-Our next guest is an Emmy-winning actor
and comedian you know from his work on "Kenan"
and "Saturday Night Live."
He stars in "Bust Down," which is streaming now on Peacock.
Let's take a look.
-I'm going down to that sperm bank
and I'm going go find whose nut it is.
-And I'm going too -- to talk to somebody
because I'm a customer there and I need to figure out
how to check my account balance online.
-Please welcome to the show Chris Redd, everybody!
♪♪ [ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
-Wow! -Welcome to the show!
-Yeah, man, I'm here. What's this -- This is tight.
I'm extra bald today. -Yeah. Really good.
And you just walked down the hall.
How's "SNL" going for you right now?
-Oh, it's so good, man.
Zoe Kravitz is there. -Very excited.
I'm very excited for her to host.
-Oh, she's amazing and she's the best.
And I got a new show coming out,
so this has been the best week of my life.
-You've been very busy. You've got "Kenan,"
where you costar with our friend Kenan Thompson.
-Yeah. -And you got "Bust Down."
Now, for those who don't know,
what does the "Bust Down" refer to?
What does the term mean?
-Well, a bust down in the black culture
has been a lot of things
to a lot of people depending on where you're from.
-Okay. -So, if you're from the South,
bust down, like, could mean like if you got a Rollie
and you want to put some diamonds in it,
you bust down your Rollie. -Okay.
-In Chicago growing up, bust down meant somebody that would
share their body with the community...
-Okay. -...all the time.
-Okay. -In a sexual way.
-Gotcha. [ Laughter ]
Sort of someone who is philanthropic.
-Yes. -Yeah.
-Ambitious, if you will. -Ambitious. Sure.
What was the inspiration for this show?
-Well, I got a -- I had a meeting with a producer,
and he showed me this old TV show that was terrible.
And it was, like, centered around four friends.
And he was like, "Do you have three other friends?"
I'm like, "I do." And so...
[ Laughter ]
I took that terrible pilot back to my friends like,
"Hey, we should remake this."
And they were like, "That's trash.
Why, Chris?" [ Laughter ]
And I was like, "Well, if we just do something together,
I think we can make it happen." And after some convincing,
we just made several different versions of "Bust Down."
That was like five years ago now.
Today would be our little baby gets to walk.
-And so this is four friends --
and a wonderful actor, Sam Jay, as well.
-Yeah. -Who you obviously knew
from "SNL," and other friends that were on the writing staff.
But you're basically four friends sharing a menial job.
And most of it takes place in this break room
where you're just talking about different things.
-Yeah. -And you're being ridiculous
and it's super funny.
Was menial jobs something that was in your past
before you were a comedian? -Yeah, I've been a dream chaser
my whole life, so I just dedicated my whole life
to being broke until I was 30.
-Okay. [ Laughter ]
-So I had a lot of -- I had a lot of jobs.
I worked at McDonald's maybe seven times.
-Okay. -It was my first job,
and I remember I got fired because I was stealing.
But they didn't know it because they couldn't prove it,
so they just put me on the toilets and I fired myself.
-Yeah.
-I was like, "I'm not washing pee.
I'm fired!" Like, that's not how you quit.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-But then my best friend at the time, two years later,
became a manager there, but I had burned so many bridges
with so many jobs I couldn't get hired.
So I would just go there and crack jokes,
and that's kind of when I figured out I was funny
'cause I would crack jokes until they gave me food.
I was like, "Damn, I'm so funny that they giving me food."
[ Laughter ] But really, looking back,
I'm like, "I think they thought I was homeless."
[ Laughter ]
"Let's feed this poor boy."
[ Laughter ]
-Now, you did -- Obviously, you've had a lot of success
doing, you know, rap parodies on "SNL,"
but you actually tried to do rap music professionally.
-100%. I started writing raps
when I was 10 years old, and they were not good.
-Uh-huh.
-My first rap was about killing Barney, and --
[ Laughter ]
'Cause I didn't want to clean up my room, and I wasn't gonna
have nobody telling me when to clean up.
Like, chill.
[ Laughter ]
-I think it's a message 10-year-olds
would have been open to, but their parents
probably wouldn't have bought for them, yeah.
-At all, yeah.
But I remember, like, going through a ton of, like,
different rap names.
At one point, I went with John Dough,
meaning John Dough as in "money."
But it was hard for people to remember who I was.
[ Laughter ]
So it didn't work out that well. -Yeah. Yeah.
It twisted in on itself. -Yeah.
I was like, "I'm John Dough." "Who?"
"John Dough." "Who?"
"John -- Alright, man, it's Chris."
-And you also have a stand-up special coming out
this year, so you really have stayed busy.
And it's called "Why Am I Like This?"
"Why Are You Like That?" What is it called? I'm sorry.
-It's called "Why Am I Like This?"
And I called it that because everyone's been asking me that
for as long as I can remember.
Like, my parents and my pastors and my teachers
and friends, girlfriends.
But I'm on this journey just, like, trying to figure myself
out as far as, like,
my mental health is concerned and all that,
and I'm making jokes.
