, okay, you got
to talk on that level. So he said, well, okay,

(20:55):
we're gonna work with this, get this evil off you.
And he worked with them and came up with some bullshit.
The dude around three times and say on a monopa
backwards and exactly. He had to make some stuff up,
you understand. So, no, he had black clients, He had
black clients. He had a real cute white secretary though

(21:18):
at one point, which was my parents had passed away,
so I can tell you all this ship now. Yeah, yeah,
it's funny you asked that. I don't you know, I
couldn't tell you if every patient was black or white.
I'm sure the vast majority were black. You have to
understand Detroit at that time, you know, the forties and

(21:40):
fifties and sixties, had a lot of moneyed black people.
It had a professional, upper middle class, large black community.
Even I mean just working at the car plan you know,
back in the day, you can make a good living, exactly,
make very good living, you know, and so so so
there was a large unity Detroit, Chicago where else Philly,

(22:04):
you know, New York. So so yeah, he was good.

Speaker 5 (22:11):
Did you did you have any interaction with any other
notable figures from Detroit and you're growing up like a.

Speaker 1 (22:20):
Church Well, you know, my dad when my parents broke up,
my dad moved to San Francisco in nineteen sixty seven,
and it started in sixty six sixty seven. So he
came out there into the Summer of Love and we
went to visit him, and he was working on a book.
So I met Alex Haley Claude Brown junior. He would

(22:43):
introduce me to all these people, man, and I'd just
be like, hey, what's up, man? Can I get a
mini bike? You know? He was like, no, you know,
we marched. I marched with Martin Luther King Junior in
Detroit in sixty three. Yeah, our family did. And so
it was it was you know, cl Franklin. Franklin's dad

(23:05):
was a prominent minister in Detroit, so he was he
was instrumental in bringing doctor King to Detroit. And that
was the summer of the March on Washington, you understand.
And so in Detroit he actually did the I Have
a Dream speech. Uh, it was an earlier version practice
exactly this typical Detroit. We got the we got the

(23:27):
last run through. Yeah, so uh and you know, just
a sidebar. You know, Aretha Franklin, she reached out to
me several times, you know, just as well. I remember
Damon and I Damon Waynams and I reperformed at the
Fox Theater, you know, in downtown Detroit, and I came

(23:48):
in my dress room. I mean this big, big, big,
huge bouquet of flowers and it was from Aretha Franklin.
She said, David, You've always been one of my favorites.
I have something special for you. Call me. And I
was so tripped out by the note. I never called
her because I was like trying to holler. I mean,

(24:14):
you know, she was good, but I mean I think
that she because I'm from Detroit. She always whenever I
came in town, or like, because we finally hooked up,
she came to see Porgy and Bess where her husband
they came and we hung out afterwards. There was this
thing at I forget that, this armory. It was like

(24:36):
to Honor and Living Color and Radio City Music Hall
all in that time. And we talked and she was
real cool, I mean just real friendly and real nice
and reached out, meaning, here's my number. Let's keep in touch,
you know, let's let's kick it. I mean it was nice.
She was cool.

Speaker 5 (24:53):
Yeah, yeah, she was nice to you.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
Too soon soon anybody have any Lauren Hill? Because you
know she she she clapped back, clap.

Speaker 5 (25:14):
Back to me. Was too much, plea copping. It's too much.
It was a whole bunch of word salad, a lot
of words.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
It wasn't even about what she said. It was about
the comments. Yeah, yes, you know, you can make it
on Twitter on time, but not to your concert. That's
all I'm saying. Waited two hours. Okay, clap right back
on Twitter. In the comments. I looked at the comments
for one time. They were actually worth reading, really hilarious.

(25:42):
You know, I can't say, I can't believe I'm about
to say this. Okay, So I read the whole whole thing.
I read it, but part of me was legit proud
that she knew what emojis were. Yeah, right, there tells

(26:06):
you the message failed when you the mojis.

Speaker 5 (26:10):
E emojis to make your point. She got kids. That
That's I spent at least ten minutes trying to analyze like,
imagine Laurence Hill knowing what that that skeptical, the cynic
on your chin with the eyebrow.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
But it was it was like got co writers on that. No,
I don't want the sister to come give me.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
But I was like, who wrote this? Because I can't
imagine her. I think I think she actually wrote the
opening paragraph. Was like, it's mighty presumptuous for you to
think that I would presume assumptions worthwith real Oswald Banks.

Speaker 5 (26:56):
Answer?

Speaker 1 (26:57):
This is medium a blog? Or is it it's a site.

Speaker 5 (27:00):
Where anybody can post anything? Oh? Because I was like,
why aren't the medium people spell checking and all that stuff?
Now it's just you can type that shit on your phone.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
And they want they want you real.

Speaker 5 (27:10):
Oh I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
A big fan of Lauren Hills.

Speaker 5 (27:14):
Yeah, I love breakfast. I'm a punishment actually.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
First of all, you know some whoopez has come to
anybody quest love real quick? A big fan, by the way,
big fant, you should run then, don't wait anything that's
out A big fan, brother? Can I ask you some please? No?

Speaker 5 (27:33):
Yeah? I was proud that she not since Okay, when
I graduated high school, LL's walking with a panther came out. Wow,
And my big surprise was okay, because again LL's from
like the eighty five era, so I was trying to
imagine LL over modern breakbeats and to hear him over

(27:55):
modern hip hop of eighty nine was like a shocker, like, oh, okay,
LL's new man. That's how I felt about Lauren, Like
she knew what a hashtag was in an emoji, Like
I was legit proud.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
Because I mean it's been around for like fifteen years now.

Speaker 5 (28:12):
Well, he was actually taking a selfie and remember when
Prince took that selfie and Princess selfie, it was awesome. Yeah,
but I think he did it on purpose.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
So I think the greatest selfie was Reverend Al selfie.

Speaker 5 (28:34):
Had to show you the whole fish. Yeah, like I
got to see all this.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
He's a man. I just saw him. I was in
Brooklyn last Yeah.

Speaker 9 (28:42):
Yeah, he was at the Spike Lee has a Michael
Jackson party he does every year.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Al was at there dancing. I saw a video he was. Yeah,
I kicked it with man. He was chasing me down
for years, like Reven would like to talk to you.

Speaker 4 (29:00):
I'm going.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Finally we finally we touched the base and he's good. Man. No,
it was back, you know, in the nineties. One Living
Color was on and I was just trying. I'm trying
feather Man sterile at that point, you know, I mean,
I was trying. But anyway, are you one of.

Speaker 5 (29:17):
Those people that you're literally on meeting your idols or
or have you ever had a situation in which you
met someone and they disappointed you because they weren't like.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
I'll tell you one, but I mean, I didn't hate
on him. I'm just telling you how it happened. Like
I was doing this award show and Cab Calloway was
the Cab Calloway as a kid. You know, he wrote
his memoir. I forget what it was called, but it
was beautiful. Man. I'll tell you a quick story from
his memoir, Like when Cab Calloway had his band, Disney

(29:53):
Gillespie played in it, and Disney Gillespie and them, when
they're on the bandstand, they used to shoot spitballs at
each other, and Cab Callaway hated that shit, you know,
because she would get wild when they're gig in and
one or two spit balls will hit hit him. So
he and Dizzy had it out. Now The story is,
you know, he always wore a white tuxedo, and so

(30:14):
he got in a fight with Dizzey Gillespie and they
said he went past the room and he came by
the white tuxedo was blood on it. He said, I
guess y'all heard. I had to fire the nigga. Cap
tried to swing on him, and Dizzy pulled out a
knife and stuck it.

Speaker 5 (30:34):
Now, I got to cut it.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Real black, and forgive me if I get the story slightly.
This was many years ago. But anyway, I see Cap
Callaway and I just totally fanned out. I was like,
oh my god. You know, he was talking to another
dude I knew who was like, you know, stage managing
the whole thing. I was like, oh my god, mister Calloway,
you are my hero, You're my idol. I've been watching

(30:59):
you since my whole life. I've read every anything, I
have posters of him. And he just went, that's beautiful. Anyway,
I understood there. I was like, oh man, I heard
flowing off, blown off by Camp CALLI, but it's all good.
He didn't know who I was. You know, it was
all good, So that's not you know it wasn't. Yeah,

(31:19):
I would like to talk to him longer, but he didn't.
I didn't go home, like I hate you, man.

Speaker 5 (31:23):
You just WoT Cuba Cuba. Gooding Senior did that to
me once, Like he was sitting there. Yeah, he was
sitting We were at uh uh the movie that Junior
was in with Denzel Washington Drug Frank White. Uh. Yeah.
We were at like an after party and Cuba scene.

(31:44):
He was sitting alone, like isolated, and I was just
like yo, like, dude, you're my hero main ingredient. I
love all your music, YadA YadA, YadA, and instantly like
he shook my hand, but then he saw iced tea
and Cocoa walked in and he just pushed me out
the way I grew up on mean ingredients. D d
da da dada.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
Oh my god boy, how did you feel? I mean,
people are human beings, Coco.

Speaker 5 (32:11):
So I got curd of Coco. I guess I kind
of got it.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
But I mean, I'm sure people would tell you, you know,
I curbed them. It depends if you roll upon me
at five forty five at the airport and want to
take a selfie. If you roll up on me in
a nightclub with a you know, cell phone, talk to
my nephew.

Speaker 5 (32:28):
You might get curved.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
Okay, I'm not gonna FaceTime with your mama. Yeah I
don't know you. I mean with your mom. I would
because I know you. But you know what I mean,
sometimes you have to be like now, you have.

Speaker 5 (32:37):
To put up those boundaries.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Man.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
Yeah, dude, like that is longer, but thank you for
the short of it.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah, but you know sometimes and it's just that way.
So I give people. I give people latitude as long
as it's not too foul. I mean, you know, nobody's
ever like swung on me like that.

Speaker 5 (32:54):
Established.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
I don't want to be stabbed. Nobody wants to get
stabs right right. Evant is gonna be my new You

(33:17):
can use it because people they won't even know, they
won't know.

Speaker 5 (33:22):
No good.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
Well, I wanted to tell you my sl Stone. You
guys are talking. Yeah, First of all, sly Stone, sling
of family Stone where there was a record store on
twelfth Street. Twelve Street in Detroit is the Black Street.
We had to walk a few blocks to get to
twelve Street, twelve Street. There's a store in there called
Being Bob's and that's where me and my friend we

(33:43):
go and get our singles. You know, it was like
so the Soda Shop records, uh palmade you know, m yes, exactly,
Murray by the way, Detroit Company, look on the ten
New Nile, New Nile. But so we heard dance to

(34:07):
the music again on the local radio station. Sly's music
was so different, so new. I had never heard no
kind of ship like that, you know what I mean.
I was like, damn, you know, boom boom boom, boom boom.
We're like, oh my god, I got to get some
of this. So we went and that's where I got

(34:29):
that first single. And watching him back then, there was
no all it was was Ed Sullivan and what Hollywood
Palace you know. Uh so you had to just wait
American band stand. Yeah yeah yeah. But watching size, seeing Sly,
his style was so different and fresh, the way he

(34:51):
combined gospel. He was an inventor of funk, I mean
he really was. And his drum patterns, I mean he
had the fun honest drummers I've ever heard. I mean
his bass player, his bass player, man Mary Graham, invented
a whole style that changed bass playing. So all that

(35:12):
in one group. So I saw him at Olympia at
the Olympia Auditorium that was the hockey ring in Detroit.
I had to be fifteen, okay. So this was the
first time we talked, me and my crew. We talked
one of the moms into dropping us off then they
would pick us up. It's got to be seventy one, okay, seventy.

Speaker 5 (35:35):
One right, all right, So he would get there.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
Everybody was there, all all the crew from school, you know,
we all piling there, and we were well, we take
the cheapest tickets and then just bum rush, That's what
we did. So as soon as the lights went down,
Slide came out and you know, it's all white on stage.
He had those tufted custom amps. And by the way,
we're always you know, equipment heads. We just look what

(36:01):
is he playing? What is what is that? What is
the gear? What is the chord? The guitars? All that
far fiesia organ. So he comes out and he starts jamming,
and it was like as soon as he hit that
first note, people turned and started whooping. Ass They just
it was a riot immediately. So Slide stopped and he said,
look man, he said, look man, if you if you

(36:23):
all gonna stop beating these kids. We're gonna we're gonna go.
We're gonna go, man, And so it was like no, no, no,
don't go. Everybody's calm down. He started up again. It
was like robots bam. We just started swinging. And so
that went on and on. So we got about twenty
minutes of music. So he got to I want to
take it, and I'm out fucking it was quite as

(36:44):
interrupt just like a motherfucker. And so then he went
on the news and he apologized and he said I'm
coming back. You know, he had the knit hat, the
gass boots. We fucking loved the slide. There was a
dude I went to school with who dressed like Slice
do every single day summer went. He had the fuzzy boots,

(37:04):
he had those you know, knit hats, all that stuff.
So sly Stone was he was huge, huge, huge. I
loved him. I saw him then, and then I saw
him another time at the Fisher Theater. This has got
to be seventy four or five. And again this was
at twelve noon. He had skipped out on another concert

(37:24):
and I just happened to have a ticket, like I'd
been in town home from school, and I heard he
was there and I just went it was a half
full house, but that was that drummer there. I don't
know who this dude was, but he on one handed.

