Of Course.
Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
What up, y'all, it's Layah and this week's QLs classic.
It's a good one. I'm talking about David Alan Grier.
Yo.
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.
You don't want to miss this.
You think you know David Allen Greer, you don't, So listen and find out. This episode was originally released November fourteenth, twenty eighteen.
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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.
In means a lot to me. I worked on my had like three alternates. You've done a lot, mister Christ for Dome.
You know, dint write nothing down.
Okay, you didn't have to do that to me he was.
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?
Damn?
I owe to you, you know.
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.
How long it takes for me to give him on?
Months?
Months to trusted?
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.
We need to love. I think that's what it is.
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.
I was just saying I was saving my prayers something.
Just like that, going.
I'm not gonna say no, no, no, it' still times.
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, 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.
Where your mama fromd Well.
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 make no doubt about it, that can happen you know what they did the history of local Jay's family.
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.
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.
Yeah, but you did it, Yeah, I did. It was there when my grandfather.
Was the last my great great great grandfather was the last slave.
Did you read this book that was recently published? Come on, you looked at me.
Thank you.
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, my grandfather Clotilda. You know that's some evil ship right there, the clitoral bondage over in this blasphemous name.
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.
Basically, it's the same deal. It was technically over, but they snuck this ship in and contraband cargo.
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.
They were the biggest culprits.
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, 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.
I'm not allowed to laugh at the slave.
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 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.
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.
That's what I need. Man. Yeah, I got the thirty dollars.
I was about to.
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.
You know, it's just the beginning.
Did you do anything criminal?
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.
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, I send it off in the mail?
Right, did they sell it?
What they do exactly? Something modify what it's like posting a picture on Instagram. You don't know.
But you're good. You did George with skip seeing so that's right, you say.
Skip is good for now.
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?
And this is where it is where you're getting your reparation.
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.
It's funny as hell, but it's oh sketch oh. In my mind, I was like word.
That was.
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.
He tried to said let's not let's get the show.
Can take musht off gave him that bottle of hooch and said go sit over there, brother, get your life together.
Yeah.
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,
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.
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.
And have you been to Detroit, Yeah, it's all real, Like just man, please, Detroit is so black.
Is on to come up now though it is always.
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, 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.
You never want to go back to Detroit.
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. 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 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 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.
So, yeah, did you always have aspirations to be an actor first or or comedian first?
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, 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.
It was wild. Yeah, it makes sense because now it just hit me that you were actually playing guitar as Calhoun Tubs.
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 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 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?
Sir?
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 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 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.
What were you in school for at the time, Uh, you mean college?
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
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.
By the way.
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.
And just so, who did your mother what does she What were her designs for you?
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.
We should explain what Jack and Jill is people outside the community.
Outside the community to do that, you dominate you.
Jack and Jill is basically a nationwide organization for people who want who want their children to be in like minded, bougie ass situations.
Doctors, lawyers, dennis.
Yes, the middle class, upper black people who want their kids to be around like minded kids and families.
So these chapters are in every different city.
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.
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
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.
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.
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, 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, 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 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 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, you know, New York. So so yeah, he was good.
Did you did you have any interaction with any other notable figures from Detroit and you're growing up like a.
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 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 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 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 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, 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 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.
Yeah, yeah, she was nice to you.
Too soon soon anybody have any Lauren Hill? Because you know she she she clapped back, clap.
Back to me. Was too much, plea copping. It's too much. It was a whole bunch of word salad, a lot of words.
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. 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 you the message failed when you the mojis.
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.
But it was it was like got co writers on that. No, I don't want the sister to come give me.
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.
Answer?
This is medium a blog? Or is it it's a site.
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.
And they want they want you real.
Oh I didn't know that.
A big fan of Lauren Hills.
Yeah, I love breakfast. I'm a punishment actually.
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?
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 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.
Because I mean it's been around for like fifteen years now.
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.
So I think the greatest selfie was Reverend Al selfie.
Had to show you the whole fish. Yeah, like I got to see all this.
