Latest / The Breakfast Club / Best Of Full Interview: Rickey Smiley On Grieving The Loss Of His Son, Comedy's Healing, New Book + More

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Best Of Full Interview: Rickey Smiley On Grieving The Loss Of His Son, Comedy's Healing, New Book + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Breakfast Club Morning, everybody in Steve j Envy, Jesseliri, Charlamagne
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: the Guy. We are the Breakfast Club. Justice on maternity leave.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: So long a Rosa is feeling in and we got
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: a special guest in the building.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: About to mess up. So many people had because they're
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: gonna be in their call. Like am I listening to
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: the right station?
• 0:20
  Speaker 4: You got the brother Ricky Smiley here.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Welcome brother man, Thank you for having me. Man.
• 0:24
  Speaker 5: How you feeling man, I'm feeling good man. It's a
• 0:27
  Speaker 5: dream to be here stopping Broad lay in the bed
• 0:30
  Speaker 5: and I sit here and I just scroll and watch
• 0:32
  Speaker 5: all y'all videos.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: I've been a fan for years.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: I want to say something before we get started with
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: the conversation. I saw Ricky a couple of weeks ago.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: I saw him in New Orleans at the Inspired Noa event,
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: and I went up to him and I said something
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: that I'm gonna say now. I want to I want
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: to publicly apologize. I'm just about to ask to Ricky
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: Smiley because several years ago I gave Ricky Smiley Donkey
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: of Today because of a radio executive asked me to.
• 0:56
  Speaker 6: And you didn't deserve that, brother.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: So I told when I saw you, I told you that,
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: you know, And I wanted to say that again publicly
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: because I feel like if you if you do something
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: to somebody publicly that you don't agree with, you should
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: publicly apologize for it.
• 1:08
  Speaker 6: So I want to. I want to say that to everybody,
• 1:11
  Speaker 6: all our listeners. I want to.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: I want them to hear me say that you didn't
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: deserve that. Now I want to apologize to you.
• 1:15
  Speaker 5: But I appreciate that man the first time when when
• 1:20
  Speaker 5: you walked up on me. Man, your energy, man, the
• 1:23
  Speaker 5: love and the respect it takes a you know, a
• 1:26
  Speaker 5: big person. I know that it was all part of
• 1:28
  Speaker 5: the game because we have a mutual Uh. One of
• 1:31
  Speaker 5: your employees is one of my mentees, big Man Mac.
• 1:35
  Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, Max as an intern.
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: Oh yeahs as an intern. And yeah, got to he is.
• 1:41
  Speaker 5: Well, I put him on stage. I'm the first one
• 1:42
  Speaker 5: to put him on stage. We'll talk about that, uh,
• 1:45
  Speaker 5: because I put a lot of them on stage. I
• 1:47
  Speaker 5: have a lot of comics their start or whatever. I've
• 1:49
  Speaker 5: been in the game thirty five years. But I really
• 1:52
  Speaker 5: appreciate that, man, and and don't feel no kind of
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: way about it. I didn't take it personally, but you know,
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: it takes a special kind of person to apologize and
• 2:01
  Speaker 5: stuff like that. I thought nothing because if I thought
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: anything bad, I wouldn't even be here.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. But I love you.
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: I appreciate you, man. I think you're doing a factorous job.
• 2:10
  Speaker 5: I met you at the White House. I was excited
• 2:13
  Speaker 5: about that, and I hear you in Florida all the time.
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: We see each other on the road every once in
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: a while.
• 2:20
  Speaker 7: A pleasure me you.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: I was gonna start that, but now we got to
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: go there because I was gonna ask it. One time
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: everybody was stolen shots and I was like, I'm just glad.
• 2:28
  Speaker 6: I don't know everybody it was shot back to.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: From the South. We can go outside and just wrestle.
• 2:37
  Speaker 7: At this big age.
• 2:40
  Speaker 6: Might have called wrest somebody might.
• 2:42
  Speaker 7: Not get up.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I might pull on something at my age. Yeah
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: I got up there.
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: He might have called you short ball headed.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: So many mutual people, you know what I'm saying, whether
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: mister Harvey, whether it's a little du ball's back.
• 2:55
  Speaker 6: So it's just like what we're doing.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're getting older. We don't have time.
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Well, you got a new book out right now. Side
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: show Sideshow talk about? What's what's what? Side show about?
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: You know the song that your parents, uh everybody parents,
• 3:10
  Speaker 5: Let the side show begin.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Harry Herds about a sad clown. Right.
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: My job as a professional comedians to go on stage
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: and make people laugh. And I lost my son about
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: a year and a half ago, and it's been hard
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: because the bills don't stop coming.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: I'm still a performer.
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: I still have to go on stage, and I had
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: to dig deep and get in some real deep therapy
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: to get myself together so I can continue as a performer.
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: Because if I worked at you know, Amazon, lifting boxes
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: or delivering packages, that's one thing. But when your job
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: is to make people laugh, when you're crying on the
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: inside with the trauma that I experienced, uh, that's what
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: the song sideshow talk about.