Speaker 5 (37:39):
Was not Greg Rico.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
But no, it was not gregor Rico because Greg and I.

Speaker 5 (37:45):
Gotta look him up. Yeah, I know you're talking about
who was.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
Sugarfoot with somebody else, but I'm just telling you it
was still. It was just I just loved Slot Sly.
I mean I would go see him anywhere.

Speaker 5 (37:57):
He wasn't late because I know, like he was the
original original Lauren Hill.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
Out Lauren, Lauren Hill, you out Lauren Well to go back.
But I loved him, okay, so to tie in, not
to take him to and okay, So I was looking
at guitars and stuff because soon as I got flushed,
you know, as soon as I got a TV show,
I just start buying guitars.

Speaker 5 (38:26):
You know.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
They were like, we'll play I get it, I'll take it,
give me the go play it straight. I'll take it.
So I met a dude, when I met a dude
who is just the equipment guy, and he said that
he got a call one day to take up all
this equipment had been ordered from their music store here
in LA and take it up to this house. And

(38:47):
and when he took it to deliver it, Slye was there.
It was sly Stone and I was like, what is
going on? So this in the nineties. He said, Man,
this young dude, he said, sly brought him in and
he played him some of the music he was working on,
and he said, he said, he just start crying because
it was just so beautiful and so amazing. And I

(39:08):
was like, oh my god, never heard never heard anything.

Speaker 5 (39:13):
One we know has a gazillion I went to here.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
Yeah, wait he released I went on itune. Yeah, he
did a cover covered his own stuff and released that
a few years back.

Speaker 5 (39:26):
It was weird.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
Well, you know, Jesse Johnson was able to get you know,
get that one tune out. It's funny. Yeah, yeah, when
you got it. If you ever talked to him, Jesse Johnson,
I love his guitar playing, man, love him.

Speaker 4 (39:40):
Talked to him.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
Yeah, but dig so like when Lenny Kravic's first like broke,
you know, there was that whole young heads who were like, oh,
we want to sound like dirty like the seventies. That's
something like there's a riot going on. But what really happened.
I mean what I remember back in the day is
like you know, by then, the drugs and everything and
taken hold and they were doing so many takes retakes.

(40:05):
It wasn't that they wore the tape out. That's why
it sounds so funky, That's what. That's what, Like, what's
the dude, brown Sugar, come on the Angelo? You know
that's what they were going for. Whoever that is? Man,
But you did, you know what I'm saying. But I
was there. I remember that ship. That's why, because it

(40:25):
was like they owed this album. They had done eight
hundred over dubs and at one point I think Slide
was recording on a boat in like Sosolito. That was
the story, you know whatever. Sixteen thirty two tracks and
just taping over, taping over, taping over. It's not good.

Speaker 10 (40:45):
Yeah, but that's what they tell you you should not be.
You shouldn't print over anything, just in case any remnants
remain of the of the earlier takes. But maybe you
just wear the ship out. You get a certain sound
that way. Listen to it.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
Listen to it. You can hear like like damn. But anyway,
I love Slide lovel.

Speaker 5 (41:04):
There's a story of that. George Clinton always tells a sly.
The premise starts with Slide, David Ruffin and George Clinton.
Yeah the story and this story is great. The story
the way long story short is basically, uh, they found

(41:26):
uh a dealer guy, uh to hook him up with
stuff and pretty much uh sly new slacker charm. The
I mean, he can tell you the Brooklyn Bridge if
he wanted to. That's the kind of charm he had.
So Slide told the the dealer guy who was such
a massive Slide and Family Stone fan, you know, I

(41:47):
don't have the money on me, but this is what
I'm gonna do. I'm gonna give you. I'm gonna give
you the new unreleased Slide the Family Stone Masters.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (41:59):
And he had ten masters. Everything's drawn out like song
titles and the tracking and the dB levels and all
the eqs. And he gave it to this guy and
something told George. Something told George Clinton to just level
with the guy and tell him. George went up to him,
was like, look, man, what I don't want is, you know,

(42:22):
to get unnecessarily shot over some So I just want
you to know that these things are blank.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
I was gonna say, was anything like, He's like, no,
these these are blank. Well I'm gonna I'm gonna pay
your money. Just give me a second. Well dig when
we did live in Color we did a sketch. It
was Kim Wayne to and I. It was you don't
know that. Wait, No, here's the deal. Listen. My sister

(42:54):
was one of the was one of the gospel was
one of the gospel.

Speaker 5 (42:57):
Sayings, Cynthia Rose or the younger one.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
I don't please, I don't remember. It was one of them,
Cynthia one of them. Because I talked to her and
I said, oh my god, Slie's her face dropped and
went no, no, no, no, because I don't have any bad stories.
It's all about Slot. I love them. I just wanted
to say, I'm a big fan. I'm honored that you're
even here. I was. I couldn't believe it, man, I
couldn't believe.

Speaker 5 (43:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
But she was one of the gospel singers.

Speaker 5 (43:19):
Yeah, either Bellstone or or Roadstone.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
Yeah, I forget now it was a million years ago.
But yeah, so that was a whole big circle love slide.

Speaker 9 (43:28):
So you're you're like when you went to college, you
you Yale, right.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
I did, but I did. My undergrad was at University
of Mission where years ago Yale. I went to Yale
from seventy six to eighty one. I went from well,
seventy eight, seventy eight to eighty one. I went to
Michigan from seventy four to seventy eight.

Speaker 4 (43:52):
So my Angela Bassett maybe, oh.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
Angela was there the whole year. She's one of the
first people I met at Yale. And when I tell
you I was there, Reggie Cathy, he and I were
college college roommates Michigan. We're college roommates of Michigan. He
was a Detroit guy too. He was from you know,
he was from Huntsville, Alabama. But I met him as actors,

(44:16):
you know, University of Michigan. So we were roommates there.
I applied to Yelle. I told Reggie I was applying,
he applied to. We both got in. So that's how
we rolled up such.

Speaker 5 (44:25):
An amazing voice.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
Yeah, he always said that he always had the voice.
But the problem was he was real skinny, dorky looking kid,
and he sounded like James Earl Jones. So we all knew, like, yeah, man,
come thirty two years brother, you just wait thirty two
years though. Yeah, he smoked. He always smoked, like forever,

(44:50):
all day and night. So yeahs So.

Speaker 9 (44:54):
From the time you were at Yale, were you involved
in any like what you're doing theater?

Speaker 5 (44:58):
Like how did you kind of get you went there?

Speaker 1 (45:00):
I went to the acting school.

Speaker 5 (45:01):
He was in school.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
Yeah, so, but but you know, Angela was undergraduate. So
we would do our little productions and like we did
this play a series of one acts about Lester Young
and Angela as an undergrad, we tapped her and she
would come and act with us. Charles Dutton came like
when I was in a sophomore I mean or like
my second year because his graduate school he was there,

(45:25):
and so we all worked and stuff, and yeah, Angela,
I just saw her. Man, we're doing press. She's a
nine nine one one and I'm doing this other show.
But yeah, She's what I'm saying is Angela was Angela
back then. I remember sitting backstage in this little funky
theater and I was like, so, what are you gonna do?
And She's like I don't know, And I'm like, you

(45:47):
don't know, like maybe you should be an actress. But
she had already been at Yale for four years, so
for her to stay another three, that's seven years she did,
which was its great because well Courtney was after I left,
after she left, but so uh I saw her do

(46:08):
antigony as a student and when they could have gave
her oscar then, I mean she just ripped it up.

Speaker 5 (46:16):
I was like, damn, what was what was the Ivy
League experience like back then? Because I mean now it
seems like there's an adjustment. Like I went to Harvard
like a year and a half ago, and the students
seemed well adjusted and you know, like themselves funny.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
You know it's funny. Yeah. Reggie and I when we
got there, we just I felt like and you know,
I felt like just a kid in a candy store, like,
you know, we're gonna run this motherfucker because we just
did what we wanted to do. I mean, we were
just running out there. But it was different for me
and my class as an actor, as a black actor. People,

(46:57):
black kids, students who were in the acting who came
to see us told us, you know when they were there,
they played butler's and maids. You know, that's it.

Speaker 5 (47:07):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
That's it, that's it. That was it, you know. And
by the time we got there, we were doing everything.
I mean, because we were just like, no, give me
that said, now give me that, I'm gonna have a
piece of yo steak. I'm gonna take some of your fries.
We just did it. So that was a change over
this That's the only thing we knew and that's how
we moved in the world. But those older students who

(47:30):
had been there before us came back and they told us,
they were like, oh man, you all are living good.
This place has changed, and we just happened to come
in in that new wave and energy.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
You know.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
After that, then, black kids, it's still not as diverse.
It wasn't as diverse back then as it could have been. No,
I don't remember. There were Asian students, but not really actors,
you know, not that I remember of brown, Hispanic, not
none of that, I think, But you know, a couple
of black kids.

Speaker 5 (48:01):
What was Charles that's done like back then? My favorite man.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
Well, there was a woman that was in my classroom
name is Eazy Monk, and she knew Charles because they
went to Towson State. Yeah, Charles came in, Rock came in,
and we just yeah, we kicked it real hard. And
he was just a beautiful dude.

Speaker 5 (48:20):
Man.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
I mean he still is. I haven't talked to him
in a while, but he came in with such a
force of nature, you know. I mean if you if
you ever got to see him on stage, he would
just rip it up. But he really was a great guy.

(48:42):
I mean, like, if you befriended him, that's a friend
for life. I mean, he came from some real ship.
I'm not really gonna tell his stories because that's for
him to tell that, but I mean yeah, but I
mean he's written about it.

Speaker 5 (48:58):
Before he went to prison or was it it was after?

Speaker 1 (49:00):
It after? It was after? But see, the story was
like when I first met Rock, I was like, that's
meeting me and Reggie. So what's up man? What they
put you in there for? Now? The story told us
at the time. He said, well, I got busted for
possession of bank paraphernalia and we were like, yeah, so
the police caught him and you know that means like
bank money and the accouterments of robbery, you know, and

(49:27):
that they put him in jail for that. So that
was the story that we got. And uh, you know,
if Rock's talking to you, you will accept that story.
I mean, you're not gonna be like I object question,
you know. And later we found out, you know, after
he came out and he did My Rainey's Black Bottom,
the story was I think maybe a tabloid was threatening

(49:49):
to expose him, you know, about what he really did,
and Rock just gave an interview and just you know,
his own story. Yeah, got in front of it. So
that that's when I really heard the other half of it.
And I was like, damn at that.

Speaker 3 (50:04):
Just at the time for you, when you were at Yale,
what was really floating your boat and moving your passion
because you're such a multifaceted actor, funny person, in music
person as well as kind of like.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
Well at that point, I mean, I was my passion
was acting and what I always did from Michigan. Again,
when I started acting at Michigan, they had the Black
Kids and we had this one it was called Black Theater,
and you know, it's very much an extension of the

(50:36):
sixties that black arts movement, studying black playwrights and putting
on these plays. But the culture at Michigan was such
that they did one black production a year, and all
the Black kids would wait for that production. Well, soon
as I hit the ground, I was auditioned for everything
Jacobean tragedies, Uh, you know, parlor mysteries. I mean, Lady

(51:03):
Olivia Man. I approached it, you know what I mean,
Thanks for coming in, buddy. But my thing was like,
I'm gonna keep auditioning. Man, You're not gonna you know,
you're not gonna deny me forever. And I auditioned for everything.
Uh it was Othello, it was and my professor, Vaughan

(51:23):
Washington played Othello, but me Reggie was in it, and
uh so we were in there. I'll tell you a
funny story. So every night, you know, at the very
end of Otello, you know, the whole company comes in.
It's a fellow's death scene. But soft you a word
before you go. I've done the state some service.

Speaker 5 (51:42):
You know.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
It goes on and on. Now. Usually we'd be standing
on the stairs because me and Reggie we had like
three lines. I remember my life a messenger from the galleys.
Here's more news. Reggie had some ship. So we would
be fucking around and we'd be like, were we gonna
hang out tonight? Man, We're going to pizza Hud or
bloody bloody blue. So every night we'd be kicking it, like, yeah,

(52:04):
what we're gonna do, man, whatever? And so I look
over and see Reggie and I'm like, I'm asking, man,
what's up, what we're gonna do tonight? And he wouldn't answer,
and I look at him and he's just blubberd crying.
I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Man? He
looked at me and he said, the motherfucker got to me, man, going,

(52:27):
I know all of you. You know, you know, I
know you, you know you know. He gives this big
monologue in it cracked me the fuck up. I can't
help you, man, some words on my ship's fucking me up. Man.