He's a man. I just saw him. I was in Brooklyn last Yeah.
Yeah, he was at the Spike Lee has a Michael Jackson party he does every year.
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.
I'm going.
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.
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.
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 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 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.
Now, I got to cut it.
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 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, I would like to talk to him longer, but he didn't. I didn't go home, like I hate you, man.
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. 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.
Oh my god boy, how did you feel? I mean, people are human beings, Coco.
So I got curd of Coco. I guess I kind of got it.
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.
You might get curved.
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.
To put up those boundaries.
Man.
Yeah, dude, like that is longer, but thank you for the short of it.
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.
Established.
I don't want to be stabbed. Nobody wants to get stabs right right. Evant is gonna be my new You can use it because people they won't even know, they won't know.
No good.
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
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 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
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 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 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.
One right, all right, So he would get there.
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 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 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 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, 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 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.
Was not Greg Rico.
But no, it was not gregor Rico because Greg and I.
Gotta look him up. Yeah, I know you're talking about who was.
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.
He wasn't late because I know, like he was the original original Lauren Hill.
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.
You know.
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 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 was like, oh my god, never heard never heard anything.
One we know has a gazillion I went to here.
Yeah, wait he released I went on itune. Yeah, he did a cover covered his own stuff and released that a few years back.
It was weird.
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.
Talked to him.
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. 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 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.
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.
Listen to it. You can hear like like damn. But anyway, I love Slide lovel.
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 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 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.
Wow.
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, to get unnecessarily shot over some So I just want you to know that these things are blank.
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 was one of the was one of the gospel was one of the gospel.
Sayings, Cynthia Rose or the younger one.
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.
Yeah.
But she was one of the gospel singers.
Yeah, either Bellstone or or Roadstone.
Yeah, I forget now it was a million years ago. But yeah, so that was a whole big circle love slide.
So you're you're like when you went to college, you you Yale, right.
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.
So my Angela Bassett maybe, oh.
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, 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.
An amazing voice.
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, all day and night. So yeahs So.
From the time you were at Yale, were you involved in any like what you're doing theater?
Like how did you kind of get you went there?
I went to the acting school.
He was in school.
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, 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
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 antigony as a student and when they could have gave her oscar then, I mean she just ripped it up.
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.
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, 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.
That's it.
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 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.
You know.
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.
What was Charles that's done like back then? My favorite man.
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.
Man.
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. 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.
Before he went to prison or was it it was after?
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 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 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.
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.
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 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 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 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.
You know.
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, 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, 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.
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?
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 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 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, 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. We ran like three weeks. But what year was this, nineteen eighty one? Oh wow?
Yeah?
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, 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.
She's one of the first. Yeah. Yeah.
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. 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 tracksuit that I bought on one hundred and twenty fifth Street. This ship was fly baby. I would that I'd like.
It was.
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, 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.
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 thought that, you know, you were in a like a groundlings or a way I.
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 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 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.
Basically you get three minutes. So I just yelled and scream did some car wheels and Keen was like, okay, will you have energy?
And Keene he was a coming. He would go up then he was. He was working up.
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.
He was just a regular.
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 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 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 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, we're not missing a be said, fore you put your dick in me. You need to put your dick in the second act.
Man, listen to me.
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 a as an?
That guy?
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.
Caesar in the early nine Yeah.
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 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.
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.
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 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 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.
Yeah, so what was that experience? Like?
Man, like working with great Howard Rollins, I mean that was yeah, it was, man.
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.
You know, this.
Is gonna be Black Panther, you know, nineteen eighty one version saw.
It watching but it was just like you're gonna watch this movie.
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? 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.
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.
But yeah, that that was a class. That's one of my favorite.
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?
Oh? I was going to ask, what, uh, what was the first television thing that you did?
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 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. 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.
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 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 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 Perroro remix album, box it okay, everything.
Whatever, How did you So from the time from the Soldier.
Story, I was just laughing at it was fast.
Oh no, from the time of a Soldier story to you know, you're doing the positive how are you supporting yourself?
Were you still just doing theater?
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.
