i grew up in my neighborhood
skateboarding i was the weird kid
and then i wanted to sell drugs people
would fight me
and they would joke with me because they
were like why aren't you being yourself
more than anything it's like that
kendrick lamar lines like you ain't got
a lot of kicking my
like will like you more if you
are that corny dude and you are
solid and authentic in yourself than if
you trying to be another
period i think it's hard for black men
especially talk about depression because
we have so many cool words available to
us to undermine how we really feel you
know
like a couple years ago i was having
some suicidal thoughts and depression
so i checked myself into a psyche on it
and i know you guys are looking at me
like jordan
but you're so handsome and well put
together but you know what they say
black don't crack only psychologically
i got out of the psych unit and a friend
of mine was like are you okay man is
everything all right but i have so many
cool words available to me i was like
yeah
i was just tripping but i wasn't just
tripping i had a severe mental breakdown
if anything i might have been bugging
but i wasn't tripping
rich black poor whatever authenticity i
think is important to black people
because
self-preservation and self-care is very
important
to our identity if we don't have that we
don't have anything
i think for so long when it comes to
authenticity in the black community
authenticity is coded language for have
you suffered enough
in this country being black we really
care about our identity because it's
something that they've been trying to
strip away
for so long there's a huge social and
cultural maze
that black people have had to be in that
are unlike any other ethnic group in the
country
and we're still grappling with that too
a lot of our stuff comes from
what we've been through what we think
about what we've been through how we
feel about what we are
going through and then what are we going
to go through next and how do we change
it
as a black people i think we haven't had
the luxury of being inauthentic
we were naked when we were sold when i
was a kid i just sit in my room and read
encyclopedias which is not a kid you
want to talk to
you know i read a lot of history books
you know just sitting in my room
red light world history american history
southern history because i grew up in
louisiana she wanted to know
and one of the things i read that's
always tripped me out right
is that like after the civil war they
let the slaves go
but the slaves still lived in the south
so you probably ran into your ex-slave
like all the time
which has got to be the most awkward x
run-in in history just like oh my god
there he is don't look don't look don't
look don't look don't look don't look
don't look
hey how are you doing
are you mad
in a weird way uh you know plantation
owners were such
pimps that 300 years later
we're all trying to decide if we're the
real version of the thing they invented
the people that have questioned my
blackness the most have been black
people
and i think we sort of internalize a lot
of the messages we get
i think it was the same thing back then
is where we internalized like this is
what black people do
if you are black you do this and if you
don't do this then you're not black and
why would we support you this was the
worst
when they uh they started targeting dare
commercials specifically at black people
perhaps this predominantly white
audience
also remembers that
they do the same thing with all of our
commercials y'all know it you know
they add hip-hop that's always our
commercial is the same commercial
you all get but then there's a break
dancing
like crack hell no dog not no more
and it's so condescending and it's i
hate it because
here's why because it presumes that all
black people are the same
that we're just this homogeneous group
that's easily enticed by hip-hop and
we're not
we're as diverse and complicated as any
of you look
one of my favorite things to do in the
world absolute favorite things to do in
the world i like to get myself a
medium cup of frozen yogurt right
medium i'm not guilt i'm not greedy a
medium cup of frozen yogurt
and i like to sit at home and i watch
youtube videos
of people getting engaged
thank you that's my
i do it for hours hours of just eating
yogurt and having a nice cry and
enjoying
love having afterwards i'll like look
myself in the mirror
and i'll be like yo son you're a real
ass and that's
that's not in those commercials wipe
your tears dawg we good
we got a big day ahead of us what i find
interesting is i see so many
memes about your black is beautiful or
everybody's black is different or
you know embrace diversity and
all kinds of wonderful but then
when it comes to it
only certain type of black is accepted
some people may consider me not to be
authentic my parents have been married
for 40 years my grandparents are married
for 65.