Speaker 9 (52:45):
From the time that you after, like othello and your
time at Yale, how did you what was kind of
one of your first breaks or you know, what did
you do in between them?

Speaker 1 (52:53):
Well, my first job I played Jackie Robinson on Broadway.
It was in a musical called The First. That was
my first professional job. I started auditioning while I was
still in my final year at Yale because the casting
directors for the First were the same people who cast

(53:14):
the repertory theater there, and they said they came to
me and they said, well, do you mind if we
submit you. I was like, fuck you guy. So it
was over months and months, and as a matter of fact,
the guy who wrote the lyrics and directed Annie the
music O, Martin Sharnan, was directing and co writing the

(53:37):
first with Joel Siegel. Martin Sharton, he's eighty five. I
just did Daddy Warbucks at the Hollywood Bowl. Martin came
to see me, and you know, Alan Johnson passed away.
These people are dropping like flies. So here's what I did.
I got Martin in my dressing room, my closes door.
I said, listen, man, I'm not gonna post on Facebook. Okay,

(53:59):
I'm not gonna wait to you dead. I just want
to tell you now I love you. You started my career.
He really pulled me out of school, and you gave
me my first break, you know, and I appreciate you
and I love you. Let's get this pound in now
while we're alive and breathing. So that was fun. That
was good to know. Yeah, so that was my first job.

(54:19):
We ran like three weeks. But what year was this,
nineteen eighty one? Oh wow?

Speaker 5 (54:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (54:24):
Dream Girls had come in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember
sitting in there. We used to hang out this place
called Corumbas, and these three finance black girls come in.
They're like the dreamers. That's going to be a hit.
And there was Loretta Divine, Kelly Ralph, Jennifer All, Jennifer Yeah,

(54:44):
Jennifer Lewis. Jennifer Lewis was in it too. Yeah she
not not when I was in there, but Jennifer Lewis
was again. Jennifer Lewis was Jennifer Lewis back in eighty one.

Speaker 5 (54:53):
She's one of the first. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
She worked with Workshop the World of and then yeah,
oh yeah, and they worked off for like three years.
I mean it was long. And so by the time
I came in and took over for Cleveant Dereks while
he was on vacation. And then I stayed and stood
by and you know, making that money man, that Broadway money.
But that's how I brought good money to me back then.

(55:18):
And eighty one college my college a couple of grand.
It was a couple of grand a week. Man. Please,
I was big. I thought I was rich. I had
I had a nineteen and sony train. How dare you
looking up and down? Looking up and down. Man. I
had this jay. I had this green and blue Nike

(55:38):
tracksuit that I bought on one hundred and twenty fifth Street.
This ship was fly baby. I would that I'd like.

Speaker 5 (55:47):
It was.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
It was hell. Yeah, I thought I was Flushing living
in the city I lived, you know, I lived in
like a little apartment up on one hundred and third,
one hundred and seventh and Broadway, and then I moved
to my own joint and like this is duplex, but
it really was an apartment. They cut a hole in it,
and yeah, I was right next to the furnace, you know,

(56:11):
like it used to be coal. So I actually my
my bedroom was the old coal bind whatever you call that.
But but again I was like Upper east Side Ni duplex. Man.

Speaker 5 (56:24):
The thing is is that I and I've heard in
past interviews where you're like, you know, I started out
a serious actor and everything, but where do you is it?
Your theory that comedy really depends on how good your
timing is, because I would have if had I not
known your serious back background and acting, I would have

(56:48):
thought that, you know, you were in a like a
groundlings or a way I.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
Was, you know, I started doing I mean we did
a stand up show at Yale, and clearly I was
enamored with comedy. When we were doing Porgy and Best,
a woman came and gave me the playbill from the
first and when I looked at my bio, I had
no credits. This is my first professional job. But what

(57:15):
I put down there is David has appeared in comedy
clubs across the nation. And you know so clearly spot
because you gotta figure Eddie Murphy had just it was
just about to come on. All the energy was in comedy.
I snuck down and performed like open mics a couple

(57:39):
times at the Improv in Manhattan and I met Keenan there.
That's actually the first place I met him. This gotta
be eighty wow, seventy nine or eighty yeah. And I
waited in line and he was the only regular that
would talk to me. And I was like, dude, what
should I do? And he said, okay, well I'll watch.
You know. I went on like two in the morning.

(58:02):
Basically you get three minutes. So I just yelled and
scream did some car wheels and Keen was like, okay,
will you have energy?

Speaker 5 (58:11):
And Keene he was a coming. He would go up
then he was. He was working up.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
Man, he was already I mean he was. When I
say he was a regular, that means you know, you passed, well,
you passed this audition and so you were able to
do spots. That's how the old system.

Speaker 5 (58:27):
He was just a regular.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
No no, no, no. A regular means he stood in line until
the owner goes, okay, you are pasted. That means you
get spots and all that. The rest of us were
just out there. So uh yeah, man, So clearly, to
answer your question, I've always been a class clown. I've
always been this dude. But I was just trying to
be like, you know, like because back then I wanted

(58:50):
to be like the black doctor or lawyer. So when
Denzel got Saint elsewhere, we all auditioned. I auditioned everybody.
Man scuple please, she needs to have her appendix taken out.
You know, he got it. But we all auditioned, and
then you know, I did Soldiers play the Man. This

(59:11):
was after the first and that's where I met Adel Caesar,
Sam Jackson, Sam. Let me tell you about Sam. Oh
my god. We had all the dudes wet. We shared
one big room and there was this twelve inch TV
black and white TV that was in the corner and
they watched Family Feud every day and Sam Jackson ruled

(59:32):
that dressing room talked about comment y, I will save
this actor's name. But one time understudy went on and
Sam was just rare. It's like, motherfucker, what was you doing? Nigga?
What the fuck was that? And you know he kept
going at him and to douing, fuck you, Sam, and Sam,

(59:54):
we're not missing a be said, fore you put your
dick in me. You need to put your dick in
the second act.

Speaker 4 (59:59):
Man, listen to me.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
I ran out the bill ding, I ran out the building.
Adolph Caesar, he was, yeah, he's putting this makeup with.
Sam was in the corners like, man, what the fuck
is you doing with this old kabookie makeup? ONDI motherfucker he' here.
But yeah, the rest of us were sweaty, funky. We'd
just be like, I'm ready. What was Adolf like? As

(01:00:28):
a as an?

Speaker 5 (01:00:29):
That guy?

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
My god, we loved Adolf. Adolph Caesar, man, please, he
was first of all, a little short, light skinned dude
grew up in Harlem named Adolph Caesar. Yeah, what parent
would name Adolph.

Speaker 5 (01:00:43):
Caesar in the early nine Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Man, but Adolph had great sorges. I mean I talked
to him. I remember he said, you know, he was
caught in a trick bag, whereas he was not black
enough in Hugh, because when you know black consciousness the sixties,
all that big ass afros, chocolate brown skin. He didn't
fit in that mold. Yet he wasn't white enough. He
described going to the Guthrie as a young actor and

(01:01:09):
Tyrone Guthrie and white. They sent him home. They said, Adolf,
we really we don't have anything for you. So you
need to go back to New York, you know, because
we can't really help you. And uh so that was
really a poignant story. And when he came in he
had been on a roll. But Sergeant Waters listen.

Speaker 9 (01:01:28):
Man, Okay, so who was because a soldier story? Like
that's one of my favorite movies. I used to watch
that coming home from school, like that was like my
babysitter and I.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
Didn't think we'd get into it. Sam didn't get in
Oh yeah I was, I say, because yeah, who was Sam?
Who was Sam? You know Sam? I think they, as
I remember, they wrote his character out like he was
good because his character would always read all his love letters,
you know, from all his girlfriends. That wasn't in the movie,
but to watch it. Okay, So Reggie Cathy, he called

(01:01:58):
me up. He said, look, man, there's a part for
you in Soldier Story because Soldiers play. Yeah, Larry Riley
who played he played play guitar, played slide. You know,
everybody knew I played guitar. And he's like, man, you
could kill this. So I went over there and I
got the part immediately in the play. Yes, first, the

(01:02:20):
first first play. The play came first, so you know
people would come. But you know, at that time, I
didn't think any of us would get in to the
movie because I just thought they would use Hollywood actors
and but Norman Jewison auditioned all of us and he
put us in there. Man.

Speaker 5 (01:02:39):
Yeah, so what was that experience? Like?

Speaker 9 (01:02:42):
Man, like working with great Howard Rollins, I mean that
was yeah, it was, man.

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
You know Howard most of it was. You know, that
was a six million dollar movie and that the vibe
around it, you know, everybody was like, don't fuck up.
You know, this is your big not since Bingle Long
and the Traveling All Stars.

Speaker 5 (01:03:03):
You know, this.

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
Is gonna be Black Panther, you know, nineteen eighty one
version saw.

Speaker 5 (01:03:10):
It watching but it was just like you're gonna watch
this movie.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
No, we hung out. I mean it was a brotherhood, man, Denzel.
Everybody was putting in work. But the story one to
tell you. When I finally met Eddie Murphy, Eddie said,
the first time you ever saw me was in a
soldier story. And he didn't know me, He didn't know
who I was. He said, Dude, when you came on,
he said, who the fuck is this country ass? Dude?

(01:03:40):
Where the fuck did they get him from? You know,
because we're all doing the Southern accents, which was a
great compliment. But it was funny. Yeah, ce j don't
talk quick talking. Yeah, No, we had big fun and
Norman Judson was beautiful man. Yeah, man, it was.

Speaker 9 (01:03:57):
Nice second movie to my son's did I mean, I
used to watch it as a kid, but it didn't
really resonate until you know, I got older and really understood.

Speaker 5 (01:04:06):
But yeah, that that was a class. That's one of
my favorite.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
It was big fun, man, big fun. We went fishing,
We did everything man in that little ass, funky fucking
Arkansas man. Yeah, oh damn fort Smith, Arkansas. One location
for Smith, Arkansas. You have three months, So what was it?

Speaker 5 (01:04:26):
Oh? I was going to ask, what, uh, what was
the first television thing that you did?

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
As far as the first television thing I did is
I did a presentation, a pilot presentation that's like a
fifteen minute presentation, and it was me and two white guys.
David Steinberg directed it, and it was for CBS, and
you know, it was just some innocuous comedy. But I

(01:04:55):
remember I would call CBS every day and there's this
cute Puerto Rican two who worked at the reception. I'd
be like, because I wanted to know if a show
got picked up. I had a pad and pencil I
was at calculating. I said, shit, if this bad WI
gets picked up, you know, fifteen thousand a week, I'll
be a thousand ares lush. Yeah. It didn't get picked up.

(01:05:16):
So that was the first thing I did, you know.
But the first show I did was called All This Forgiven.
That was in nineteen eighty six, and it was the
Charles Brothers who did Cheers. That was their first show
after that. So again I was like, well I was
at the Ferrari dealership. Well yeah, notoriously. I had a calculator.

(01:05:40):
I'm like in two and a half years, you know.
So that's what we did, and we got an order
for thirteen and Dick I was telling people when I
was on The Carmichael Show, talk about ratings, and we
looked it up. We followed cheers. So our premiere week
we pulled in twenty million viewers and at that time

(01:06:02):
the network was like what yeah, because and at that
time it's like you held it, but yeah, and when
they canceled us, we were pulling in like eighteen million. Yeah,
we had an order for thirteen. We did nine episodes,
and you know, then they took it. They had a

(01:06:22):
big meeting and they said, listen, we're so good. We're
not going to do the rest of our order because
we don't need it. And I was like, wow, nigga.
I was on the phone immediately the ship is sinking.
That was like going, hey, dog, we're gonna record this album.
We're not gonna release it because it's so good. People
will find it. And you're like, no, man, like a

(01:06:43):
Perroro remix album, box it okay, everything.

Speaker 9 (01:06:50):
Whatever, How did you So from the time from the Soldier.

Speaker 4 (01:06:53):
Story, I was just laughing at it was fast.

Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
Oh no, from the time of a Soldier story to
you know, you're doing the positive how are you supporting yourself?

Speaker 5 (01:07:02):
Were you still just doing theater?

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
I always worked, I mean I never I only did theater.
I mean, I mean I only did acting. So I
was doing everything in my whole But but my parents
never helped me. It was just money.

