What's up, Wanda?
What's up, Mike?
You come in here smelling all good.
Yeah, I stopped at CVS and got me a little cologne.
[laughter]
So, you know, I was just in Chattanooga over the weekend.
Oh, yeah.
And I mentioned The Upshaws, and the crowd went crazy.
- They did? - Yeah.
Oh, man!
I know because--
In Chattanooga?
WANDA SYKES: In Chattanooga. I know.
That's cool.
You got to do your standup.
I was doing standup, yeah.
But the thing is, remember, before, you told me, hey,
you know, I mentioned The Upshaws,
and my crowd goes nuts.
Right.
And then I said, OK, I'll do it.
So the first season, I mentioned it to my crowd.
It was crickets.
MIKE EPPS: [laughs]
Because there was white people.
Because my audience had a lot of white people
in my audience.
So they were like, I'm sorry.
What is this thing?
Yeah, yeah.
But this time, I mentioned it,
and, like, half the audience went nuts.
So we're growing man.
Yeah, it's starting to-- yeah, yeah, yeah.
[cheering]
That's really cool.
Yeah, so why do you think why do you think it's happening?
Why do you think that's happening?
You know what, Wanda?
Sometimes, when you put a little hot sauce
on that fish or that chicken, it gets seas--
you got to put a little season on it.
You know what?
I think me and you coming together,
we both had two different types of audience.
WANDA SYKES: Right.
You know, you do a more classier style of comedy.
[laughter]
You know, I do more of a bar and grill, you know?
But I really think that sometimes when
you come together, and you both have two different audiences,
you know, I'm introduced to your audience,
and you're introduced to my audience.
So everybody's like-- because even for my audience,
they was like, man, I never would have thought to see you
and Wanda together, you know?
WANDA SYKES: Right.
So it's just one of them things.
And it worked like peanut butter and jelly, you know?
Right.
[applause]
So by working together-- you work with myself, Kim Fields--
Kim Fields, the great Kim Fields.
Yes, yes.
Gabrielle Dennis.
Regina Hicks running the show.
Regina Hicks.
So that's a lot of women, right?
That's right.
And I noticed that you touring with Cedric--
Cedric, DL Hughley.
--DC Young Fly, DL Hughley.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's a lot of dudes.
Yeah.
It is. yes.
I'm getting the best of both worlds.
OK.
But when you're out on the road with the brothers,
are you talking shit about us?
[laughter]
Right?
That's what I need to know.
Did somebody tell you that, Wanda, because I--
Earthquake.
Earthquake, yeah.
Well, you know what?
And those guys are friends of yours too.
You know, Earthquake's from DC.
So, you know, I think it's a whole different rhythm.
When I'm with the ladies, I mean, the comedy is like this.
It's popping.
The guys-- we all smoking cigars.
Everybody moving slow, looking around.
So the women-- they got a little bit more
snap to the timing, you know?
OK, all right.
But I love working with you guys.
Working with Kim Fields and working with Wanda,
man, it's--
I can't go wrong. You know what I mean?
I got--
[cheering]
Kim Fields is a legend in the acting world.
We know her from back in the day.
And Wanda-- come on, man.
She's a legend in the comedy game.
I do all right.
Please.
[cheering]
You know you kill the game.
So you were recently in Jackson, Mississippi.
MIKE EPPS: Jackson, Mississippi.
And I thought this was beautiful, man,
because they're still facing that getting
clean water crisis.
And while you were down there, before your show,
you were out in the streets, passing out water
to the residents down there.
MIKE EPPS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[applause]
WANDA SYKES: Yeah.
MIKE EPPS: Yeah, that's pretty cool.
OK, so why is that important for you to get
involved like that?
You know what?
I think that when the world is going through something,
and us as comics, we go to these cities year
after year, making money in these cities.
So I think when some of these cities go in crisis,
man, we'd been to these cities.
Some of these cities feel like they our hometowns--
WANDA SYKES: Absolutely.
--because we've been going to them for so many years.
So Jackson is one of the places that I've
always did comedy at.
And they got beautiful people down there, man.
They resilient.
I said, man, I got a show coming down there.
I know they got the water crisis.
I got to give back some kind of way.
You know, I'm always making money in their town.
So I said, hey, let's buy up a bunch of water.
Shoutout to my man 100 Street Sam.
100 Street Sam Production was the promoters
who thought about doing this.
And they put it together, man.
We started passing out water.
Some of the old women that was coming through there getting
the water, I seen one old lady, she came
through there three times.
She put the mask on.
I said, no, you've been over here.
You came through three times and got some water.
I'm thirsty, baby.
[laughter]
So you got a new show on HGTV where you and your wife
are renovating homes back in your hometown.
It's called-- what's the name of it?
It's called--
Buy the Block, right?
Buy the-- I always get it mixed up.
And it's coming out this summer, right?
Yeah, it's called Blacks Buying the Block Back.
No, it ain't called that.
[laughter]
Wait, wait.
I'm going to get in trouble.
Way to promote.
[laughs]
I got HGT-- - You know what?
When you're out promoting The Upshaws,
I'm going to make you wear the T-shirt just
so you know the name of it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
OK, so it's, I think, Buy the Block Back.
Yeah, Buy the Block Back.
Yeah, and what it was was--
[laughter]
I went back to my hometown.
I've been buying houses in my hometown for about--
Indianapolis.
Yeah, in Indianapolis.
Yeah, shoutout to my hometown, Indianapolis, Indiana.
And I've been buying homes in that city for about 25 years.
WANDA SYKES: Wow.
And when I was young, me and my mom and my brothers
and sisters, we got kicked out of a lot of houses,
just getting evicted and stuff like tearing the houses up.
And I told my mother--
I said, when I get famous, Mama, if I ever get famous,
I'm going to go buy all them houses we got kicked out of.
So I went back and bought all them
houses, and we building them.
WANDA SYKES: Yeah.
Me and my wife.
[applause]
Shoutout to my beautiful wife, Kyra Epps, who's really
in charge of everything.
She got with a builder, and they put
these houses together, man.
I mean, these houses are beautiful.
They used to be $5 when I was a kid, them houses.
If I had thought that, I'd have bought
the whole neighborhood up. WANDA SYKES: Right.
You know?
So we built the houses back up.
And, hopefully, we can make them
affordable for some families and make them
affordable homes.
WANDA SYKES: That's great, Mike.
That's beautiful.
That's beautiful, man.
So I'm trying to stay out of jail.
You know what I mean?
No, I'm just kidding.
[laughs]
Talking about staying out of jail,
you're doing such good work, you know,
especially in your hometown and all.
Have you ever thought about maybe getting into politics,
maybe running for office?
Oh, no, you don't want me in there.
You know what?
If I got into some politics, man,
I would definitely want to be on the end
of helping children.
If I could be a politician and make
the world better for kids, I'd run for politics.
Other than that, I don't want to help no grown folks.
[laughter]
Well, even if you don't want to, you're doing it.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
If you want to run for office,
I got a slogan for you.
What is it?
Mike Epps-- he's got Netflix money,
and he'll gut your kitchen.
[laughs]
Thanks, man. I appreciate it.
That might work. I love you, Wanda.
- I love you so much. - Thank you.
Wanda Sykes, y'all.