• 3:58
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: See the man with the broken heart. You can see
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: that he is sad. It hurts so bad. See the
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: girl who collect broken hearts? Assuming it it's all about
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: a clown in a circus, performing but dealing with stuff
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: on the inside.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: I've watched you grieve out loud online and The only
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: reason I don't like that have nothing to do with
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: how you feel. Yeah, I know how people react. Yeah,
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: And when you're already dealing with something, when you're already
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: dealing with truma, and then you give it to people.
• 4:26
  Speaker 6: Online, then they come at you. How did that? How
• 4:29
  Speaker 6: do you deal with that?
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Oh? No, it didn't bother me, Charlemagne.
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: My job was I had to help other people because
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: the reason I was opening with it is a lot
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: of mothers out there that lost their eighteen year old,
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: seventeen year old, sixteen year old, fifteen.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: My son was thirty two.
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: When we were in New Orleans. Your books, your book
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: signing was right after mine, and I had a couple
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: that had lost their two year old, right, And these
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: are that's some of the things that I talk about
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: in the book.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: It gave me it.
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: It gives you glimmers of hope and the glimmers of
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: inspiration even during traumatic times.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 5:06
  Speaker 5: So my son was thirty two, but this couple sitting
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: out here crying at my book sign and their son
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: was only two.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Wow. And I could have lost my son at two.
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: But God allowed me to have, you know, thirty years,
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: thirty two years. So you get a little gratitude from that.
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: And it's crazy that you can get gratitude from something
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: like that, you know, and you start looking at it's
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: a helpful to The book is a helpful too for
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: people that's going through the grief process because it's a
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: lot of people out there and my book sign has
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: been packed with people that have lost their kids.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: How do you still believe?
• 5:39
  Speaker 6: New Orleans?
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how do you still believe? Right?
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: You talk about losing your father at the age of six, right,
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: and then you lose your son. How do you just
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: not say, you know what, there is no higher power?
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: How do you still remain focused and still have believe
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: and still have hope and still have all of that
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: with going through the pain that you've gone.
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: You know, I grew up in Birmingham, Man, so you know,
• 5:57
  Speaker 5: I got that old Southern Christian background. I went to
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: Sunday school every Sunday.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: So I just have some.
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: Strong beliefs in a close relationship with God. Because it
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: was nothing and nobody to land on. I was in
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: an apartment in Dallas, Texas by myself, you know, when
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: I found out that my son passed, and I had
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: an hour and I had an hour to make it
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: to the airport, and I'm packing a bag and on
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: the phone with my other kids letting them know what happened,
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: and trying to get myself together and preparing myself to
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: lead because my family needed me.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: You know, it didn't really hit me until a year later, right,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: But at.
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: That time, my son has a mother and a wonderful stepfather,
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: so I.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Had to protect them.
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: I had to protect my mother, who was really close
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: to my son because.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: My mother, you know, recovering.
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: Adding my mother had thirty five years clean. Had to
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: protect her because they had a real special relationship because
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: she could identify with his struggle. I had to protect
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: my other kids. I had two kids in college getting
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: ready to graduate college, and my daughter that got shot,
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: she was a senior in college getting.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Ready to graduate Bailor.
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: And then I had my son graduate in Alabama State
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: and then my oldest daughter. So just trying to get
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: them and then come say, hey, here's what happened. Brandon
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: didn't make it. I need you to meet me at
• 7:23
  Speaker 5: the house immediately, just real calm. I need you to
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: text me, let me know that you're on your way,
• 7:28
  Speaker 5: text me when you let me know. Just all of
• 7:31
  Speaker 5: that I had to be come, I had to be cool.
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: I had to get in the car with my uncle's
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: who was crying. I had to turn the radio own
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: R and B station. I had to turn on Frankie
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: Beverley and Maids to go from the airport the house.
• 7:41
  Speaker 5: I'm comforting them because it reminded them of my dad's death, right,
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: And so I'm just a child man that sat on
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: the front road and watch my grandparents go through what
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: they went through, and through my grandfather. I learned how
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: to handle this situation because that's how my grandfather handled
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: it as well.
• 7:59
  Speaker 8: Did you ever, because losing somebody, especially someone so closeer son,
• 8:03
  Speaker 8: can it changes you? Did you ever at first when
• 8:06
  Speaker 8: you were trying to get to that like, I mean,
• 8:08
  Speaker 8: I guess I get through it.
• 8:09
  Speaker 7: I don't know if you ever get through it?
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Fit?
• 8:10
  Speaker 7: Were you?
• 8:11
  Speaker 8: Were you afraid that when you got back on stage
• 8:13
  Speaker 8: that first time that like you just it wouldn't be
• 8:15
  Speaker 8: the same, Like your ability to kind of push through
• 8:18
  Speaker 8: and make people laugh wouldn't.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Be the same.
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: You know, Charlemagne one thing about funny, It don't change
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: you when you want.
• 8:25
  Speaker 6: Something to laugh at, especially in the trauma.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when your ass hit that stage. Man. Them jokes,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: come them jokes, like when you get somebody on the
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: front row laughing. I cried all the way up.
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: My first show was in Cleveland at the Horrors Casino,
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: and I cried from the hotel all the way to
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: the venue, all the way backstage, blew my nose did
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: like that, made sure my nose was clean, and walked
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: on stage and got them jokes and cried after I
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: got off stage. And you know I was coming, but
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: I've been in therapy. I was getting therapy twice a week,
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: so I was prepared to go.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: On stage again. My son died on a.