Speaker 5 (01:07:21):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
Well I was single, costly just gig that gig, that gig,
that gig. I mean, that was my reality as you
know older, like you know, there are people would mentor me.
I remember Anna Marie Horsford had a sister who was
like at Columbia, and Columbia did Soldier story and I
remember I was eating, you know, at her house. She

(01:07:41):
had this really nice apartment West End Avenue, and they
were asking me back then, They're like, you know, well
you'll know when you're out of work. And I was like,
I've never been out of work, and they're like, oh
my god, this is motherfucker. I'm not saying I was
doing like you know, I just was working. We're doing
everything we do, voistovers, commercial, you know anything.

Speaker 9 (01:08:03):
Man, how did you get how did you get hooked
up with Hollywood Shuffle.

Speaker 5 (01:08:08):
How did you get that?

Speaker 1 (01:08:09):
Well, Robert Townsend. I met Robert Townsend on Soldiers Play Soldier.
We shared that honey We shared a honey wagon. So
I will tell you like I thought, Robert was the
funniest dude I ever in the world. Like he was
doing everybody's material, you know, like he was doing he said, yeah,

(01:08:31):
it's my boy, Damon, and he did all the more
money ship and I'd be like crying, like, who the
fuck me and him? Him and Denzel were always already
tight and just crying. I'm talking about fifteen hours a day,
you know, when you're young. We couldn't get enough. We
would make each other laugh until we just passed our sleep.
I remember sitting on the bed in I think it

(01:08:53):
was Denzel's room and watching Keenan on Soul Train, you know,
do and on the Night Show when he did his
first spot. He was in the centerfold of Right On Magazine,
you know. But Robert broke it down to me in
our little trail. He said, look, man, we're gonna have
a film company, him and Keenan. We're doing these movies

(01:09:14):
we're doing. So he broke it all down there. He said, man,
if you down, don't want you to do this, you know,
Hollywood Shuffle and all that stuff. So I heard about it,
and when I came out for to do my pilot
season that following year, I stayed with Robert and he
introduced me to Keenan Damon, who Damon was the size
of like Marlin, like like one, and Damon always had

(01:09:39):
kids like he had kids. From the first time I
met him, I was like, damn, yeah, yeah, so dig
So that led to I'm gonna show you how I
get to got to live in color So Keenan, all
those guys knew me just from hanging out. So I
would hang out with them every and go to these

(01:10:00):
comedy clubs. I didn't do comedy until Robert and those
guys just shamed me into it. They were like, look, man,
you can't be just rolling with us. You gotta do spots.
So I started doing spots just for fun and uh
so through that, Keenan knew me, you know. So when
we did I'm Gonna get you, sucker, and that broke

(01:10:22):
Keenan was like, look, I know how funny you are.

Speaker 5 (01:10:24):
Wait what did you do? I'm trying to play the
news again.

Speaker 1 (01:10:30):
That was basically.

Speaker 5 (01:10:34):
He was the one that was in the Springsteen I.

Speaker 3 (01:10:41):
Was.

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
I was like, bre Springsteen is amazing. You guys heard
him because he's really good. Yeah, so so they Basically
Keena just said do you think so? So he goes,
look look man, I'm doing this show. You know, this
sketch show, black sketch show. I want you to be
on it. Now. Robert already we had been talking about

(01:11:01):
The Five Heartbeats. Now the original cast was supposed to
be me, Denzel, I think, Damon, No, Keenan, and Robert.
So I got in long story short, I got in
in living color. And then Robert called and said, man,
I got the money. We're doing the Five Heartbeats. I'm

(01:11:21):
like what. I was like, shit, I gotta get out
this deal. He said, man, what the fuck? Why'd you
sign the deal?

Speaker 5 (01:11:27):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:11:27):
And I called Keenan. I was like, Keenan, I need
to talk to you because I'm very unhappy about this contract.
I need to be let go to do this movie.
He was like, dude, I can't. I mean, you signed
a contract. It's not me. I mean Fox will sue,
you know, saying I don't think you want me in
your show I'm going to be very angry. Was like, Dave, look,

(01:11:50):
shake it off. I mean I wish I could help you,
but I could. I mean, I was just it was
one of those things. So I didn't do it. Keenan
couldn't do it, Damon didn't do it.

Speaker 4 (01:12:00):
Who were you supposed to be?

Speaker 1 (01:12:01):
I forgot, I honestly forget which.

Speaker 5 (01:12:05):
One of those dudes. But yeah, who's the original lineup again?

Speaker 1 (01:12:10):
Me by you know, Robert Townsend, Damon, Keenan, Denzel, who
who would have been? I mean, well, there's a documentary
that I haven't seen.

Speaker 5 (01:12:25):
Yet but were working.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
Yeah, maybe maybe it's in there. But yeah, so all
that and like, uh yeah it was Wold.

Speaker 3 (01:12:34):
So when ahead, no, I was just going to say,
it's it's deep because you worked with so many like
dope ensemble casts that I just I was going to
ask you, like, what who has challenged you the most
and the best ways?

Speaker 5 (01:12:47):
Is that obvious?

Speaker 1 (01:12:48):
It was because you know, coming in doing Living Color,
I did not have a comedy background. I mean, you know, Keenan, Damon,
all those guys were in the trenches. They can came
in with their pockets full. I didn't any characters. Damon
actually came to me. That's how Calhoun Tubbs was written.
He said, look, man, you gotta have some characters to

(01:13:09):
think of something, you know. I was like, well, there's
this blues dude, and he said, let's write it down.
So we came up with that. Then we did men On,
so it just kind of built. Yeah, it kind of built.
I forgot, But originally that was Keenanan Damon, and they
were supposed to be Dicky and somebody their brothers, you know,
and they're gonna be and then Stephens and REESI was listen,

(01:13:31):
wait a minute, who was it? It was the dudes
from Motown, the writers, So that was what it was
based on, but a ghetto ass version of it.

Speaker 5 (01:13:40):
And Howard tis the third based on.

Speaker 1 (01:13:42):
Real people because when when Little Color first popped, I mean,
dudes would just hang out and I remember sitting in
the makeup room and dudes would just roll in be like,
oh look here, brother, can you give this card to Damien?
And then you know, you know, you know how black
folks do a lot of it. There was a table
that was in our rehearsal studio and we would have

(01:14:04):
breakfast and then we start our day and most of
those characters started. We were just ragging on each other,
you know, And that was one of those things where me,
everybody would do it because we all saw those guys
until finally, after a few days, you'd be like, yo, man,
that shit is funny. You need to put that on
the show. So that's kind of how it evolved. And
then it was me and Tommy.

Speaker 5 (01:14:24):
Man, how often did y'all crack up?

Speaker 9 (01:14:25):
Because like some of my funniest times watching even Color
was watching y'all about to last suck up.

Speaker 5 (01:14:31):
Dude, that shit was so funny.

Speaker 1 (01:14:33):
There's a sketch who I saw a while ago because
I remember we were doing it and I was tired.
It was late. I'm like, man, they ain't gonna tape
this shit, and Terry the director goes got it and
I'm like, what I told you, We were taping it.
So I was watching what is sitch? You see me
in there? Like because I thought we were rehearsing. Man,

(01:14:56):
I was like, oh shit, she was right.

Speaker 5 (01:14:58):
Where did prison tiny come from? I did?

Speaker 1 (01:15:04):
I wrote that with Like I went to college with
this guy fax Bar and he was white dude, and
he was in our theater company. Like way back we
did short eyes and stuff. So I brought him and
his writing partner onto the show and he me and
him and Adam Small we all wrote the prison Cable
Channel Networks. And the reason why it was so much

(01:15:25):
fun is because if you look back the first one, especially,
everybody was in it. He didn't really didn't. He would,
he would do stuff, but he was in it. Jim
was in it, everybody all together, and that's what made
it so fun because usually it would be like, you know,
this is your sketch. You know, I don't know microphone man,
and we do smaller stuff and support you and go on.
But to get everybody down and that was what was

(01:15:47):
fun about it.

Speaker 5 (01:15:48):
How did because of the kind of the rapid level
of how that show just exploded across America? How different
was your life after season one?

Speaker 1 (01:16:07):
Well, I'll give you an example. I auditioned for a
Living Color with Chris Rock. We did our final like
this improvs me and him and Susie Esmond. Susie Susie
didn't really want to do this, so she's like, you guys,
do it. I don't really want to do No. She
wanted to stay. She was I'm not moving to l A.

Speaker 5 (01:16:25):
I want to who watch the audition for the show.

Speaker 1 (01:16:28):
Martin, Martin, Martin, Lawrence Audi. I auditioned with Martin. Me
and him were friends from way back, and he didn't
get it, so he would come in. No, he didn't
get it.

Speaker 5 (01:16:37):
So wait, other people auditioned for this. I felt like
you eleven were specifically chosen.

Speaker 1 (01:16:44):
Well, we were, but still there was an audition process.
Martin auditioned and.

Speaker 5 (01:16:49):
Everybody from the Comedy Act Theory.

Speaker 1 (01:16:51):
No, not everybody.

Speaker 5 (01:16:55):
Robin Harrison he was on. At one point, I feel like, no, no, no, no, no,
no no.

Speaker 1 (01:16:59):
But but I went to the Comediac Theater a million times.
I performed there a million times. I saw Robin, you know,
a trillion times. No, as I remember, he was not
on it. But I just I'm telling you. I auditioned
with Martin. I auditioned with Chris Rock. Chris did Saturday
Night Live. So I went to visit Chris. And that's

(01:17:22):
when I really thought, well, damn shit, I guess I'm
doing something, because you know, everybody at Saturday Night treated
me like I was famous. You know, Lauren Michael's they
were like, oh my god, you know, the whole cast,
they were like, dude, well, you know, they're treated me
like I was about some shit. And I was like,
damn man, because you know when we did a living color,
we would you know, we would do our work, then

(01:17:44):
we would go have Thai food or go hang out
at Cate Mantalini's. That was a big joint on Wheelshire.
It's closed now, but and then we go home. It
wasn't you know when you go to Saturday Night Live,
they got limos after party Hopper Rozzi. Nah, man, I
got my little I forget what I had. My father
gave me a chocolate brown nineteen eighty one Coop Deville. Wow,

(01:18:11):
and you could outrun that motherfucker. Yeah, it was not
like that, you know. So so coming to visit Chris
and I was like, Chris, is it like this all
the time? He said, yeah, man, yeah, So Chris came
on after that, he came Lady, Yeah, he came later.
But Chris. I knew Chris since probably nineteen fuck, I

(01:18:35):
don't know eighty something.

Speaker 5 (01:18:37):
Where did y'all come up with the little Miss Magic?

Speaker 1 (01:18:40):
It was a picture walking in Little Magic. It was
at the back of it.

Speaker 5 (01:18:46):
It was given kim right.

Speaker 1 (01:18:47):
It was, yeah, the back of a Jet magazine. We
found this picture of this little black girl. It was
so obnoxious because she was like, we just started riffing.
We just I forget who named it a little magic,
but it was Kim And I didn't want to play
the mom because I was like, why are you putting
on this drag ship? And then listen, motherfucker, I have

(01:19:08):
the dress on. Okay, it's like, well ship, let me
just gonna do it. Because we would play around the stuff.
So that's how that happened. I mean, it's just a
lot of it's very organic. You know, if we made
each other laugh, then it was obvious you got to
do that. You got to make a sketch out of that.

Speaker 5 (01:19:24):
So all right, so here's something I always wanted to know.

Speaker 4 (01:19:27):
That's what I was what happened to her.

Speaker 1 (01:19:31):
I was trying to get married.

Speaker 4 (01:19:32):
She acted, she was like the first many seasons she was.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
The wasn't she the whole show? I mean she mean
because Alexandra, well Kelly was there from the beginning, hilarious,
Well she want. I mean, it's like anything. I mean,
Keenan said something really funny, like when it first popped off,
he said, look, I'm gonna tell you what's gonna happen.
Somebody's gonna cheat on their wife, somebody's gonna fuck, somebody's

(01:19:59):
go girlfriend, somebody's gonna have a drug problem, somebody's gonna
come out the closets, and you know all that stuff.
It's what happens in every group basically. And basically that's
what happened. I mean, you know, you you you, you
get a groove going, it's really famous, and then you
know people want more. You have more lines than me.
You know, that's the kind of stuff. So that's basically

(01:20:20):
what happened. And it just once Keenan left. He left
after the second year.

Speaker 5 (01:20:28):
Yeah, I just felt like he was there longer.

Speaker 1 (01:20:30):
But no, you're right, no, but but what we all
stayed and then the Waiyans gradually, I think Damon left
and then so it was Kim and Sean and you
know so and it just kind of dissipated after that.