me and my brother same parents my
brother goes to yale i went to nyu
like i never got raped i never did drug
well weed doesn't really count
but you know like i've never really had
like super hard obstacles of course i
was teased i was overweight as a kid i
was bullied i didn't have a lot of
friends
but does that really compare to someone
else who's like i don't know my parents
and i grew up in a dumpster
like are they more identically black
than i am to me that's what frustrates
me at times because i've been told
that i wasn't the right type of black if
somebody tries to call me
african-american i'll correct them i'll
tell them i'm trinidadian-american
i've had people ask me oh so you have a
problem being black no it's just that my
father is a five foot six indian man
there's no problem
it's just that i came from his nutsack
that that's that's what it is
the neighborhood i grew up in was like
predominantly black
but they hated africans like i wasn't a
kid that just figured out how to be cool
i just i would like study
my peers and i think that's why i became
a comedian i'm rwandan
um i moved here in the late 80s with my
family but
my mom moved here and she was like
already in her late 20s early 30s
you know i mean like she's been through
a lot racism xenophobia she was pregnant
with my siblings when we came but she's
endured all of that which is so much
strength and grace but she raised me
in the west and weekly i'll call her and
i'm like mom i wanna come sandy's
morning and i don't know why
it's gross you know how dare i you know
but
she's so supportive you know she's a
great mom a devoted catholic she's
always like oh no
have you prayed and i'm always like i'm
agnostic so maybe
she hates that joke but you know
who does love it
god and i know that cause i'm not
dead yet i didn't feel with
people no matter the color how i felt
when i was alone
my family pulled together money to send
me to a montessori school for elementary
i went to a catholic junior high in high
school and i went to a
private college so i've been surrounded
by white people my whole life
when i was educated and surrounded by
black people when i went home
or in my neighborhood or wherever so
i've bridged this gap before
ever since i was a kid and my
voice changed i've been told by people
all over the country
people of different ethnicities
backgrounds i've been told by people
that i have an incredibly white voice
that's what they say
and people try to act like they can't
hear but if i called and then showed up
you'd be surprised like
even my laugh was like like every time i
laugh
someone somewhere gets audited yeah
there's this whole thing of you don't
sound
black you sound white white sounding
whatever a lot of those comics get that
was i don't because i'm like i'm from
england this is how
i can talk take it leave it you know
because i'm like we're all black
we're all from the same place we've all
had similar experiences
some of us are gonna sound differently
some of us have gone to different
schools some of us have been brought up
in different places
i don't understand why there's this
whole thing you don't start like us
so you ain't one of us people might
perceive somebody's blackness is not
authentic versus someone else's
but i think that's a mistake and i think
it's a reduction of
what it means to be black and also it
insults the intelligence of black
audiences the idea that you know
blackness is monolithic and looks a
certain way that's not
true but blackness is blackness and i
love that we're in a space where you
have variances
my parents are not very into feminism
they're very christian
very conservative yes black people can
be ignorant too
my dad especially he's like you women
with you're yelling and you're reading
and you're voting
you know and i get it but you know
feminism
it's not an option it's vital if we want
our society to improve in any regard not
just for women
like regardless of gender at all yeah
like i
for real i shouldn't have to look in the
mirror and hate myself because of the
patriarchy and the male gaze
you know like i should be able to look
in the mirror look at myself right in
the eyes and
hate myself because i'm a piece of
and i deserve it you know
it's like one for me what's it mean to
be
real there are people that say oh this
person isn't real because they ain't
from the streets
that's not what that means am i not as
real as some of my friends are in jail
right now
that makes no sense when i was on a
chappelle show i
was one created a sketch called keeping
the real goals wrong i was looking at my
life and the people i knew and every
time
i heard someone say something about
keeping it real
and selling out the definition seller yo
that dude sold out he got married he got
a wife we got kids got a white picket
fence but all to keep it real was
like yo remember ray ray
he kept it real he stabbed his mother he
doing 20 years so if your definition of
keeping it real
is doing something negative something
that leads to violence something that
leads to you being incarcerated
guess what i will not be the mother that
keep it real
i mean it's hard to say like what's real
and what's not real i think it's what
speaks to your truth
great unfortunately the um
the orchestra is already filled up but
they do have seats that are still left
in the dress circle so if you want to um
me to get them theater tickets right now
i'm gonna do it right now what's up dawg
i'm about five minutes away yeah
okay yeah cool no they're all good
singers they all good singing good
nah man i'm about to i'm telling you man
i'm about to cross the street they got
that one dude in it that you love man he
gonna be in it yeah
come on you know i'm almost there all
right right no i'm gonna pick your ass
up at 6 30 then
cool all right yeah yeah yeah yeah the
parking is uh
the pocket's free somebody got that oh
my god christian i almost totally just
got mugged right now
i don't think p and people are less
authentic than chappelle i think they
just had his show
they fit into a mold that you know
whoever was looking for at the time and
they did it really well
and so it created this rivalry that
doesn't really exist i think
key and people are just as authentic as
chappelle is for key and peel when i
first started watching them
i wasn't a fan of what they were doing i
was like oh i don't this this
doesn't these aren't bars to me i feel
