- I have fun making everybody squirm.
So I know how to make everybody squirm regardless of race,
or religion, I know how to do it and I do enjoy it a lot.
But I want them to know it's not a cheap shot.
I'm doing it because I'm raising a point.
So I think if you watch me and you understand my material,
you get that I struck a chord to make you uncomfortable
'cause you're gonna remember that being uncomfortable.
You learn a lesson from pain
so I want you to have a little bit of pain
so you can remember it and hopefully whatever I said
at that moment stays with you forever.
- I believe in diversity.
You guys believe in diversity? (audience cheering)
Yeah, me, too, that's why I want my daughter
to be the first Black female mass shooter.
(audience laughing)
My girlfriend is White which means she'll be mixed,
but that's not what they'll say in the paper, yeah.
Mostly Black woman breaks color barrier, dad proud?
I thought you guys believed in diversity.
(smooth instrumental music) (audience laughing)
When I started comedy and I started doing deadpan,
a part of it was to mask my nervousness
because I was still very new.
But also it was in that I was coming up
in a lot of White spaces where I knew
I was saying things that White people weren't gonna like.
I went to a boarding school.
I remember I had this one roommate named Prescott.
Recently I found out he died in a boating incident
which is sad, but I also think if your name is Prescott,
that's how you should die.
White people hear that and they laugh,
but they're just like, oh man, he's really dead.
- I think that's one of the perks
about being from New York City.
A lot of people don't like New Yorkers.
It's not that we're bad people,
it's just we deal with so many weirdos on a daily basis,
it's tough for us to care
about what the rest of the country cares about.
Like, I travel now, I go all over the country.
There's places in this country people
are arguing about gender pronouns, that's ridiculous.
People will argue with you
about how you want to be addressed, that's crazy.
In New York nobody's arguing about that.
You want me to call you they?
I'll call you they. (audience laughing)
There's a crackhead in my neighborhood I gotta call Beyonce.
(audience laughing) (audience applauding)
That's what he go by, he told us.
One day at the bus stop he was like,
"Yo, my name is Beyonce."
And then he started peeing on the bus.
Everybody's like, oh, Beyonce, "Lemonade," we got it.
(audience laughing)
We don't got time to argue with you.
We gotta go to work, this is New York City.
(audience laughing)
I'll call you whatever you want to be called.
- There's some performers who do jokes
that are just like super woke,
but they're not like the funniest jokes
but they're the wokest jokes.
And I think some not Black people are like,
oh, we love this because we're learning something.
Where I'm, on the other hand, I'm like,
oh, I'm trying to go for the funniest things.
There could be some wokeness in the jokes.
- It's a tough time to be a Black woman.
It's an even worse time to be a White guy.
(audience laughing)
No, I mean that. (laughs)
Truly, seriously, to all the White men in the house
I just want to say in solidarity, howdy brothers, okay?
(audience laughing) Howdy.
I see every single one of you, I do, it's tough.
White guys, I feel like you get characterized so much
in the media as being very angry, very irate and violent,
but I feel like the White dudes that I know,
it's like a lot of anxiety, you know?
They're all trying to be just like ally.
I love you, I help you, I hear you.
You know, and it's like (audience laughing)
they're all in this competition
to be the wokest boy, you know?
Which is also the title
of the Timothee Chalamet movie I'm writing.
- When Tracy Morgan had the bit about, I think his son.
If his son turned gay and he might try to stab his son.
I'm paraphrasing, I wasn't at the show.
Somebody writes a blog about that,
they took Tracy out of here.
We don't like him.
Tina Fey has to go defend Tracy Morgan, do all these things
and everyone's just like, no, how can you say that, Tracy?
How can you say that?
Not putting into perspective,
like, okay, where is Tracy from?
Why he might think that way.
It's not about that, how dare you say that.
You can't say that, you know, and everybody hates Tracy.
Then, you know, glad that he's great now,
but has the accident everybody's like, oh my God, Tracy.
It's like, well, where was that humanity
when he was saying these jokes?
If something comes from a good place,
if it's not from a place of hatred
and it's a place from trying to be funny,
then maybe we shouldn't judge people as much.
And I think for Black comedians it's like,
like you say the wrong thing
and get outta here, nigga, you know what I mean?
It's rough, it's rough.
I'm scared doing this, talking to you right now.
- If a White comic goes to a Black club,
he has far more leeway than even sometimes a Black guy
in a White club 'cause everyone is so conscious of like,
oh, we don't want to be, if I'm seen laughing
it looks like I agree with whatever you said
and people can see me
so I gotta carefully take care of my image.
And the fact that Black images have been sort of run
through the mud for the first couple centuries gives us
a way more laid-back approach to our image, you know?
It's like, I'm gonna show up how I'm gonna show up.
And you can like it or you could not.
You expected me to show up
like your idea of a Black guy anyway.
(audience laughing)
- How you guys doing, everybody good?