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: That Wednesday, I was back on the radio, and they said,
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: take as much time as you need.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Well, either you lay in the bed and think.
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: About all of that, or you get your ass up
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: and go do your morning show and go do your
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: radio show.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Because all the mothers in.
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: Chicago and in Columbia, and in Charleston and in Atlanta,
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: all over the country, their kids died too much.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: As given much as required, you can't cancel the show.
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: God put you in this position and put you in
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: a leadership position, and you have to leave. And I
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: still went to the Salvation Army like I do on
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: a regular basis. I fed the homeless with my son
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: clothes in the car to go to the funeral home.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: That was a dark Wednesday. I'll never forget it.
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: You have to do it everything, all of this stuff,
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: and I don't want you to ever forget this.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: All of this stuff in me is a test. It's
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: a test. Our pastor has been teaching us that for years.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: It's a test.
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: God is watching you through your struggles, through your trials
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: and tribulation, and looking at you seeing how you're going
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: to handle this. Are you gonna make it about you?
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: Are you going to use this situation to help other people?
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: But I was still smart enough to go ahead and
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: get the help that I needed in the process because
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: I had to get therapy because it's trump is a
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: bad car accident.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: How do you think you would have been reacting without
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: the Without the therapy.
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: Oh, man, I probably would have been dead. I had
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: my son was you know, my son was a comic,
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: No seaman. My son was a comedian. I'm singing some
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: clips my son, man.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I remember.
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: My son headlined his first gig at the Stardome in Birmingham,
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: and I walked backstage.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: He was by myself. He had on some ship.
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: He had on some some black pants, and I was
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: roasting him because they had on the white shirt and
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: some and some uh suspendens and the black brooks.
• 10:59
  Speaker 9: I was like, he said, oh, you told me to
• 11:08
  Speaker 9: dress now. I said, Okay, you look nice.
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: I said, but I said, I said, yeah, whatever, And
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: he went on stage and performing. I stood backstage and
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: I washed him. Performed and he had a really good set,
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: and he was doing headlining shows. He had just started,
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: you know, clothing shows.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Man. He was funny.
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: He had a kind of like a sense of humor.
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: And uh, he was being mentored by Roy Wood Jr.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: You know their clothes.
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: You know, we all came from Birmingham, same radio station,
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: all this stuff.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: So Roy was giving him some opportunities.
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: And uh, one time now in just the funniest ship.
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: He was on stage performing. So he had stayed at
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: my house, fucking left some clothes on the dryer.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: He took the clothes out of the washing machine, put
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: it in the dryer, and then he took all the
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: clothes and put the ship on top of the dryer.
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: I was mad as hell, you know, because I like
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: you to, you know, foll your stuff up. And then
• 11:56
  Speaker 5: I went to the comedy club. He was performing, he
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: was on stage. I didn't care because I was mad.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: I went into DJ booth and got on the microphone, said,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: you get your ass on stage.
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: You need to come flo these damn closed And we
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: got into a whole argument, and the audio was cracking up,
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: and I was for real and he was laughing and
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: all of sad.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when you get on stage, you come home and
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: get these damn clothes off my drive, slam the microphone
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: and walk out the door.
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: That's some funny stuff that I that I always enjoyed
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: talking about.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: But yeah, how.
• 12:24
  Speaker 6: Has it been like?
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: You know, because when you write these books, you put
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: a lot of you know, you put your most vulnerable,
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: deepest thoughts into these books. Then you got to go
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: out here and do this. Yep, you gotta have these conversations. Yeah,
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: how's that been for you? I've gotten used to it, okay.
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: You know, once you know how it is, Once you
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: do one interview, you do another interview, you keep doing interviews.
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: You just get accustomed to talking about it, and then
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: you developed some really good talking points. That's going to
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: help other people because what people have been telling me
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: is the feedback that I've been getting this Hey bruh,
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: it's been helping me out.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: You know how many people walk.
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: Up to me and said that they lost a loved
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: one and they can't talk about it.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: And just because they hear.
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: You on the radio every morning, now they're coming out
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: to your book sign. I have people walking up crying.
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: Almost ninety percent of the people that come out of
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: by the Book have suffered a loss and can't talk
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: about it and do not go to therapy. So I've
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: been promoting therapy because when you roll your ankle, you
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: don't pull out a Bible, you go to the doctor.
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: The doctors absolutely the muscle. The brain is a muscle
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: just like your ankle. Why is it that we black
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: folks as a stigma.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: That we won't go get help. That don't mean that
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: you're crazy.
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: You have to get somebody and talk to somebody that's
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: going to help you process those feelings and emotion, because
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: you can go into depression start affecting other organs in
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: the bodies.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Some people don't.
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: Make it from their loss they got You know.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: A lot of times people, you know, we've been taught
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: as kids. You keep the home business in the house, right.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: You never really talk about what happens inside your house,
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Like you said, that winds up killing you. Absolutely, Depression,
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: that anxiety, all those facts, all those failings.
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: Every time you cry in do you know that's like
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: popping the cap off of a pressure cooker.