like a lot of black people weren't
checking for them because
they looked at their identity as like
well first off they have
they have black also um
it feels like they're making fun of us
you might look at something that they're
doing and go oh man why would you
why would you do that sketch and
you know give this sort of black thing
to
an audience of white people who are
going to watch you and you know
i think like that and i think that's
probably why they got judged well i
think if you go from the superficial
look on the outside
you have both those guys that are both
biracial and then they married white
women
so you lose your card right there i
think
however their work is hilarious
and they do a lot of really black
looking back
at it i see that you have these two guys
who are mixed and they have a different
upbringing so they're like
i'm not just trying to make black people
laugh
and i'm not just trying to make white
people laugh or latino people laugh or
asian people out i'm trying to make
everybody laugh and so
i'm trying to do this through whoever is
the butt of the joke
they can still laugh too they did a
sketch on their show called racist
zombies
[Music]
the zombies were like
and when they came to the black people
they just walk around them
oh um what is that they seriously
wouldn't let her eat us
hey guys isn't this great
these racist zombies are leaving us
alone come on we having a party
[Music]
the beer is here
that was the funniest i ever seen
don't be so caught up in
how authentic is is it a good product
the same way chappelle and neil brennan
came up with what they came up with
is chappelle's any less authentic
because him and neil brennan both
did it together no it's brilliant key
and peeled
from what they did it's brilliant they
ain't stealing from nobody these
are their ideas
giving them boys the credit they deserve
because they came up with these ideas
authentically that's a beautiful thing
about all the uh
the new hats coming out there's
different points of view that a light
wouldn't shine on you know uh early in
the game
so uh yeah comedy black comedy is in his
uh uh
exquisite spot right now i was listening
in an interview with larry wilmore did
and they were talking about how he
initially started out as a stand-up
but he couldn't break in because
everyone
then was kind of like the deaf comedy
jam comic view style
if i try to come out 10 15 years ago
with this same style it would be
incredibly difficult for me
i was standing in front of this
restaurant
and i was waiting for my friend and
that's when i was like excuse me mama
sorry to interrupt you but can i take a
picture of you
it's just like i love your hair and i'll
show my hairdresser like exactly what i
want
my hair to look like which was like
really nice but kind of weird because
she was a white woman
very straight hair i was like oh
are you racist or am i racist
who's racist you know but i took the
picture
you know i tried i really did try uh
but then later when i told my friend
that story she was like no
that's a porn thing that's a known porn
thing they're gonna photoshop your image
into some weird porn i was like wow
how bad is the porn industry doing
you're like really like what porn
entrepreneur is like
get off scout out to queens you find a
tiny black woman
bad posture hair like sideshow bob let's
get on
yuck i just feel like if anyone knows me
they know any realistic depiction of me
and a pornographic film is just like
one second
microphone was a dick did you get that
ac dc
but now i think a lot of the black
comics like hannibal burst have
sort of changed what it means to be a
black comic
i was at a party last summer one of my
friends gave me half a pill of ecstasy i
took it it was smooth
i was enjoying myself i don't know what
it was about this particular batch but
it may be okay with pissing myself like
the whole thing
and i was in line for the bathroom and
all intentions aren't going the right
way
my heart was pure but then all the
liquid fell out of my body the whole
batch fell out of my body
and i think under normal circumstances
if i piss myself i'll just say damn it i
just pissed myself
it's time to get out of here you know
something about the exit you know what i
pissed myself but guess what
i'm about to dance this dry
yeah it's very exciting some of my jokes
have music cues as
i want to do that punch line again dance
that dry
that's very exciting y'all should try
comedy this is one of the benefits of it
dance that no no no no no
[Applause]
i see a woman she looks very confused
about the situation don't worry you're
just watching a man
living out his dream in that chat and
that joke
i don't know where you draw the line of
what's real
and what's not real but i think the only
way you can answer that is
again like i said is speaking your truth
and what's true to you
if you can be authentic that's the thing
that keeps you alive
and it shows that you have a soul it
shows you have a spirit it shows that
you are connected
and that people will break bread with
them
people won't break bread with you if
they don't think you're authentic if
they think you're trying to be another
person
i think when it comes to comedy there's
a standard that black people hold
to each other that's not realistic
because at the end of the day it's like
are you funny do you make me laugh
are you funny if you're authentic people
will take
notice whether they like you or they
hate you that's who you are and people
have to respect that
i'm gonna tell you guys something
because we're family okay
tell you something i'll tell a lot of
people
i don't i even feel black some days
i feel like an alien that snatched a
black by and didn't do any research at
all didn't do anything
didn't read a book didn't watch a movie
don't know what boys in the hood is but
loves trains
like i don't
i don't know if i haven't had enough
dates for a grown man or too many dates
for someone who's autistic cause i'm
definitely on the spectrum
i talk about sharks too much on the
front end of the conversation
if you're able to find new perspective
especially now
in the oversaturation that is our media
system then god bless you that's
authentic
you were able to come up with a
perspective that we weren't thinking
that wasn't touched on already
kudos to you we're comedians we test
perspective and we give perspective
[Music]
you