Speaker 5 (01:20:50):
What I want to do is, Okay, so when you
were in your your bag and in your zone with
doing like Broadway and occasional movies whatever, and you had
you said like you weren't super broken, you didn't have
to get a regular job. You made a modest living.
But okay, so when you're on a cultural phenomenon like

(01:21:14):
Living Color and you're in LA and you make that
decision to jump into the river, which is like, Okay,
you're making good money and the show looks like it's
going to be a hit, so you're probably saying to yourself, Okay,
this should be no reason why we're not on the
air for at least seven years or whatever. So how

(01:21:39):
risky is it to really lay down roots in Los Angeles?
As in, I'm going to hit show? Do I get
the ball out the car? Do I do I get
the you know, I'm giving an example I'm given is that, Okay,
when Ugly Betty was on the air and it was
such a hit and all that stuff, a mayor could

(01:22:00):
purchase this house and everything, and then like it got
canceled in three years and she couldn't sell that house
for shit, it took nine years. Again.

Speaker 1 (01:22:09):
That never happened to me, But well, just in.

Speaker 5 (01:22:11):
General, like once you decide to not be meager, and.

Speaker 1 (01:22:15):
We'll tell you what that happened. That happened, Like I
was doing. I started auditioning for this Bob Fosse musical,
and I went to England to visit a friend of
my Matthew Modine, who is doing Full Metal g and
I remember my agents called and they said, David, if
you come back, we know you're going to get this musical.

(01:22:37):
And at that point, you know, I had done dream
Girls on and off. I was really getting tired of
New York. That scene, I really wanted to buy a car.
I wanted to buy a drop top Mustang GT five
point zero. That was my dream car. And I said,
I'm not gonna get this man in New York. That's

(01:22:58):
when I really emotion said I'm going to La Okay.
So I didn't go back. I didn't go back to
do that final call for the Bob Fosse musical. I
went out to La that for that pilot season and
I booked my first pilot. So basically from that I
would move back. I came back once after we did

(01:23:22):
the pilot of in Living Color, because once we did
the pilot, it took over a year for them to
pick it up. You know, when I would go and
do guest I did this guest spot on alf but
wherever I would go, right wherever I would go, all
the crew had seen. We did an hour pilot of
in Living Color. It became like a bootleg. Hey, and

(01:23:44):
these dudes on the crew be like, yo, man, that
was the funniest shit. What are they going to do
with it? And I was like, I don't know. It
got so bad that Vanity Fair printed an article about
in Living Color, you know, something like this is the
hottest underground tape. You know, it's like a black Saturday
Night Live. Everybody had seen it. Yeah, it was over.

Speaker 5 (01:24:03):
What took long? What took so long to iron it? Well?

Speaker 1 (01:24:06):
See, you know the concept of a living colored Eddie
Murphy had it, that idea to do a black SNL,
a black sketch show. Everybody had that idea, but Keenan
is the one who actually did it. Yeah, I don't know.
I mean it was Barry Diller was running.

Speaker 5 (01:24:22):
Fox and they didn't see this SEO, it's gonna be
instant hit.

Speaker 1 (01:24:27):
I'm just telling you, man. It took a while. Finally
we got picked up, and that's what I went And
I said no three times. You know, I said no because,
like I told you, I'm not that's not my thing.
You know, I don't really I don't have a bunch
of characters. I'm not deep in this improv thing. But
Kim Wayans I moved back to New York. And when

(01:24:48):
I moved back after being in LA, I realized that
was the wrong thing, because the next day I was
back in the same call, same two dudes. Hey Man,
what's up? Where you been? Man? I was like, oh
my god, yeah, And she said, David, trust me, this
is the right decision. So I trusted her. And because
out of all the shit I auditioned for, it was

(01:25:09):
at a time where I must audition for thirty pilots,
I was the dude or like, well, I don't know,
maybe we'll go black, David, Yeah, you know, so I
would read I didn't get it, but I always knew
that Living Color would be the most fun. It wasn't
the most money. But finally I just told my agents.
I was like, I'm just going to do this because
I'm tired of, you know, audition for stuff. I didn't

(01:25:30):
really care because you on it to the very end, right, Yeah, Yeah,
I was, Yeah, yeah I was. And so once I
got in there, dude, we did the pilot, we did
men on and I remember my agent call the next
day and she said, they're doing snaps over at Tom
MGM David. They're doing snapsid Columbia. People are snapping all
over the city and I was like, damn. And this

(01:25:54):
was for the first time, for the first time in
my life, everybody was in like our green room. Everybody,
all the biggest stars, you know, everybody wanted to come
and hang out with us. And I was like, damn,
for one, for once in my life, I was on
the coolest show. I went, I got my burglar alarm installed,
and the white dude he said, he was like, oh,

(01:26:18):
he just went crazy. He was like, oh my god.
The cab driver. I was like, damn, this supposed to
be what it feels like.

Speaker 9 (01:26:25):
No, it's It's funny you say that characters were your thing,
because you created some of my favorite characters like Stevens
and REESI.

Speaker 1 (01:26:32):
Like, I mean, I got into it. I'm just saying
that as an actor, as an artist, we all are apprehensive.
I mean, I just everybody has insecurity. I mean I
just heard a story that like what'sy Jones talked about it.
He talked about like he was supposed to jam with
Hendrix a bunch of times, but he said Hendricks never
showed up because he said he felt like he knew

(01:26:54):
he was intimidated by these jazz musicians. You know, he
didn't have his knowledge was different, you know, him and
Miles Davis kicked it. They were supposed to record a
bunch of shit, but it just never got together. Everybody
has an insecurity, even the most brilliant people. They do.
Every artist, you know, ship where they I'm not ready,
you know this kind of thing, but you know I
jumped in. I said fuck it. You know, so it

(01:27:16):
all worked.

Speaker 9 (01:27:16):
Out after the Living Color? What were your Where did
you go from there?

Speaker 1 (01:27:20):
I'll tell you know. After in Living Color, I figured
because I was doing stand up and stuff, I said, well,
I probably can headline for about eighteen months. You know,
there's no YouTube, there's no nothing.

Speaker 5 (01:27:33):
How long did they announce to you that the season
five is our last one? Was it just like last ten?

Speaker 1 (01:27:38):
It happened.

Speaker 5 (01:27:38):
Here's the cake.

Speaker 1 (01:27:39):
I was in New York. I was doing Shakespeare in
the Park. And now after that, you know, Jim Carrey
had always already blown up with Yes, was that the
first one was his first movie? Which I turned that down?
Everybody it was. It was a script that was passed around,

(01:27:59):
but Jim it because he said, look, I'll take this,
but you gotta let me do my thing. So they
gave him all the power and he said, fuck it.
You know, so now I can tell you another story.
So we went to the opening of ace Ventura and
so the press check goes, Oh, I got an excitement.
You know, I have exciting news. I've sat you next

(01:28:19):
to Jim and you know yet Jim Carrey, and Jim
was so nervous. He literally was climbing out of his skin.
So I'm sitting right there and I want to I'm
gonna laugh because it's my boy. Whatever, I'm gonna laugh.
And I laughed myself dizzy sick. Now I'm watching it
and I'm like, Jim is too crazy, man, Jim, Jim, Jim.

(01:28:39):
He did that movie like they gave him six months
to live. So he was just telling every joke, every joke.
He just worked it. And so I come out in
the lobby. I see Chris and I was like, Chris,
what's up. He goes, Nobody's gonna see this movie, and
I was like, no, because it was too crazy. I
just thought America's not ready. We used to joke with Jim.
I said, look, man, if I won the lottery. I

(01:29:00):
wanted to give Jim five million dollars just to do
his movie. He used to do this thing called Colon Man.

Speaker 5 (01:29:06):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:29:07):
He would whip out, you know, his three twenty five
feet of colon and he would last suit people and
suck him in his ass. This is the kind of
shit we would do. This is the kind of shit
we we're we're comedian. We'd just do. Dude. I was crying.
I was like, Jim, please please, I'm gonna give you
some money. I want you to do Colon Man. He

(01:29:27):
was like, yeah, So we would just be messing around,
making each other laugh. But what I'm saying is I
didn't think. I just saw. You know, in a couple
of years, people forget about the show. I go back to,
you know, I do what I really want to do,
which is I want to do like a sitcom like
The Black Seinfeld, you know, and I just that's where
my head was at. I did not see the legacy

(01:29:49):
of In Living Color. And I'll tell you who did
was Jim Carrey. I mean from the very beginning, we'd
be sitting in the dress room. He said, Man, this
is history. This is I was like, man, please, it's like, really,
I didn't know because I just didn't. I just did
not see, like.

Speaker 5 (01:30:03):
You didn't read your own pressions were in Time magazine,
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:30:09):
But I didn't. My son's watching in color, Yeah, but
I also didn't. I'm gonna put it like this, what
I did. I remember I did this play and they
had the men's dressing room the women's dressing room at
this point. You know, this is like two thousand and six.
So everybody had their laptop all laid up, and all
these dudes had catalog their favorite in living color sketches.

(01:30:31):
They could press a button dial it in. You know,
that technology wasn't there when we did in Living Color
in ninety one to ninety four. I didn't anticipate that longevity.
As I toured the country, I started performing for guys
who were kids, say ten or eleven or twelve, who
snuck and watched the show. Now they're teenagers, you know

(01:30:51):
what I mean. Now they're teenagers. And from there the
people who saw the next generation under them, who saw
it on be e T or whatever you know on
I forgot what.

Speaker 5 (01:31:03):
It's It's on a bunch of channels.

Speaker 1 (01:31:04):
Yeah, there was a point where it was on every day.
I mean it was somewhere every day, right, I mean,
I just I didn't see all that. I didn't see YouTube.
Come on, man, I didn't see it.

Speaker 5 (01:31:12):
Man.

Speaker 3 (01:31:14):
I was going to I was gonna ask was was
boom I felt like Boomerang was closer than Living Color
than that.

Speaker 1 (01:31:18):
Boomerang was during in Living Color. And what I didn't
know is so I get Boomerang and Keenan said go
ahead and do it, and I figured he I was
cleared by Fox. But Keenan never told Fox. He just
told me he went to the Hudling Brothers and he said,
make sure you have David back on tape day.

Speaker 4 (01:31:41):
So with that the make up for the Robert Townson Joe.

Speaker 1 (01:31:43):
No, but I'm talking about you talk about doing someone
a solid.

Speaker 4 (01:31:49):
Ranting himself out there.

Speaker 1 (01:31:51):
And I didn't find out till many years later. I
was like what, and he goes, yeah, what.

Speaker 5 (01:31:57):
Was that scene? Do the table scene?

Speaker 1 (01:32:02):
Well, there's what happened. We were doing. We were doing
the scene and I'm sitting there and I go, what
is the most embarrassing thing that could happen? Your parents?
Fucking So We're at the table and I'm sitting next
to Eddie so I whispered Eddie, and Eddie fell out laughing.
So I see him get up and go around, because

(01:32:24):
we were shooting in this big loft. He goes around
and he tells Warrington, who's a producer, and it's all
in pantomime. I see Warrington just fall out laughing. He
goes and tells Reggie, the director, who's on the other
side behind the monitor. He falls out laughing. So at
the very end of the day, Eddie says, we're gonna
film it. So every time we tried to do the
scene you know where John and them come out and

(01:32:47):
Eddie's looking at me. Eddie never kept a straight face,
so I always thought, well, we can't use it because
we didn't get a good take. So that's why I
went away from it. The brilliance of Eddie Murphy again
is that he allowed that in the moment we got
to put this on film, and it was became one

(01:33:07):
of the funniest you know, my character was just the
best friend. You know. When I read the script, I
kind of was like, well, I'm in an Eddie Murphy movie,
but what am I doing? But the brilliant thing is
we rehearsed for three weeks and rehearsed, well, we actually improvised.
It was controlled improvisation, so all of like the scenes

(01:33:28):
with me, Martin and Eddie mostly like we we improved it,
you know. So so Reggie would go, look, you know,
you guys are working out. Just go and we would
start improvising. There was a well, there was a woman
there taking notes and when I say guided, he would go, okay, stop,
stay in that area, stay in that area. So he
would guide it. All the best bits they wrote them down,

(01:33:50):
and that's how the script was rewritten. That's how it
really became ours. That's funny. That's funny. That's fine. I
mean it was guy.

Speaker 5 (01:34:06):
So that was rehearsed well, it was like a table read.

Speaker 1 (01:34:11):
And then we would Eddie was living Eddie life like
he was in Washington. Then they would fly us to Washington.
I think it was for I don't know something, you no,
he was just there hanging out in DC. And we
hung out at the Four Seasons for a few days
and we rehearsed there. There was improvisation that happened on
the set, but it was already formed and for us

(01:34:36):
to succeed, and also what that did, I didn't know
Eddie at all. I kind of knew Martin, you know,
like I said, me and him were boys, but it
bonded us because we're supposed to be best friends. So
it was really that's the only time I've ever done
that on a film, and I think that's the only
time I heard Eddie did. It worked like that, But
that's what made that film so good.

Speaker 5 (01:34:57):
So that's not standard, right telling.

Speaker 1 (01:35:00):
You know, I've been acting for thirty five years. I've
never had a month long rehearsal period before we start filming.