Wow.
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 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.
Man, how did you get how did you get hooked up with Hollywood Shuffle.
How did you get that?
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, 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 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
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
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 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 Keenan was like, look, I know how funny you are.
Wait what did you do? I'm trying to play the news again.
That was basically.
He was the one that was in the Springsteen I.
Was.
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 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 like what. I was like, shit, I gotta get out this deal. He said, man, what the fuck? Why'd you sign the deal?
You know?
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, 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.
Who were you supposed to be?
I forgot, I honestly forget which.
One of those dudes. But yeah, who's the original lineup again?
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.
Yet but were working.
Yeah, maybe maybe it's in there. But yeah, so all that and like, uh yeah it was Wold.
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?
Is that obvious?
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 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, 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.
And Howard tis the third based on.
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 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.
Man, how often did y'all crack up?
Because like some of my funniest times watching even Color was watching y'all about to last suck up.
Dude, that shit was so funny.
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, I was like, oh shit, she was right.
Where did prison tiny come from? I did?
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 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 fun about it.
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?
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.
I want to who watch the audition for the show.
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.
So wait, other people auditioned for this. I felt like you eleven were specifically chosen.
Well, we were, but still there was an audition process. Martin auditioned and.
Everybody from the Comedy Act Theory.
No, not everybody.
Robin Harrison he was on. At one point, I feel like, no, no, no, no, no, no no.
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 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 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, 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 don't know eighty something.
Where did y'all come up with the little Miss Magic?
It was a picture walking in Little Magic. It was at the back of it.
It was given kim right.
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 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.
So all right, so here's something I always wanted to know.
That's what I was what happened to her.
I was trying to get married.
She acted, she was like the first many seasons she was.
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 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 what happened. And it just once Keenan left. He left after the second year.
Yeah, I just felt like he was there longer.
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.
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 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 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 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.
That never happened to me, But well, just in.
General, like once you decide to not be meager, and.
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. 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 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 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 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.
What took long? What took so long to iron it? Well?
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.
Fox and they didn't see this SEO, it's gonna be instant hit.
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 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 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 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 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, 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.
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.
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 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 all worked.
Out after the Living Color? What were your Where did you go from there?
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.
How long did they announce to you that the season five is our last one? Was it just like last ten?
It happened.
Here's the cake.
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, 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 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.
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 wanted to give Jim five million dollars just to do his movie. He used to do this thing called Colon Man.
No.
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 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 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.
You didn't read your own pressions were in Time magazine, I know.
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. 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 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.
It's It's on a bunch of channels.
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.
Man.
I was going to I was gonna ask was was boom I felt like Boomerang was closer than Living Color than that.
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.
So with that the make up for the Robert Townson Joe.
No, but I'm talking about you talk about doing someone a solid.
Ranting himself out there.
And I didn't find out till many years later. I was like what, and he goes, yeah, what.
Was that scene? Do the table scene?
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 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 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 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 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, 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.
So that was rehearsed well, it was like a table read.
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 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.
So that's not standard, right telling.
You know, I've been acting for thirty five years. I've never had a month long rehearsal period before we start filming.
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.
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? 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?
You know?
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.
I just so in contrast with the halle Berry scenes, that was completely like off on book No.
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.
And how did the shooting go on?
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 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.
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 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.
He's here.
It's a spare, even spar saying there. So that's why I spot get your buyer.
Tell us about blank Man.
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.
I want to jump the.
Panthers. You still haven't seen I haven't seen it.
Out of the club until you come.
Wait.
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 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 go see.
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.
Well we try, we try, but no Black Panther was beautiful. Man. I love this ship.
Eventually, yeah, what was that? Like?
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.
You didn't meet her on the they didn't do it. Yeah, I don't think they had anything to No.
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 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, 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, 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 in office.
You know, trust me, he's still president.
Would you ever do it? Or have you done a special?
Yeah? I did one.
I did a stand up special while ago. Would I do another one?
It's a Netflix world, so.
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.
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.
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.
You know.
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 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 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 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 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.
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?