• 14:07
  Speaker 6: You're releasing I cried this morning. Yeah, man, I sat
• 14:11
  Speaker 6: on it.
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: I sat on the side of my hotel bed. I
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: was having some anxiety. I called a good friend of mine.
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: She answered the phone. When I heard her voice, I
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: just started crying.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Bro, I just let it out. I just cried. I
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: just needed to just cry.
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: I felt it building up yesterday and I just started crying.
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: And the changing of the season, you know that that
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: affects you.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: I think they called it seasonal paving depressions.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: I've been dealing with anxiety and depression for my whole life,
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: and I started going to therapy in twenty sixteen.
• 14:40
  Speaker 6: And when I wrote a book about it in twenty eighteen, my.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: Dad read the book and I had a cousin who
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: completed suicide that week, and my dad told me it
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: was the week of Thanksgiving twenty eighteen. A homicocking line,
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: and he told me that between reading my book and
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: my cousin completing suicide, he told me for the first
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: time ever that he was going to therapy two and
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: three times a week. He tried to kill himself thirty
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: plus years ago, and then in South Carolina they put
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: him on ten to twelve different medications for his mental health.
• 15:07
  Speaker 6: And I remember I asked my mom.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: I said, Mom, you know Dad was going through all this,
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: and she said, I thought he was playing crazy to
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: get a check. So that's what they're doing to stof
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: they give you the crazy check. But imagine if he
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: would have had that conversation with me when I was young,
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: that just told me that the way we're discussing it
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: right now, imagine if we heard, you know, older men
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: in all life having that conversation early, we'd have known
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: that the stuff we was going through was normal.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my granddad never talked about it. My dad died.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: My dad was twenty six.
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: My granddaddy didn't talk about it until it was like
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: eighty five because he would be at my house all
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: the time, you know, And I was saying, I said, Granddaddy,
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: what happened?
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: My dad died?
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: Here?
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: In New York.
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: You know, my dad died of a drug overdose here
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: in New York. And my granddaddy was like, he just
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: started telling me. It's like I was there when they
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: bought your dad's body in.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: I stood there like a man.
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: I was standing in the morning when they rolled my
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: sonbody in there like I took that shit like a
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: g I didn't shed a tear. I just made sure
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: everything was done properly, you know, bought the barber in
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: toalked the barber, I want my son mustache and beer done.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: And I stood right there and I took it. But
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: all that.
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: Stuff you cried in the cardles, it hadn't really really
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: hit me. It's coming out in small pieces like this morning.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Maybe this morning was some of it. And I didn't
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: cry at the funeral because.
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: My granddaughter was looking at me the whole time, was
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: like pickaboo because she didn't know what was doing, you know,
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: the whole while you know she looking at me, we
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: playing because you know, and I just had that memory
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: of my grandparents crying.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Ricky, have you dealt with it because it doesn't seem
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: like you fully.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a process. Brou Do you have a.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Think about just giving away just stop it, you know,
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: like I don't want to do this anymore with that
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: ever a mo no.
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: Man, we got to say people, man, my listen, some
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: have to die so others can live, you understand, And
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: you know, no Cross, no crown, bro.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: We have to go through what we have to go through,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: and we have to talk about it.
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: And I'm sure just trying to break the generational curse
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: of number one not talking about it, not going and
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: getting therapy and getting help and to talk about, you know,
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: drug addiction. You know, I had a son and a
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: nephew age thirty.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Two and a niece.
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: I had a niece, a son, a nephew all died
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: at age thirty two within two years of each other.
• 17:38
  Speaker 8: Can you talk a little bit about that, like just
• 17:40
  Speaker 8: in real time when they were here dealing with the
• 17:42
  Speaker 8: addiction and trying to help them through it, and like
• 17:44
  Speaker 8: also wanted them to get better, but addiction, understanding it
• 17:47
  Speaker 8: like it kind of takes over where it's not it's
• 17:49
  Speaker 8: not even just them anymore, Like it's a big beast.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: The only thing I regret I didn't have a good
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: understanding of the illness because I.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Had a niece and her nephew.
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: That was cool and colme and respectful, but it didn't
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: affect my son that way.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: You know, my son.
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: Would go off about stuff, you know, and it damaged
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: our relationship or whatever because I didn't understand, like, Hey,
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: I'm your dad.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: You can't say that to me.
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: You know, I'm driving around looking for you to fight
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: you in the middle of the street. You know, I
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: raised you, I cooked food for you.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. I wash your clothes. You
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: slept in the bed with me when it was thunder light.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Don't say that to me, you know.
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: So I just didn't have a clear understanding of that.
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: But I did everything I could to save to save
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: his life.
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: Did you ever blame yourself at all?
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: No, that's one thing I never felt. I never felt guilt. Now,
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: you know, I felt a lot of stuff, but guilt
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: was not one of them. I did everything I could
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: as a father to save his life, you know, rehab
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: the seventy grand off the back boom, like like, you know,
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: we did that twice, and you know my mom was
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: trying to help him. I just couldn't. I just couldn't
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: get him. I just couldn't get him.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: To get him. Well, would you.
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: Do anything different as a dad during any of those times?