Speaker 5 (01:35:07):
What if something was so magical and there was no
camera to capture it just lost? I mean because as
I were things that happened in rehearsal that was like,
damn that shit is. You know, I will never would
never get that magic again.

Speaker 1 (01:35:20):
You got you got the good ship, trust me. Okay,
I'll give you one thing that happened when I left
the loft. You know, after my parents fucked, we did
an improv all the way down the stairs, all the
way out in the street. So they said cup, but
me and John we kept going, how could you do this?

(01:35:41):
I'm trying to do my thing. I was like, man, what, Daddy, why?
And we kept going, We kept going. All that was lost,
but we were so in it. It was so much fun.
Is with mom, Mom, Mom, this is why could you do?

Speaker 5 (01:35:52):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:35:52):
We kept going back and forth and you know, so
that kind of stuff was lost, but it just but
we I don't you know, they didn't videotape it. They
may have recorded it, but I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (01:36:02):
I just so in contrast with the halle Berry scenes,
that was completely like off on book No.

Speaker 1 (01:36:08):
Because I'll tell you what, because because like I'll give
you an example, when halle Berry go when Halle goes,
that was me. That was then improv I did, but
it didn't make sense that I would do that, you know,
in the kind of the scene. So I gave that
to her. But you just and that was in the moment.
That was in the moment. So so they encourage that.

Speaker 5 (01:36:25):
And how did the shooting go on?

Speaker 1 (01:36:28):
Martin told me he just let me go. But me
and Martin, I love Martin man. I met him like
from way back, you know, and Martin was always Martin,
like he told me from way back when this like

(01:36:50):
white lady owned the clubs, like sit down, you can't
do what you're doing. It's foul. You know, you can't
be talking like that. Martin was always like, this is
what I'm gonna do. Fuck it you. So yeah, yeah,
So when Martin did his show, uh, he brought me on.

(01:37:13):
And the only thing I remember, there's a guy named
John Bowman who used to be on The Living Color.
Then he went over and was working with Martin, and
I just said, I want to play a preacher. I
just want to play okay, because they they were saying,
we want you to come on. Martin wants you to
come on. What do you want to play? And I said,
let me play a preacher. And from there it just

(01:37:34):
and I did it a bunch of times. That's one
of my favorite characters of yours, dude, and the way
he scooped back to school. Don't let the death for you.

Speaker 5 (01:37:54):
He's here.

Speaker 1 (01:37:55):
It's a spare, even spar saying there. So that's why
I spot get your buyer.

Speaker 5 (01:38:02):
Tell us about blank Man.

Speaker 1 (01:38:03):
Oh yeah, damon, here's here's a story before you start.
When everybody was out watching Black Panthers when that came out,
I was at home watching Blank Man, the only one
because I saw Black Panther on the film. Going to England,
I was like, I was crying.

Speaker 5 (01:38:25):
I want to jump the.

Speaker 1 (01:38:29):
Panthers. You still haven't seen I haven't seen it.

Speaker 4 (01:38:34):
Out of the club until you come.

Speaker 5 (01:38:36):
Wait.

Speaker 1 (01:38:37):
I'm not a Marvel person, so this is a real
black nerve, like a Marvel person all clothed the orgy.
I don't told shoes, you don't, man, Black Panthers is
not true. I went to the movies with this girl

(01:38:58):
and this is when the first weekend at Black Panther open.
I saw this one brother. It was at the what
was it at the arc Light. He had his young
but it was too small and he was waiting around
and he got stood up and they were like, sir,
the movie starting, and he was like I didn't want
to be that dude. So I was like, I'm gonna
wait until people stopped dressing up and I can just

(01:39:20):
go see.

Speaker 3 (01:39:21):
It was turned up. Everybody tell you something the wrong
Black Panthers. A lot of you know, Callie Didy get
it wrong. It was a lot of leather jackets.

Speaker 1 (01:39:28):
Well we try, we try, but no Black Panther was beautiful. Man.
I love this ship.

Speaker 5 (01:39:33):
Eventually, yeah, what was that? Like?

Speaker 1 (01:39:38):
You and Damon Damian told me he was doing this
thing you know again. We were on the Living Color
and uh, he said, you know, I want you to
do this. I said, cool, man, let's do it. Robin Gibbons,
I don't think I had met her. Everybody heard about her,
you know, she was just that girl.

Speaker 5 (01:39:56):
You didn't meet her on the they didn't do it. Yeah,
I don't think they had anything to No.

Speaker 1 (01:40:02):
I met her. I met at the party. I met her.
I met her. I mean we I knew her as
a friend, you know, like that, and loved her. She's cool.
We just did it. I mean it was great. It
was a beautiful thing. And uh but I you know,
when we were doing Black Man, like, I don't know
if meteor Man came out first, but I know they're

(01:40:25):
kind of competing. But you know, back then there were
two things. There are a couple uh scenarios for black
comedians reformers. Wouldn't it be great if there were a
black superhero? Every black comedian talked about the possibility of
a black president. That was in everybody's We all did,
We all talked, we all had some riff on that,

(01:40:46):
you know, those kinds of things, and to live and
see all this shit, that's what makes it amazing. But
I never got to meet Obama, but because I always
wanted to meet him in the White House. But I
didn't want to have to like donate money. I just
wanted to be like no, I wanted it to be organic.
I wanted it to be like David this Brock and Michelle,

(01:41:08):
not like you to come to the house, you know,
like that. I know you met. And then at the
end when it was like they started throwing parties, it
was like DJ Scribble, you know everybody. I was like, man,
I'm good, I'm good. I met Michelle. I'll meet him eventually.
But I did want to meet him while he was

(01:41:29):
in office.

Speaker 5 (01:41:30):
You know, trust me, he's still president.

Speaker 4 (01:41:40):
Would you ever do it? Or have you done a special?

Speaker 5 (01:41:43):
Yeah? I did one.

Speaker 1 (01:41:44):
I did a stand up special while ago. Would I
do another one?

Speaker 4 (01:41:50):
It's a Netflix world, so.

Speaker 1 (01:41:52):
It's beyond that now. I mean, Jerrod just directed a
special where there's no laughter. I'm like that. No, he
directed this white dude where there's no audience.

Speaker 3 (01:42:04):
It's just him talking to I don't understand what it was,
but I saw his name and I saw what he
directed it.

Speaker 1 (01:42:09):
Like I said, okay, now, y'all are given lectures, no audience,
call me old school, but tell us about chocolate news,
and like, well, chocolate news.

Speaker 5 (01:42:22):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:42:22):
This was happening after the Chappelle Show. Everybody I heard
everybody was pitching to Comedy Central. They wanted to be
the next Chapelle. So I just looked at that, and
from what I heard was all of the next Chapelle
stuff was a trap. Nobody could be the next Dave Chappelle.
So I avoided that. And then it was the like

(01:42:44):
I wanted to do like the Black Daily Show kind
of but in a sketch scenario, meaning everything was written.
It wasn't based on real news. It was all fake.
So I just you went in there and I talked
to them and used the template of real sports, because
if you mentioned Chappelle, they'd be like, now we've done that.
It's always failed. Oh I want to do the Daily

(01:43:06):
As soon as you say the Daily Show, that's John
Stewart's territory. You got to go through him. No, we
won't do that. So I purposely never said that, and
they were like, wow, okay, so they bought it, and
I was only on for one year or one season.
It was ten episodes, but that's the purest me, unfiltered

(01:43:26):
from my own hand written performed that you're gonna get.
So I just I just did everything I wanted to do.
I mean they gave me pretty much free rain. Probably
the one idea we wanted to do a Kwanza special
and they said no, and we wanted to do the
origin story of Kwanza. But inclamation people, there's a whole

(01:43:52):
we don't get it. So short of that, I did
everything I wanted to do. Man, they just so that
was cool, even if it was just.

Speaker 5 (01:44:01):
Yeah, I think a couple we have our homies, was it?
I think he right? That was their first job? What
were they then? Working with them?

Speaker 1 (01:44:11):
They were hungry, man. I mean I dug them because
they were intelligent and just smart. I mean I was
in there every day writing with the writers, and I
just wanted people who were as excited as me to
be there. I mean what I didn't want is you know,

(01:44:32):
like as a musician, you know you want the people
that have a passion for your project. Okay, there's a
there's a lot of really great musicians are great artists.
But you know, if you're not down with what I'm doing,
that's good. But it's not gonna help me, you know
what I mean. So so I was just trying to
find people that were hungry and saw the vision and
we did. We had fun, man. I remember we were

(01:44:54):
talking about I just talked about the other day. I
was talking to facts. So we were planning the inaugurate festivities.
That Lunelle came in. I've been watching Binge watching My
Super sixteen, you know, because that was really popular. So
we just did the ghetto version. It was like she
was the party planner for the It's going to be
real class y. Barrock is gonna be carried in on

(01:45:16):
the throne and Michelle will be his lady and waiting,
and so he just plotted out like it's a super
sweet sixteen. So it was funny. I mean, it was
really fun. I mean it was fun to plan all
that stuff. It was exhausting at the end. I was
just woo the fuck out. But that the night that
Barack Obama was elected, I went and I was to

(01:45:39):
host the Democratic election party in Century City. So by
the time I got there after working at the studio,
it was like seven o'clock and the party was almost
it was that capacity. Okay, the police were going to
shut it down. So I go on stage and I'm
watching as it's official. You know, it says like Barack
Obama's a president. I remember standing there because I wanted

(01:46:02):
to make sure, so I kept watching them. I kept watching, dude,
the emotion that night. I remember this white lady fell
out on the stage. Her dress just went over her head,
just crying. This grown ass photographer who was on stage,
he's just weeping, and I started crying. I start. You know,

(01:46:23):
my grandmother was born in nineteen hundred, and I was like,
oh my god, if my grandmother could see this, you know.
And I remember as a kid listening to all these stories.
I could tell you stories man. My aunt, my aunt
ethel in Alabama. She was traveling to see her friend
on the Trailway's bus and they didn't have enough seats

(01:46:46):
for the white folks. And the bus driver she said,
they're in the middle of the country. He said, look, nigga,
you can either get off the bus or you get
under the bus and ride with the baggage. And she said,
you know, she had her best dress on, her hair
was done because she was going to see her friend.
She got under that bus and she had to ride
the rest of the way under the bus with the baggage.

(01:47:07):
And she said, when they got to where she was going,
they left her there. And she said she because she
had claust her phobia and she's banging. And she said,
but you know, as a little child, when she told
me this, we would laugh because she told it and laughed.
She said, Oh, my hair was all messed up, I
was all sweating, my dress was all made. We would laugh,
and I would tell her. But as I grew older,

(01:47:28):
and she would retell that story because I would make
her and it was no longer funny. And and I
realized all that I thought about, all that stuff, man,
and this is where we're at. You know, this is this,
This is what I'm witnessing. That's how big that moment was.
That was for not just me, this is my point
of view, but for everybody in this room. Man.

Speaker 5 (01:47:50):
Come on, and now I can't even yeah, but let.

Speaker 1 (01:47:55):
Me tell you something. Even when people to this day,
when they go, you know, well, Barack didn't do enough
for black people, I'm like, didn't do do you know
what he was going through? They said everything, but call
him a nigga every.

Speaker 5 (01:48:07):
Day, every day, every day they cock blocked everything he
wanted to do, said.

Speaker 4 (01:48:15):
It loud and proud, we ain't supporting ship.

Speaker 1 (01:48:16):
Now you this is it. So I'm not for it.
I don't want to hear I don't want to hear it,
you know. And and you see what's happening anything but
a nigga anything, I'm idiot.

Speaker 4 (01:48:29):
They got the opposite.

Speaker 1 (01:48:30):
Yeah, man, So I'm just you were talking politics. I
don't know what's going to happen. I really don't. I
want to know.

Speaker 5 (01:48:39):
Like, were you guys fine with the Carmichael Show just
being three seasons?

Speaker 9 (01:48:45):
No, it was such a revolution to me. I thought
it was just finding his but no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 (01:48:51):
Listen. First of all, it wasn't even a season because
you know, we came on around with Blackish. I think
we did about thirty episode and they had done like
sixty seventy because you know, they would pick the Carmichaels
up for like six shows, ten shows, and you know

(01:49:11):
when we got there, you know, after we were on
the air and I'd sign the contract there, you know,
Jeff Greenblat, Robert Bob Greenblat rather the head of NBC,
was going, well, we want to do this, like a
specialty show. I didn't know nothing about that. They didn't
tell me when audition, we may only pick you up
for six episodes, ten episodes. Have you locked down for

(01:49:34):
five years because that's the contract, you know. I thought
we were doing a regular show, you know, twenty episodes
a season. We never got that. They only put us
on in the summer. That's the summer dump. We were
never on the fall schedule, you know. So, But the
flip side is you trade that with Gerard got to
do the show he wanted to do, so I would

(01:49:57):
rather do thirty good episodes than seventy bullshit episode, so
that is it. But no, we were never down with that.
I was no. We always and I can speak for
Gerard on this. We all wanted to be not the
step child, but the child. You know. Put us on
in the fall, give us a full order, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:50:19):
But were they too afraid to say that, we are
afraid of the show, And now.

