I was a soft kid. I was sensitive,
I'd cry easy and I would be scared to fistfight. And my mother used to tell me this thing,
I don't know if you remember, but you said this to me more than once.
You said, "son, sometimes you have to be a lion so you can be the lamb you really are."
This idea that what you do in your lifetime informs the generations that comes after you
is something like keep thinking about.
Something that is so much bigger than just ourselves.
And today I'm standing in front of you guys. I know you're bored.
But I see family of mine in the front row, someone who I've never met.
And I just realized how all of us are connected.
That my great-grandfather built something more substantial than buildings.
He built a community. And he built more importantly than a community, he built a way.
So I'm very grateful. I just
want you guys to remember that right now there's this thing
where ethics aren't what they used to be. This idea that people are trying to replace the
ideas of good and bad with better or worse. And that is incorrect.
You gotta keep your ethics intact because good and bad is a compass that helps you
find the way and a person
that only does what's better or worse is the easiest type of person to control.
They are a mouse and a maze that just finds the cheese.
But the one who knows about good and bad will realise that he's in a maze.
So that being said, I just hope that all of you guys transcend
whatever you see as your obstacles. And that you live outstanding lives.
And that you stay connected to your communities because you have so much power there.
And that you grow your communities, and you diversify your communities.
And that you don't let anybody, anybody tell you you can't or to be afraid,
it's okay to be afraid because you can't be brave or courageous without fear.
The idea of being courageous is that even though you're scared,
you just do the right thing anyway. So in 2004, I walked away from $50 million,
and in November I made a deal for $60 million, so...
I knew the word "griot" when I was a little boy. A griot was a person in Africa who was charged
with keeping the stories of the village. Everyone would tell a griot the stories
and they would remember them all so that they could tell future generations.
When they got old, they tell them to someone else.
And they say in Africa, when a griot dies, it's like a library was burnt down.
And my mother used to tell me before I ever thought about doing comedy.
She said you should be a griot. And she filled me with every story of black life,
she's educated in African American studies, and she would let me understand the context
that I was being raised in. That I'm being raised in a
hostile environment that I have to tame. By the time I was 14 years old, I was in
nightclubs mastering an adult world. It was terrifying. The crack
epidemic was going on, and my mother would hear gunshots
outside and be scared of death. "Maybe it's my son..."
But early in my career, if you remember, Mom, you used to sit in the club with me.
She'd do a full day of work, you'd be back there falling asleep just waiting for me to go on,
she would watch my show every night. Do you know how long that car ride is home?
How many of you have ever heard your mother say, "...jokes were a little too much tonight, son..."
I was a soft kid. I was sensitive,
I'd cry easy and I would be scared to fistfight. And my mother used to tell me this thing,
I don't know if you remember, but you said this to me more than once.
You said, "son, sometimes you have to be a lion so you can be the lamb you really are."
I talked this s**t like a lion.
I'm not afraid of any of you when it comes word to word,
I will gab with the best of them just so I can chill and be me.