And I haven't found a funny way to, like, tease my special,
so now it just sounds like I'm doing a TED Talk about
some very emotional things.
But it's -- No, but it's great.
I even touch on being a rapper, because, you know,
I took that so serious.
And I used to be like, "Yo, this is for all the haters.
This is for the haters that never believed in me,
never believed I'd make it in rap."
Y'all were right as hell.
-You're right. That almost never happens.
-Never.
-In rap songs, no one ever gives credit to
the haters for having been right.
-Yeah, man, 'cause some haters are just intuitive.
-Yeah. They're not haters. They're knowers.
-Yeah, they're knowers.
They see a weakness and they're like,
"You're not good at that."
-Yeah. They are constructive criticizers.
-Like, "I was trying to help you, dawg."
-Yeah. "I like good rap. I hated what you were doing."
Yeah.
-And I like improvising a lot,
so I'm going to improvise on the special.
So I've been practicing that.
And one of the things I've been doing --
It started with Black History Month,
but I just kept it going.
I do -- I play a game called
"White person, give me one black fact."
Yeah, see? Yeah.
Just as I said that, I heard, like,
a bunch of buttholes tighten up.
You know what I mean?
Just like a symphony of buttholes.
-If you stood up right now with a microphone
and pretended to go into the audience,
I think they'd go for the door.
-Yeah, they'd be like, "Oh, so -- so -- so -- so --
so the show is over?"
But it's so fun, because people always think too hard
about it when, like, there's no rules besides
give me a black fact.
So they could really just say,
"I'm watching a black dude do comedy right now."
-That's a fact. -Yeah.
But, like, it's so interesting that if you say
"black fact," people just get,
"Oh, I don't know nothing about nothing."
You know?
One dude just yelled, "Rosa Parks!"
Uh-huh.
What else? "Uh, Rosa Parks!"
-That's fantastic.
It must be really fun doing crowd work like that.
You also are an excellent impressionist on "SNL."
-Thank you, man. -And I feel like
it is a gift to comedy, it's a gift to New York City.
We right now have a mayor who loves the job...
-Oh, yeah.
-...likes putting himself out there,
seems to have a good sense of humor about himself.
-100%. -And you got to impersonate
our mayor, Eric Adams, on the show.
-Yeah, man.
It was one of my favorite moments on the show.
-Got a photo of you here. And it's -- I mean, you fit --
You fit the part, man. I'll tell you that much.
-Yeah, we're both equally bald.
And, um, but it was -- it was nice
because he has the energy of a lot of my uncles.
I have a huge family and, like, you know, to talk like this
and do that and be like, "Hey, I'm a fly dude.
I'm a really fly --
I'm-a get this city together, y'all.
You know what I'm sayin'?
Like, you know, I'm from Brooklyn kinda.
Jersey a little bit, too."
[ Laughter ] So, you know, I -- That --
You know, when it comes to, like, political impressions,
there's not a whole lot of options...
-Yeah. -...for a young Black man,
so when that dude strolled up, I was like,
"Yeah, I got him. I got him."
-I like that he's almost saying to all of us,
"I'm going to say three things that make sense
and then a thing that totally doesn't.
-Right. -Every time I talk."
And I think for most New Yorkers,
we're like, "I'll take 75%."
-Oh, you know what I mean?
That last thing you thought you was gonna say?
Hold it. Hold it for the next time.
But, I mean, it's just so funny to me
because he just says whatever's on his mind.
-Yeah. -He's like, "You know,
the city is boring right now.
It's real boring. You know, come on."
You know? I just love that energy.
-Yeah. -I just hope he does well.
-It is really -- It is so much fun
to have a mayor who just thinks
we're all, like, being a little bit lame right now.
-Yeah, but he is the coolest dude in the room.
I mean, the man wears bracelets that I've never seen before.
-Yeah, he also -- I think this is a --
He tweeted after you did -- because I think he is --
Again, this is the kind of mayor you want.
He wants to be impersonated on "SNL."
-Yeah, yeah.
-And he wrote, "Chris Redd is hilarious and looked great,
but it's not true that I haven't been sick in 60 years,"
which was one of the jokes,
"which is why I got vaccinated and boosted."
-Mm-hmm.
-"And all New Yorkers should, as well."
Perfect example of a mayor saying what you want to say,
and then there's one crazy thing at the end.
"P.S. -- reddsaidit" -- your handle --
"P.S. -- reddsaidit, you forgot my earring."
So that -- He was upset that you did not get that on his thing.
-He called that out.
Out of all the things I did, he was like,
"You didn't get my earring!"
And then I googled how many times he's worn an earring,
and most of the times he don't get his earring either.
[ Laughter ] -I think that's like --
I think people say that to him all the time.
They're like, "You forgot your earring."
He's like, "Not just me."
-[ Laughs ] "Not just me. He did, too."
-Hey, thanks for being here. Have a great show this Saturday.
And congratulations on the new show.
-Thank you. -Chris Redd!
"Bust Down" is streaming now on Peacock.
And "SNL" is back this week
with host Zoe Kravitz and musical guest Rosalía.