Speaker 1 (01:50:24):
They yes they were, because they were like, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:50:26):
On surface, they seemed like, hey, we supported, but you
could not go.

Speaker 1 (01:50:30):
Back and read what the critics said. There's no other
show at that at the network that was getting the criticism.
The critics fucking loved us. No, they would say you're
hard to program around. You know. That's you know, they
always tell you you're unique. Well, you're an acquired taste.
You know, you got all that bullshit.

Speaker 9 (01:50:50):
I was, man, I love that show. I really like
like this the episode where the mom kills herself. I
was gonna bring that one up, like that ship was.
I mean, that's never been don't tell.

Speaker 1 (01:51:01):
You you should have been there. Man, black folks in the audience.
I don't mean to cut you off, but we got
to it like that part, and I was like telling
your you know, my character, Yeah, your grandma wants to
kill usself in the audience, don't do it.

Speaker 5 (01:51:17):
No, no, yeah, I was like we were like trying
not to. Oh there's a good well not good time.
These were Christian people first offp like in good times
in the audience, like they would have those outbursts.

Speaker 1 (01:51:33):
Quest questions you know, Oh yeah they were they were
they were like so wait.

Speaker 3 (01:51:40):
Then the Bill Cosby episode, Oh, because that was.

Speaker 4 (01:51:44):
I mean, not for nothing, that was it was brave.

Speaker 5 (01:51:46):
It was was on NBC.

Speaker 3 (01:51:48):
Yeah, but NBC gave you both. It was perfection to
be honest.

Speaker 1 (01:51:52):
You know, a lot of times. It was an experiment,
like when I say that, like we would read the stuff,
but frankly, I didn't know how we we're going to
do it until we actually did it like that. You know,
you know this was from Grohid's mind. I don't. I
didn't know, you know, how we're going to get out
of this, you know, and people get it confused. I mean,

(01:52:13):
you know, my character voted for Trump. I mean, and
you know the whole thing about Bill Cosby and stuff.
These are characters, not me, these characters. But how are
we going to get out of it? You know that
until that very last thing, you know, that last line
when Dryid goes, it's shame what he did to those women.
It was fun to play with that. But but what
became exhausting is for white journalists, that's all they wanted

(01:52:35):
to talk about, you know, because it's it's I call
it the nigga lit litmus test. You know, Ques, what
do you think about Kanye? I love all your app
Can we talk about Kanye? You know? It's like you know,
it's like okay, you know, yeah, well can I say
that when when I found out that it's this is

(01:52:56):
a person who didn't see black panther, go ahead, your card
has been biscated.

Speaker 5 (01:53:02):
Revote.

Speaker 1 (01:53:04):
I want to say that when I found out that
you were playing opposite Loretta Divine, I was like, I'm in,
I'm in.

Speaker 5 (01:53:09):
That was just perfect casting, Like I wanted to.

Speaker 1 (01:53:12):
I wanted to see the way you tube played against
each other, and you guys did not disappoint. Yeah. Yeah,
like the comparents, you know, they were still getting it in.

Speaker 5 (01:53:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:53:20):
Yeah. When I auditioned, you know, I met Gerard and Rel.
I met Rell on like Twitter, and you know, we
go back and forth to say, yea, I'm a big fan.
I hope we get to work together. I'm like, yeah, cool, whatever.
So then I saw Gerard and I was hosting this
evening of stand up as part of the Montreal Comedy

(01:53:41):
Festivals in twenty ten. I think, and if you've ever
seen Gerard's comedy, well immediately he has an original voice.
He's different from everybody else. So I always dug him
as a comedian and so that that year, when I
heard he was doing a show, I was like, do this.
So I went in and I saw Loretta coming out

(01:54:03):
of the building. I was like, Hey, what's up, Loretta,
what's going on. We known each other for over thirty years,
and she said, oh, they like you, David, everybody like him.

Speaker 5 (01:54:16):
Oh man.

Speaker 1 (01:54:17):
So I went in there and uh, it was just
butter Man.

Speaker 9 (01:54:20):
You know, did you do any kind of outdoor like
research or whatever, because me and Gerro grew up probably
like thirty minute he grew up and say, I grew
up in Greensborough And I'm telling you, man, your character,
the way you played like, dude, that's like my uncle's.

Speaker 5 (01:54:34):
That was my family too.

Speaker 1 (01:54:35):
Though. The thing I loved about loved about the Carmichaels
it was very much any real black family. Yeah, everybody
got a hair. They say, like they could have been
talking about the Canadian trade agreement. Everybody's gonna have they sit.
Most of the people didn't read, they didn't know what
informed they gonna say what they're gonna say. So yeah,

(01:54:57):
I like that. I mean, I I really I I
knew that character. I knew that black man. You understand. Uh,
his kingdom was that barca lounger and that changer and
that was about it. But he ruled it right there.
So yeah, yeah, man, I really felt like also, I
felt like I had earned the right to play it

(01:55:18):
in terms of age and experience, and just I didn't
really have to act. I mean I knew that. And
the thing I loved about the Carmichaels is from comedy
to Tears. I mean I feel like, out of all
the rules I've done, that encompassed everything. I mean, I
was able to go you know plan is emotionally.

Speaker 9 (01:55:40):
Yeah, the scene where the episode where he has to
confess to the wife that he had a kid.

Speaker 1 (01:55:49):
Every scene, like with the Porno episode, would take you look, man,
come on and go, oh, actually, David, I did find
my parents porno stas okay, whatever. And then when he said,
you know, with the kid, he said this happened in
his family. So after that I just stopped questioning him.
I mean, whatever the script was, Jara would be like, hey, man,

(01:56:12):
I'm trying to tell you, and his parents, everybody his
family would come and hang out and watch.

Speaker 5 (01:56:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:56:17):
I really felt blessed. Man. I remember, I'll tell you
a good story. So Tiffany, I saw the trailer for
A Girl's Trip. I had not seen the movie, just
saw the trailer in the theater and I came back
and Tiffany was begging me at that but David, can
I open for you? I was like, can you wait

(01:56:38):
like a month, I'm gonna be opening for you. She
was like, yeah, but I want to. I was like, Tiffany,
do you realize what is about to happen? Well?

Speaker 5 (01:56:48):
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:56:49):
I was like, you have to listen to me and
everything it was right there, man, please her shit blew
all the fuck the way up. And it was again
she was I mean all the crazy stories that you
hear her say. I heard that ship every day, and
she has she has a cure for cancer.

Speaker 9 (01:57:08):
She has a cure. Tiffany had it has a cure
for cancer. I'm not bullshitting you, man, Can you share?

Speaker 5 (01:57:13):
I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:57:14):
I went to at that point, I would just go
to my dressing room. Why David disappear? I was like, Tiffany,
I just gotta go.

Speaker 5 (01:57:22):
Now are you Are you allowed to talk about what
your character on Little rail show is going to be?

Speaker 1 (01:57:31):
I'm not on a Little Rel's show. I'm on the
Cool Kids, but somehow online they think I'm in his show,
but I'm not.

Speaker 5 (01:57:40):
It is I did see some advertising. Everything was the movie.

Speaker 1 (01:57:45):
It is my show that I'm doing with Vicky Lawrence
and Martin Mall and Vicky Lawrence.

Speaker 4 (01:57:51):
From and the last person who else is the fourth.

Speaker 1 (01:57:55):
Leslie Jordan's he's like a four Footje's the gayest man
I've been in a senior citizen facility. But I saw
this thing on Instagram where I don't I think someone
had to put that together honestly, because it's not.

Speaker 5 (01:58:14):
Advertising.

Speaker 1 (01:58:15):
It's not And again just go to the comments. I'm in.
I didn't have the heart because you know in the
comments they don't they don't care.

Speaker 5 (01:58:28):
Accuracy doesn't No, they don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:58:30):
They were like going all I mean, you know the people,
they got an alternate universe. Oh oh, I see what's
going on. They're trying to keep it on the double
down low. They make us a super surprise.

Speaker 3 (01:58:40):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:58:41):
I didn't even get involved. But no, I saw it
was looking.

Speaker 5 (01:58:43):
For like you syd bed and.

Speaker 4 (01:58:45):
No I'm Lawrence because I ain't seen Lauren.

Speaker 1 (01:58:51):
She's putting it down. But that's my show. I'm doing
Cool Kids on Fox. Rail is on Fox. And as
matter of fact, we're right next door to each other.
Our sounds age. Wait before I go, we got to
talk music. Yes, I need to tell you we didn't
even talk whiz we could talk about are we out

(01:59:14):
of times? No, the Whiz was the one. The Whiz
was the one man.

Speaker 4 (01:59:20):
Thank you for saying that. I just wanted to be fair.

Speaker 1 (01:59:22):
I mean again. Okay. When me and Reggie Kathy, we
we drove with a bunch of friends across country to
come to New York for the first time or during
spring break, and we to go see some Broadway shows
and we went to see The Whiz. We bought the
second to the last row Majestic Theater six dollars tickets

(01:59:43):
half price, and after the matinee, I went in with
my eight by ten to the stage door and I
wanted to give him my picture. In the door goes,
you want to what I said? I want to be
on Broadway. He busted out laughing. So he got a
the pia he said, a man, come up in here,
please any any any cast They came up tell him

(02:00:05):
what you just told me. And I was like, I'm
gonna act. I'm from I'm from Michigan and here's my
but I want to be bro the stop. They laughed
in my face and I was like, can I leave it?
The clown me so hard. Yeah, I know, but they
clown me so I'm telling you so to do the Wiz.

(02:00:27):
I mean, and I had done this crazy version of
the Wiz. Des Mackanov directed it at the La Joya
Playhouse and I was in it, Nikki James, Titus Uhus.
First of all, you all don't even know Titus has
the voice. So he did the lion and they raised

(02:00:50):
the keys. I mean, he would do just crazy stuff.
So he was in it, and Michael Benjamin Washing, Michael Washington,
Michael Benjamin He's gonna kill me.

Speaker 5 (02:01:01):
But whatever.

Speaker 1 (02:01:02):
Anyway, so that never made it. That never made it
to Broadway. I knew Kenny Leon and when it was announced,
I texted Kenny. I said, hey, man, I want to
do the Wiz. And I played the Whiz in this
production of some point I was trying to make and
Kenny kind of hit me back. He say like, man,
I don't even know what I'm doing. I mean, let
me just hit you when I you know, when I

(02:01:23):
meet with the network and figure out what we're going
to do. So I was performing at Carolines a few
A couple weeks later, he came with his assistant. But
I was pushing the Wiz because that's what I played
before I figured, you know, from the movie, that's kind
of like Richard Pryor did it, so maybe I could
get in here. And he goes, so what other what

(02:01:45):
charat do you want to play as the Wiz? And
he goes, okay, anything else? I mean, would you do
another part? And I'm like inside, I'm like, shit, yeah, sure,
I just want to be a part of it. So
he said, what about the Lion. I was like, oh fuck,
I said, yeah, yeah, so from the un yeah, you know,

(02:02:05):
you know, but but the Whiz was the stuff, so
long story shark, we do this thing and Kenny all along.
It was like the way he directs us, Now this
is motherfuckers, y'all got one shut shut you fuck this up?
You know. He kept going and kept going, and so

(02:02:26):
I turned my phone off, and I can feel, like,
you know, people online, black folks were like, you know,
they better not fucked us up, and they got real hot.
So I was like, damn, well, let me just do
my litt lunch. So I went to my trailer. They
gave these big ass busses. After it was all done,
it was good. I mean, you guys got the best version. Okay,

(02:02:47):
So I turned my phone on and I was not
expecting the response. I got emails, I got texts, messages, letters,
I mean, from people I hadn't heard from in twenty years.
A lot of them would start, David, is this still
your email? Black women? And they were saying, I'm sitting

(02:03:08):
on my bed with my daughter, I'm watching with my
nieces and nephews. I'm crying, I'm dancing. It was just
such a flood of love because I was like, I'm
sure we're gonna get some bullshit. So no, it was.
The response was so great, was so amazing that that's
what was humbling about it. It was really great. It

(02:03:30):
was such a great experience man, to be involved in that.

Speaker 4 (02:03:33):
I brought it back.

Speaker 3 (02:03:35):
That should always be a part of a black child's life.
You should always know about the way.

Speaker 5 (02:03:39):
It was such a joy to watch that.

Speaker 1 (02:03:41):
I'll tell you real quick.

Speaker 5 (02:03:42):
You don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:03:43):
No, he didn't, man, you counterfit man stops. My daughter's ten.
She was about seven and her mom showed her the
movie first.