(audience cheering) Yeah.
I don't know if you can tell by looking me, but I was fired
from being in a gang. (audience laughing)
They kicked me out because I was too positive.
(audience laughing)
They were like, "Why you always smiling, dog?"
I'm like... (audience laughing)
"I mean, none of us are dead or in jail and we're a gang."
(audience laughing)
They also kicked me out because I apologize too much.
(audience laughing)
Our drive-bys sounded like (mimic gunshots and car motor)
sorry! (audience laughing)
Like, that's...
- Whereas I think that White people
have to curate their words and they have to curate
their approaches to things in a very specific way
because people do have these assumptions about them
that don't fly anymore.
And that's a tough spot to be in.
I think it's half political correctness
and I think the other half is guilt.
And I mean, the guilt is like,
I don't know what to do with that.
I mean, it's weird if you're proud
but it's also weird if you're too guilty.
Like yeah, if you're a White person and you're 150,
you probably did something, you know?
You probably did something just terrible, you know?
But if you're 20, you just got here.
I don't know what I expected from you.
- I can say anything I God damn want racially.
And White people have to sit there and take it.
(groans) Oh. (audience laughing)
I am evil, yes.
It's like, come on man. (audience laughing)
We would be on your side, talking to White people,
we would be on your side a lot more
if you would, you know, just not ever talk
about how you feel about anything racial.
We will catch up to you, now serious
'cause Black people on the edge of going,
what the fuck is Obama doing? (audience laughing)
But it's too many White people
outwardly hated him so we can't.
We go, if you shut up I'll be dissing him.
Like, stop having rallies (audience laughing)
and all kinds of stuff.
I'm telling you, I'm this close.
I'm mad at him 'cause I thought
I would have a White slave by now.
(audience laughing)
I thought it was vengeance day.
(audience laughing) (audience applauding)
Gonna have me a White family.
A big ol' fat White girl gonna warm my bed up.
Get upstairs, Susan. (audience laughing)
Warm my bed up, feed my baby with your giant White titties
and I'm gonna go outside and stare your husband in the face
and decide whether I'm gonna sell him or not.
(audience laughing)
That's uncomfortable, ain't it?
That's uncomfortable, I apologize.
(audience laughing)
- Comedy now is a very, very, very sensitive climate now.
Everybody is looking for comedians to be the truth-tellers
but then when comedians tell their truth,
they don't want to listen, they want to judge.
It's becoming so hard to have an authentic voice
in stand-up comedy 'cause everybody is so judgemental.
Everybody is so quick to want to protest.
Everybody's so quick to want to boycott.
I mean, when you go to a comedy show,
you're going to a place where you're paying someone
to hear what their point of view
and what their observations are in life.
You're not going to a comedy show
to hear somebody to think exactly the way you do.
- I'm at the age now where I realize
that I don't have to worry about sex trafficked.
Is that even a thing, right? (audience laughing)
I really don't, but maybe.
My mom's always concerned that somebody's gonna try
to rape and kill me because she thinks I'm a star
(audience laughing) but like, I feel bad
for some of you girls.
Like, if they sex trafficked me, it would just be
to cook for the rest of the victims.
(audience laughing)
My days would be light.
At the end of the day, that's how I do in my life.
You throw things at me and I'm just gonna say
the honest thing that's right here.
And I'm very much in people's face about shit like that.
And I think sometimes people
don't want to be in other people's faces
because you want to have a likability and a charm
that's gonna get extra money in your pocket
and you can go here and go there.
I'm not really worrying about where I can go.
I'm just worried about, when I go there
that people receive what I'm saying.
- I have a joke about Mike Brown
and what happened in Ferguson because my name is Mike Brown.
I was like, I have to write a joke about this
and I wrote a joke and it's a joke that I personally love
and I've done it in front of all types of audiences
and got all types of responses.
But the way that it's written,
you cannot be upset at the joke,
but we can always talk, I always get
into conversations after the joke.
And the great thing about that is that conversation
is always an awakening experience for people.
- There's just certain things I think for both audiences.
The sell is a little bit harder where I'm just like,
I have to really make sure that this writing is tight.
The sell isn't in you want to be my friend, I'm a nice guy.
Yeah, it's me, nigga. (audience laughing)
I don't know if y'all heard, but a KKK leader
was caught with a Black gay prostitute.
Yeah, sounds progressive. (audience laughing)
'Cause he hates Blacks, he hates gays.
When they're together for some reason he's like,
oh, I dabble. (audience laughing)
It's like, two things he hates
became something he loves, you know?
I get it, I hate mayonnaise and tuna fish.
But when they're together, who woulda known?
I'm kinda like a dark, warm blanket, you know?
I might scratch you a little bit.
I'm like, when I'm smiling it's less I'm smiling,
it's more I'm showing my teeth.
More like, oh man, I'm about to smack you with the next one.
(smooth instrumental music)