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: And you have six, so I like to that's that's
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: a good question. Uh.
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: I wasn't tough on him. He was the one that
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: I caught him. I was tough on my other kids,
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: like like the other kids. Was like I was just
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: really really really really tough on them, and he was
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: the one that I just kind of caught on and
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: did everything for and took it because that's my first
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: born or whatever. I just wish that I was tougher.
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: I know that sounds strange because it sounds like I
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: should say I should have been easier on him. I
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: was easy on him. I should have been tougher on
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: him like I was the other kids.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: What do we call tougher? Though, because you know, we
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: come from the era. I was getting beat with extension
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: cards and my daddy made me take a bath.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: I gotta go.
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: I don't beat my kids. I don't even touch my
• 19:50
  Speaker 6: kids at all, right, So what do you call tough?
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: I just wouldn't give him. You know, I don't think
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: I popped Brandon. I hit him.
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: I popped him a couple of times when he was
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: about fourteen, made him go stand in the corner and
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: go do that.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Little right there. I would to make sure those legs
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: and those cames, you know what I'm saying. I didn't.
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: By the time I started getting tough on him, it
• 20:19
  Speaker 5: was time for him to go off to college, you know.
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: But the other kids like Malik, went to military school.
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: Then he went to IMG Academy. I would say he
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: had a military mindset. I think this, But I tried
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: to do that for Brandon because I sent him to
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: the National Guard, you know what I'm saying.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: So my son served. He had a flag drake over
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: his because he served our country.
• 20:38
  Speaker 5: But I just think I caught on him a little
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: too much, and he just loved on him.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: And he was the one I loved on, hugged on,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: you know, and just up under me all the time.
• 20:48
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: It's hard when you're a parent now did Like I said,
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: who the air? We grew up and I be talking
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: to my nine year old like she a basketball player, like,
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: but you wouldn't survived in the nineties.
• 21:00
  Speaker 6: My grandma and my mom and daddy were going to
• 21:01
  Speaker 6: be right.
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: But the key is it's good that you talked to
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: her with that coach boys, because we have to give
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: kids more.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Of what we had as opposed to what we didn't have.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, You.
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: Like who you are, You like how you turned out right,
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: get that same thing to your kids and the evol.
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: Version of you.
• 21:19
  Speaker 6: I'm sure in through therapy, I've learned the love of
• 21:22
  Speaker 6: every version of me.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: That's what you got to do in life, you know,
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: like every version of you served the purpose absolutely.
• 21:27
  Speaker 8: In chapter twelve year book, It's Let the Tears Fall,
• 21:30
  Speaker 8: you said that it took you a year for all
• 21:33
  Speaker 8: of this to really like hit you. Yeah, what was
• 21:35
  Speaker 8: that day like when you were like, I'm feeling it
• 21:38
  Speaker 8: like that first time?
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: That one year anniversary. A few days before that one
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: year anniversary, Man, it hit me like he had just
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: died and I was sitting I had just got off
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: the air. I was down in South Florida because I
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: didn't want to be in the house. But that one
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: year anniversary, I just wanted to go get away, and man,
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: it hit me, man, and I was I did some crying,
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: and I I think I think it was a bad
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: mistake for me to be there by myself. But I
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: just kind of sat on the couch and just cried
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: pretty much for a couple of days, like, like really
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: cried because the only difference was I didn't have a
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: casket and some flowers and some condolences, right, I had
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: all of that to keep me distracted doing when it
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: actually happened, I had to protect everybody.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: But that one year came in and uh, it was
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: like it was terrible.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: What about the chapter when addiction chases the bloodline? Was
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: that difficult to write because you know, you got to
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: go through your whole generational lineage with that. Was that
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: a difficult chapter right now?
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: It wouldn't. It was just being being open and honest.
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: My dad struggled, my mom struggled.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: I had wonderful grandparents.
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: My granddad taught to me every day church, Sunday school.
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: You know, hey, here's a trumpet, play that, here's some
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: PMO lesson, let's go do that. Little from little I
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: did trumpet, little football, did it all. My grandparents kept
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: me busy with the disc letting a destruction talk to
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: me every day so I didn't have to. I didn't
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: have those issues. And then he always talked about how
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: my dad died, so don't do this.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: So I just stuck with it, and to this day,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: I don't drink or smoke.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: I always wonder how grief impacts people who lost their
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: parents at a very, very very young age.
• 23:17
  Speaker 6: Does it hit you later in life?
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: You see somebody out with their parents and it hits you, like,
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: what is it?
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: It did when I was when I was a kid.
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: But what hurt me about my dad's death was watching
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: my grandparents cry like that on the front row.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: I'm in therapy for that. That comes up in therapy.
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: That wipes me out. Wow, that wipes me out more
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: than my son's death. Why I'm a grandmama's baby, like
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: you understand you from the South, Like watching my grandparents
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: cry like that on their front row. Man, I can't
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: get over it. Even when my grandparents died, the only
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: thing I could think about their caske was in the
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: same spot my dad's castle. Well, the only thing I
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: could think about was them crying on that front row.
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: April the eleventh, nineteen seventy four. Wow, I will never
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: forget it, man, It just it tears my soul out
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: of my body. I can deal with my son and death,
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: but that's that's what I struggled with more than anything.