Speaker 4 (02:03:54):
Oh, she was scared.

Speaker 1 (02:03:56):
No, when I came, When Lulu came to visit me,
I showed her The Wizard of Oz. So she was
about five then, and she kept looking at it. She
saw like seven times in one weekend because for me,
we only got to see it once a year. So
I had the DVD. I was like, you can watch
this shit all day. So she would get up watching
She's going, Daddy. I think they they took this from

(02:04:18):
Michael Jackson's movie. I said, you think so, yeah, because
you know kids at that age whatever they see first.
When it came to I said, but you know this
is an older movie, and she goes, Michael Jackson did
this movie because it's real similar, don't you think? And
I was like, she was like going, I said, which
one do you like? She goes, I think I like
the Michael Jackson one better. Yea. So it was so

(02:04:41):
it was fun. It was fun. But people didn't know
that we did the Broadway version. We never had the
rights to the film because that was a whole different thing.
That was a whole different money. And it was beautiful. Man,
it was a beautiful experience. It was really fun. I've
never done anything where you do one performance, you know,
we rehearsed for two months. Man, Yeah, man, you did

(02:05:02):
it again. But that lion outfit, the lion outfit, it was,
oh my god, this thing when we started, we did
our text the dancers like there's there's water on the stage,
you know, this at the very end, and this after
what's the Eviline comes in and it's you know, everybody rejoiced.

(02:05:22):
And finally I put my hand up. I said, that's
me sweating, and everybody said, oh, David, he's so crazy
that lion outfit. Because it was TV, it had no ventilation.
So by the time I got to that point, all
the water, my sweat was puddled in my hands, in
my feet, and it just started dripping out and it
would be on the stage and they were slipping, slip. Yeah,

(02:05:45):
it was It was wild. We survived. We survived one wow.
But wait quick, can I give you okay? Now, these
are the greatest concerts I went to. In nineteen seventy two,
I saw the Rolling Stones in Kobo Hall in Detroit.
The opening act was Stevie Wonder Now seventy two. This

(02:06:06):
is intervision. This is when Stevie had changed his background.
Singers were Martha and the Vandellas. Oh wow, so dude,
they rocked the house. The Stones come on, they played,
and then they brought the entire Motown band Stevie Wonder,
Martha and the Vandel's and they all did Uptight. Yeah,

(02:06:27):
they did Uptight and something else. I can't get no
st it was just that was probably probably one of
the greatest conscience. Of course, I saw the Motown Review
as a kid, and back in the day, you go
they had an early show where they'd showed a movie,
then the band would be behind the screen and they
pulled the screen up and then you did a Motown review.

(02:06:49):
So I remember that.

Speaker 5 (02:06:50):
We were they Okay, I'm glad you you. I went
thisess did this because I always wanted to know, because
they would do at the Apollo, like five of those
a day, and people tell me, like, you know, you
go there, what did? They would show a cartoon first,
then a movie, then a comedian.

Speaker 1 (02:07:04):
Then well, as I remember, they showed the movie and
this was early because we were kids and it was wintertime.
So we went and Willie Tyler and Lester were there.

Speaker 5 (02:07:16):
Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (02:07:17):
And then they had what was the name of this
group it was, you know they did it was all
white group and they did Cloud nine, Rare Earth, Rare Earth.
Willie Tyrann and Lester were really big. But you know,
Stevie Wonder played. The Supremes were gone by then, so
this has gotta be sixty six. Okay, sixty probably nineteen

(02:07:41):
sixty six, because after the riot everything was fucked up.
So I'm pretty sure it's probably sixty six.

Speaker 5 (02:07:47):
Were you there in Detroit for those rights?

Speaker 1 (02:07:49):
Of course, as a matter of fact, the movie Detroit
that's five blocks from my house. That's five blocks from
my house, and so to watch that movie and that
Algiers Motel, we used to drive bass there all the time.
That movie. It's just no uh uh uh film. It

(02:08:10):
was so big, it was so much bigger that city
never recovered it never ever. Detroit never came back. It
was so much bigger. It was funny. I talked to
Eric Dyson about Detroit. He loved it. I didn't this because.

Speaker 5 (02:08:28):
Most black people Okay, I worked on the film scoring,
but I most black people I know told me that
it was hard for them to watch it because literally
it was a snuff film. Yeah, and you know it
was in twenty.

Speaker 9 (02:08:45):
Sixteen when we were watching actual stuff film. Yeah, fucking
Twitter and Facebook.

Speaker 1 (02:08:50):
I'm just telling you, man, it was. It was much
bigger than that movie. I mean, you know, the acting
was awesome.

Speaker 5 (02:08:58):
I like she just wanted to tell one story, and
you know the story of the dramatics really.

Speaker 1 (02:09:05):
Just yeah, yeah, I understand. There's a website that I
found that someone put up, and this person researched as
much as they could each fatality that happened during the riot,
and so they try to do a background of the
person and how they actually were killed. It's really creepy

(02:09:28):
and spooky and weird. There is a film there. It's
just also that's like the movie Ali, you know, living
through Ali, the real person as a kid, to see
it fictionalized. I was too close to that material. So
that's what I'm saying. Be born and raised in Detroit,

(02:09:51):
a few blocks from the im just too close to
get some distance and really talk about it.

Speaker 3 (02:09:58):
But we're just starting to experience that now. And people
said that, but like Biggie Movies and Tupac.

Speaker 1 (02:10:07):
Used to hang out at the at the set when
we did in Living Color, I Wake Up Down was
the living driver. Well, dig So the story was when
I woke up, I see all these policemen. You know,
I've been sleeping in my dressing room, like they got
a fucking corral. These extras, man, they're all over the
place and they were real policemen. So Tupac was there,

(02:10:29):
and the story was he claimed that the limo driver
had a gun. Now, the limo driver called the police.
This is the story I heard, and they claimed Tupac
had the gun. Gun, So they came and they took Tupac.
But the next day they found a gun in the bushes.
Like Tupac wasn't lying. Motherfucker had a gun. That was real.

(02:10:54):
That was regular day. That was a regular day, a
living color man. Tupac was little too. He was a
little guy physically. All that voice, all that shit, man,
it was deep man. Anyways, that's about it. I'll tell
you one last music story. The craziest lineup. I saw Santana,

(02:11:15):
Leonard Skinner, and Bobby Womack. It was all in the
same bill. It was Bobby Womack first and it was
Santana was headlining. Leonard Skinner came on second, and they
gave us the finger and spit at the crowd, you know,
because it was like people wasn't there to see them.
And it was during Caravan Sarai. So this is after
Santana had gotten knowledge, you know, Coltrane and all that stuff.

(02:11:40):
But that, you know as a kid, because that's all
we did is go to concerts. For me, that's I
wasn't into sports. All we did is get high and
go to concerts.

Speaker 5 (02:11:50):
Yes, do you miss that feeling now? Like? What? What?

Speaker 1 (02:11:57):
Well? I miss?

Speaker 5 (02:11:59):
That's still exciting. Maybe basketball is exciting. Like to see yeah,
I mean someone genuine performing their craft.

Speaker 1 (02:12:05):
I would go see Moses Sumny Okay, yeah, he's a cat.
I really like. I like him, but to get me
out the house to see music. It's been a while.
I went to see Charles Lloyd one time with my
girlfriend here in LA and it was back in the
nineties when he did you know, notes from Big sur
and stuff. And he's playing and listen to me, man,

(02:12:30):
it was so deep. It's like he levitated from the stage.
He was hovering in space. He took me there, you know,
and I'm sitting there going, oh my god, this is
killing me. So I get in the car and I'm
driving home and I asked my girlfriend call if I
tell you something. We promised not to laugh. She goes, yeah,
what what's up? Okay. I was listening to Charles Lloyd

(02:12:53):
and all of a sudden, he just was floating in
space right in front of me. It was like we
weren't even in that I think it was the Catalena
barn girl. We weren't even in that space. We were
just in the universe. And she went, yeah, I saw
that too, That's what I'm talking about. Man, take me out.
It was like so amazing, Like, oh my god, yeah,

(02:13:13):
I want to be taken away. Yeah, now it sounds crazy,
I'm not. I'm just do you can somebody in the
next question when you get in the zone, come on,
now you're gonna back me up?

Speaker 5 (02:13:27):
Or no, there's some moment. I mean, you know, it's
it's as far and few between, of course. I mean
there's some rock shows. I mean, like I still when
I see Radiohead, I'm still I still feel that way.
But it's like you really got to widen your palate.
But I mean just for the days were like it's weird,
like watching blow like I have to play with Blao

(02:13:49):
in order to get that joy. So sometimes I have
an out of by experience when he has a good
night and improvising.

Speaker 1 (02:13:55):
It's rare. This was that I feel over ten years ago.
I mean, yeah, I had great experiences. I saw David
Bowie the Ziggy Starters tour. That changed everything. I mean,
I was like sixteen, I've never seen no shit like that.
I was like, damn, you know, what the fuck is this? Prince?

(02:14:16):
I met Prince, but I could it was too much.

Speaker 9 (02:14:20):
We actually in the studio where Prince, oh yeah, I
forgot to note that we are literally and we finally,
ladies and gentlemen, we made it to Studio three.

Speaker 5 (02:14:30):
As many times we tried, This is Studio three where
most of nineteen ninety nine was created. Purple Rain, all
the B sides of Purple Raine, around the World in Today,
and the Parade album and parts of Sign at the time.

Speaker 1 (02:14:44):
All right, I'll tell you a quick Prince story then
I'll shut up. But I went to I performed at
the All Star Game when it was in Minneapolis, and
I performed at the Avenue Avenue Club or the First
Avenue Club, and I took the whole gig because I'm yeah,
because they booked me to do comedy. But the only
reason I went is to meet Prince. So I go
all the way there and they said, well, Princes in here.

(02:15:04):
But his road manager took me to Paisley Park, you know,
And at that time, it's got to be ninety five
or ninety six Paisley Park. That was farmland out there,
like we drove out, but it was all there. You
could have done in living color at Paisley Park. I mean,
they took me all through it, everything, And so he
told me this story. He said, well, Nero on tour.
It was about three three in the morning. He gets

(02:15:27):
a call from Prince and he picks up the phone
and Princess motherfucker is motherfucker's call. I get motherfucker voices
coming from the motherfucking walls. And he's like, Princess three said, motherfucker,
I'm hearing motherfucking voices coming from the motherfucking walls. And
so he goes to Prince's room, knocks on the door
of Prince answers and he has white satin pajamas, perm tight,

(02:15:51):
white satin do rag, full makeup, and white satin high
heeled boots and he says, dude, what's going on? He said, motherfucker,
I told you here, and motherfucking voices coming from the
motherfucking walls. So they come in like Princy tripping, and
they go in there and they hear this voice. So
they called the hotel security. They come in, they do
a whole sweep of the floor, and they find a

(02:16:14):
crawl space behind his bed, and they go into crawl
space and they find this girl in there with a flashlight.
Listen to me with a flashlight and a bible who
has been reading verses? And the dude said as they
took the woman out the police. Prince said at his
coffee table with his legs crossed like this went. I

(02:16:36):
told y'all motherfucker's walls. But y'all motherfuckers didn't believe. I
fell out left. It was just like that.

Speaker 5 (02:16:49):
I was like, wow, thank you, thank.

Speaker 9 (02:16:56):
You, We love we appreciate you so much everything.

Speaker 1 (02:17:00):
Yes, I know Dave Chappelle. He was I think he
was eighteen when he middled for me the first time
I met him in New York. Really kill it, Yeah, Caroline.
People will come in and go great sat Day. Who
is that kid that went on before you? It was amazing.

Speaker 3 (02:17:14):
It's like ghetto's Dave Man, get him to stop by.

Speaker 1 (02:17:19):
He won't sign the release.

Speaker 5 (02:17:24):
One for the records anyway. On behalf of a team
Supreme uh Layah and f Tickeelo and Boston Bill and
I'm paid Bill and Sugar Stef you cool Sugar Steve.

Speaker 10 (02:17:34):
Yeah, man, just after Sugar Network and continuing my work there.

Speaker 5 (02:17:39):
Is sweet see what I did sweet Ghost David very
much for doing our show.

Speaker 1 (02:17:49):
Yeah, man, I love it. I can't wait to see
you hi, because remember we met at the toy party.

Speaker 5 (02:17:56):
Damn Yes, your memories awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:17:59):
Your mom was right there. Yeah, yeah, you gave me,
you gave me. What's up man? Moms was like, I'm
a very big fan. She was eating.

Speaker 5 (02:18:05):
Yeah. He remembers everything. Yo. This ist Love Cours Love
Supreme only on Pandora. We will see you on the
next go round. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (02:18:23):
Couest.

Speaker 2 (02:18:23):
Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode
was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts
from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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