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, 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 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 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
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 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, 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
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. 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, 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.
Come on, and now I can't even yeah, but let.
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.
Day, every day, every day they cock blocked everything he wanted to do, said.
It loud and proud, we ain't supporting ship.
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.
They got the opposite.
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.
Like, were you guys fine with the Carmichael Show just being three seasons?
No, it was such a revolution to me. I thought it was just finding his but no, no, no, no, no.
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 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 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 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.
But were they too afraid to say that, we are afraid of the show, And now.
They yes they were, because they were like, you know.
On surface, they seemed like, hey, we supported, but you could not go.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Quest questions you know, Oh yeah they were they were they were like so wait.
Then the Bill Cosby episode, Oh, because that was.
I mean, not for nothing, that was it was brave.
It was was on NBC.
Yeah, but NBC gave you both. It was perfection to be honest.
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, 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 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 a person who didn't see black panther, go ahead, your card has been biscated.
Revote.
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.
That was just perfect casting, Like I wanted to.
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.
Yeah.
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 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 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.
Oh man.
So I went in there and uh, it was just butter Man.
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.
That was my family too.
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, 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 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.
Yeah, the scene where the episode where he has to confess to the wife that he had a kid.
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, I'm trying to tell you, and his parents, everybody his family would come and hang out and watch.
Yeah.
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 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?
I know.
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.
She has a cure. Tiffany had it has a cure for cancer. I'm not bullshitting you, man, Can you share?
I don't.
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.
Now are you Are you allowed to talk about what your character on Little rail show is going to be?
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.
It is I did see some advertising. Everything was the movie.
It is my show that I'm doing with Vicky Lawrence and Martin Mall and Vicky Lawrence.
From and the last person who else is the fourth.
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.
Advertising.
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.
Accuracy doesn't No, they don't care.
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.
You know.
I didn't even get involved. But no, I saw it was looking.
For like you syd bed and.
No I'm Lawrence because I ain't seen Lauren.
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 of times? No, the Whiz was the one. The Whiz was the one man.
Thank you for saying that. I just wanted to be fair.
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 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 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. 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 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.
But whatever.
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 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 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, 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 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, 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 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 was such a great experience man, to be involved in that.
I brought it back.
That should always be a part of a black child's life. You should always know about the way.
It was such a joy to watch that.
I'll tell you real quick.
You don't know.
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.
Oh, she was scared.
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 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 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
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. 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, 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
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, 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. So I remember that.
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.
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.
Oh wow.
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 sixty six, because after the riot everything was fucked up. So I'm pretty sure it's probably sixty six.
Were you there in Detroit for those rights?
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 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.
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.
Sixteen when we were watching actual stuff film. Yeah, fucking Twitter and Facebook.
I'm just telling you, man, it was. It was much bigger than that movie. I mean, you know, the acting was awesome.
I like she just wanted to tell one story, and you know the story of the dramatics really.
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 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, a few blocks from the im just too close to get some distance and really talk about it.
But we're just starting to experience that now. And people said that, but like Biggie Movies and Tupac.
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, 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. 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, 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. 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.
Yes, do you miss that feeling now? Like? What? What?
Well? I miss?
That's still exciting. Maybe basketball is exciting. Like to see yeah, I mean someone genuine performing their craft.
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, 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 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, 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?
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 in order to get that joy. So sometimes I have an out of by experience when he has a good night and improvising.
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? I met Prince, but I could it was too much.
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.
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.
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. 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 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, 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 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 told y'all motherfucker's walls. But y'all motherfuckers didn't believe. I fell out left. It was just like that.
I was like, wow, thank you, thank.
You, We love we appreciate you so much everything.
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.
It's like ghetto's Dave Man, get him to stop by.
He won't sign the release.
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.
Yeah, man, just after Sugar Network and continuing my work there.
Is sweet see what I did sweet Ghost David very much for doing our show.
Yeah, man, I love it. I can't wait to see you hi, because remember we met at the toy party.
Damn Yes, your memories awesome.
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.
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.
Couest.
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.