• 24:12
  Speaker 6: Wow.
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: And that's why I didn't cry my son, you know,
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: because my granddaughter was watching.
• 24:17
  Speaker 6: Man, I don't even want to traumatize her like that.
• 24:19
  Speaker 6: Like man, dang boy. Yeah, life is a mother.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Living up there talking about it because about star crying.
• 24:28
  Speaker 6: But that's what I understand about that.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: That's why that's why I noticed, like just putting this
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: out there to the world and having to relive all
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: these stories and retell these stories, is it therapeutic or
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: does it feel like you.
• 24:36
  Speaker 6: Open it up?
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Man?
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: This is therapy because if I go and get in
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: that car and start crying, that is helpful. It is
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: helpful to cry. It was helpful for me your CRD
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: this morning. You understand.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: I'm good.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: But I also think what you're doing is helping people
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: that don't know how to deal with it and can't
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: talk about it because now they have a friend in
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: you in this book and they're saying, well, let me
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: see how Ricky dealt with it, let me see what
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: the troubles he's going through is normal. I can feel
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: this way because a lot of times people feel like
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: they're on their own, yeah, and they don't have those feelings.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: So that's that's one amazing thing about this this book.
• 25:07
  Speaker 6: Well, let's talk about something else for a saying.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: You put on a lot of comedians, Ricky, and I
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: think that coming from the South, right, people don't.
• 25:14
  Speaker 6: I don't think people realize.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: How big you are sometimes like this, you know what
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: I'm saying, Like, I don't think they realize how how
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: much money you got number one, but rich you are,
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: and just how big you are. And I think it's
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: it's it's almost a stigma with comedians from the South,
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: like they don't get the respect that they deserve.
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: I think, yeah, I just do it for the love
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: of the art. Charlemagne Envy. I remember cussing d Ray
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: Davis out snatching the drink out of his hand because
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: he was too young to be drinking.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Hey give me that. You know.
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: I had a little comedy club back in Birmingham, the Combersome,
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: So I would I would have, like d Ray Corey
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: holcom Cory Hoakman was like, hey, man, I ain't never
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: been outside of Chicago.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, cool, let's go on the road. You know.
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: I would take those guys on the road. Corey hop them,
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: d Ray Davis, h.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: A lot of them. Man, that Tyler.
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: Some of them have passed away. You know, I would
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: just take him on the road to help him, because
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: that's what Steve did for me. You know, nobody have
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: to don't nobody have to fool you know what I'm saying.
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: Some people can just ignore you. Steve was one of
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: those guys man that was helping and training company.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Then I started November.
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: Thirteenth, nineteen eighty nine. Wow, that's the first time I
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: went on stage. I met Steve before he did show
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: Time to the Apollo and then tell you a story
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: I wrote about it in my first book and just
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: talk about the discipline and the structure of comedy. I
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: was dressed like a like flavor flave because I thought
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: that was the thing I'm doing the show with Steve.
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: And Steve was like, listen, he said, people pay money
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: to see us perform. Your outfit is nice, he said,
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: but tomorrow I want you to come dress better.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: I want you to.
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: Dress he said, I want you to dress nice. So Bruce,
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: as the owner, was standing in the door watching, I
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: was embarrassed. I felt bad. I felt like my career
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: was over. You know, my feelings were hurt. I was like,
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: oh shit, you know, I don't want to blow an
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: opportunity with Steve Harvey man. He said, you can go
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: ahead and introduce me, he said, but tomorrow, let's get
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: it together. Say yes, sir, you know, because you can't
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: say nothing nowadays. You can't correct nowadays.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Because everybody says it. I said, y'all give it up
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: and show your love right now. But Steve Harvey, queen,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: I'll never get a queen.
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: The teap to come home for the love of money
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: off that New Jack City soundtrash and he came up.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about. It was electric and I wanted to
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: stay there and watch man.
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: I ran out that damn comedy club door. I jumped
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: in my nineteen seventy nine Toyota Corolla Force Speed.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: I peeled out of that Company Club driving.
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: I drove all over across town, ran in my apartment,
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: put on a suit I had ma from Jeans West
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: because I used to work at Jeans West, you know.
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: Put my suit on boom time, and I'm running driving back.
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: I made it back to the Company Club just in time.
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: When I walked back in the day, he.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Was like, all right, y'all have been one for god
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Man show. My name is Steve Harvey, pease when I
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: walked back up there and had that suit on. No, nigga,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: not tomorrow tonight. That's what's up right now.
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: What Steve said to you when he saw so, he
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: damped me up and he you know how you do
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: talk about you? Let me up and down, and he said,
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna talk to you after the show. I said, yes, sir, And.
• 28:25
  Speaker 6: Steve's annoying man, Oh my god, don'tkay.
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: Well, nobody you know, after the show he said, follow
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: he said, following this car right here. I followed him
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: back to the hotel room. I sat on the edge
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: of the bed and took a little notepad in the pencil,
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: and he lectured me for about two hours, and me
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: and another comedian sat on the edge of the bed
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: and wrote notes, how to do this? Why not do this?
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: You did this joke wrong? Why are you cussing on stage?
