- The neighborhood I grew up in was predominantly black
but they hated Africans.
I wasn't a kid that jut figured out how to be cool.
I would study my peers
and I think that's why I became a comedian.
I'm Rwandan.
I moved here in the late 80s with my family,
but my mom moved here and she's was already in her late 20s,
early 30s, you know what I mean?
She's been through a lot, racism, xenophobia.
She was pregnant with my siblings when we came,
but she's endured all that,
with just so much strength and grace.
But she raised me in the west
and weekly I'll call her and I'm like
"Mom, I woke up sad this morning and I didn't know why."
It's gross, how dare I?
But she's so supportive, she's a great mom,
a devoted Catholic.
She's always like "Oh no, have you prayed?"
And I'm always "I'm agnostic, so maybe."
(audience laughing)
She (bleep) hates that joke.
But you know who does love it?
God. (audience laughing)
And I know that 'cause I'm not dead yet. (chuckling)
- 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 Montesorri school for elementary,
I went to a Catholic junior high and 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 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. (audience laughing)
And people try to act like they can't hear it,
but if I called and then showed up you'd be surprised.
(audience laughing)
Even my laugh is like (chuckles).
Every time I laugh, someone somewhere gets audited.
- There's this whole thing of
"you don't sound black, you sound white,"
white sounding, whatever.
A lot of those comics get that
whereas I don't 'cause I'm like "I'm from England.
"This is how we (bleep) talk.
"Take it or leave it."
'Cause 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 sound like us, so you ain't one of us".
- People might perceive somebody's blackness
as 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 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 "Ah, you women with your yelling
"and your reading and your voting," and I get it.
But feminism, it's not an option.
It's vital if we want our society to improve in any regard.
Not just for women,
regardless of gender at all.
Yeah, for real, I shouldn't have to look in the mirror
and hate myself because of the patriarchy and the male gaze.
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 shit
and I deserve it. (audience laughing)
It's like one for me.
- What's it mean to be real?
There are people that'll 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
that are in jail right now?
That makes no (bleep) sense.
- When I was on "The Chappelle Show",
I was the one who created the sketch
called "Keeping It Real Goes 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 of sell out,
"Yo, that dude sold out.
"He got married, got a wife, got kids,
"got a white picket fence."
But all the keep it real shit was like
"Yo, remember Ray Ray?
"He kept it real, he stabbed this mother(bleep),
"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(bleep)
that keep it real.
I mean, it's hard to say what's real and what's not real.
I think it's what speaks to your truth.
(funky guitar music)