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: Why are you dressed like this? T A T and
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: T is in the audience?
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: You need to do this? Da da da. I took
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: all that stuff. I took it serious because I wanted
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: to be great.
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: I wanted to be at or at at what I did,
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: and I ended up opening up for the Kings of Company.
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: I did some shows where I did a few dates
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: with the Kings of Company. You had to ride with Steve.
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: You don't get your own limousine. You have to ride
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: with him. So you have to be disciplined. Get in
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: the limousine, keep your mouth closed, slide all the way up,
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: put your back to the driver.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Speak when spoken to. Had to share a dressing room
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: to Steve. We frant brothers.
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: But I'm not ever comfortable enough just because you're a
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: que and I'm a cue.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I'm finna come in here like I'm entitled.
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: Be quiet and speak when spoken to. That's disc when
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: I got from my grandparents.
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: Who's the other comedian on the bed with you?
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: I was probably is Sir Walk.
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, a comedian that lives in Birmingham, Sir Walk, and
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: he was mentoring a lot of.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Us, but he was really into teaching.
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: Come on with him sitting down. I mean we're sitting there,
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: he's standing up, walking back and forth, and he's talking
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: to us. And I remember a couple of times I
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: was about to nod because I was so sleepy, because
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: I go to bed really and but that that that
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: was something that was life changing.
• 29:58
  Speaker 6: Well do you still like that. I changed the title
• 29:59
  Speaker 6: Little Book of Steve.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: I was gonna name my book I Don't Give a
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: Fuck and neither should you a self help guide or
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: how not to give a fuck. And we was driving
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: around in a ranch in Georgia and I told him
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: that title. He looked at me and he said, I
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: gave you aenough no player, that ain't it. He said,
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: that's the problem with y'all. Y'all don't give a fuck.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: We needed y'all need to give a fuck. Hed all
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: people need to give a fuck, say anything. Lecture me
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: for about an hour, and I'm like, all right, I
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: got it.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, big brother Mentor.
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: I was supposed to be on his morning show and
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: we had a big argument sitting in this truck, and
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: then Rashaan got on the phone said, no, you need
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: to do your own thing. We're gonna use his nephew Tommy.
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: He said, you go over here. If it don't work out,
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: you can come be on the show with us.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: Aw So hold on, you're supposed to be a co
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: host on Steve Harvey show.
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: So Steve was gonna give me. When Steve left Radio one,
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: they said, who do you think? They said, he said,
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: Ricky Smiley.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: So I went down.
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: There to do the morning show with Steve for two
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: weeks so he can gradually, Hey, turn the show on
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: the mixt Hey, I'm gonna be gone in two weeks,
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: but Ricky Smiley gonna be taken over.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: The chemistry was so good and we were so fun.
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: I was just throwing them all kind of ally oops,
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: making him recycle jokes, and we were just so funny
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: on the air together. We're looking at each other like,
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: hey man, we need to we need to, you know,
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: and me and Steve had it.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: We was like, Okay, we're gonna we're gonna stick together.
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna go to New York with you. And we
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: got in the car. Rashan, our other friend brother who
• 31:24
  Speaker 5: was Steve managed that, you know. Shan said hell no,
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: He said no, you know, I just have this idea.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: That you should go over here.
• 31:32
  Speaker 5: We're gonna bring in you tell me and if it
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: don't work out, you can always come back.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: But let's give this a try. Let's see how you do.
• 31:40
  Speaker 8: Was that tough to hear that because you beculd think
• 31:42
  Speaker 8: about it, like you go to New York with Steve Harvey.
• 31:44
  Speaker 8: It's like you say, what do you think was it
• 31:47
  Speaker 8: hard to accept that?
• 31:48
  Speaker 7: And no you should It.
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: Wasn't because once Steve gave me that look when he
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: did the fun and he just kind of you know
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: that look, you know that look when you give you
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: that that big brother look like, Okay, we're gonna go ahead.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: You're not gonna.
• 32:01
  Speaker 7: Argue with him, right, Who do you do that for that?
• 32:04
  Speaker 8: Because you talk a lot about people that you mentor
• 32:05
  Speaker 8: and you help, but like, who's somebody that you do
• 32:07
  Speaker 8: that for that? Like we might not know about that
• 32:09
  Speaker 8: might have started in your clubs or just unknown, And
• 32:12
  Speaker 8: now it's like taking over comedy wise.
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: Oh man, little duvall with somebody that I that I
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: have a real good relationship with that I was doing
• 32:22
  Speaker 5: some you know, mentorship because remember I was the host
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: of Company View in two thousand US.
• 32:26
  Speaker 6: A lot of people mentor just by being on that show,
• 32:28
  Speaker 6: right right, That's what That's.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: What they told me.
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: So that I'm tripping like like Carlos Miller was like,
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: bru I met you when I was fourteen years old.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: You was in a hotel. I got excited. I'm hearing
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: these stories and stuff.
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: Man, not realizing the impact on company because I'm on
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: bet Monday through Saturday. Like when when Comedy View really
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: blew up, it was in Atlanta. And then I hosted
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: again Charlotamane in two thousand and four, and then the
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: year after two thousand and two thousand and one, I
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: had my own little TV show, The Way We Do
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: It Time, you know, and I was doing all these
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: characters and all these voices and all this kind of stuff,
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: And so when comics needed help and needed mentorship, I
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: would always, you know, hey, dress nice, Hey, stop cursing.
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: Does that curse word make that joke funny? Are you
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: cursing just to be cursing? That's the real thing. I
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: just had that conversation with a coming. I say, hey man,
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: you curse too much. The cursing is not making the
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: joke funnier. But if the curse word is a part
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: of the punchline, then use it, I said. Because it's
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: like I give the onion example, Like, like you eat
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: an onion as nasty, but if you take it and
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: chop it up in sawteed and get some flour on it,
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: and you're still eat.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: An onion, but you can't taste it.
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: It's just an analogy that I use with comics and
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: I make them redo the joke, and they said, damn,
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: you did the same joke and got the same laugh,
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: got a bigger laugh because people.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Are not offended. You know what I'm saying.
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: So you know it's no training and stand up anymore.
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: You know, back then in the eighties, late eighties, nineties,
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: comics wild pu you tell the signe Mark Curry them
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: they would put George Wallace got on my ass so
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: bad one night.
• 34:06
  Speaker 6: Why you was moming?
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: What?
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: No man?
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: I did some jokes behind him after he closed it,
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: after he headlined the show. I didn't know any better.
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: He said, you don't do them, damn jokes tumping me. God, damnit,
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: I make one phone call your career open.
• 34:19
  Speaker 6: Damn motherfucker.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: I said, I'm sorry.
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: He said, yeah, you You said good night, read the
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: announcement and bring your hands back to Maro. I said, yes, sir,
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: and I came on back. He was nice to me
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: the next night, and he won't admit it to this day.
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: I said, Joey, you remember me said I didn't do it,
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: shut up, but it was good.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: I needed that shit.
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: If I got a booge in my nose, tell me
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: don't let me be out here bad.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Pull me to the side and help me.
• 34:47
  Speaker 6: But you can't even do it.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: You feel like you do that nowadays, and somebody will
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: be like, oh man, he threatened me, hurt my feeling.
• 34:54
  Speaker 6: He hate me, so to be offended me.
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: It's like what man, I tell comics man, because that's
• 34:59
  Speaker 5: the only with asked Corey Haakerman asked d Ray Davis.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: I used to get at them all the time about
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: little stuff. Man.
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: I'm like, hey, man, you I think d Ray was
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: nineteen or twenty when I bought him to Birmingham. I said,
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: you can't drink nothing, you can't have that. Give me
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: that fussing at him about little stuff, man, And now
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: he's great and we laugh about it all the time.
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: He's just gonna always be my little brother or whatever.
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: They all come to the house. If you ever come
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: to Birmingham, you know you're welcome. I cooked my ass
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: off or whatever. So I wish you're right, y'all always welcome.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: Now, there was a rumor that in your contract it
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: said that you had to wear a dress.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Oh man, I don't pay that stuff.
• 35:40
  Speaker 6: God damn, honey, you put fly.
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: And so so I then I started doing comedy eighty nine. Man,
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: you think there's a contract somewhere. I'm just I know
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: that that didn't bother me or bothered me.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Was people believed it?
• 36:02
  Speaker 8: Oh yeah they did, because it's always been that thing
• 36:04
  Speaker 8: about the weard of the dress, to not wear the
• 36:05
  Speaker 8: dress to It's comedy.
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: Listen, it's comedy. I grew up watching Flip Wilson. Flip
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: Wilson is the greatest.
• 36:14
  Speaker 6: Of all time.
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: And right when you laughing at Flip Wilson, he turned
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: around to do Geraldine Me and my.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna sit down and watch that with my grandmother.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: My characters came. Man.
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: I was doing prank phone calls on the radio. I
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: was doing Bernie Jenkins. And whoever would have thought a
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: character that you do on the radio calling funeral homes
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: and all this stuff turned into a character and somebody
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: asked you to play the character in a movie or whatever.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: You know, it's funny that all that stuff is tamboo.
• 36:41
  Speaker 6: Now they do that in Philly.
• 36:43
  Speaker 7: Mother knows they do you ever heard it?
• 36:45
  Speaker 8: And they do the calls. I just thought about that
• 36:47
  Speaker 8: when you said that. I don't know they got it
• 36:48
  Speaker 8: from you, but mother knows they call people all the time.
• 36:51
  Speaker 6: But that's the thing radio everybody.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: I started.
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: I listened to the Jerky Boys and then Mercer, but
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: the characters developed.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: I do a redneck character. I do Bubert, I do
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: Bernie Jingins, I do Joe Willie. I have a gospel quartet,
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: Joe Willie and the Duderoma Nairs. You know, I do
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: a little Darren Precious. I do a lot of characters.
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: I'm I'm I'm talented. I played the trump and I
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: play the French one. I played the bass guitar, I
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: played the tube. I'm an organist. I play the beat
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: three hammon at church on Sundays.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. I study music.
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: I'm just multi talented, and you can't make everybody like you.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: I have never did anything, had any beat with any kind.
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: I had one beat with a coming and it was
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: a quir beet for twenty years, and that was Arnier's J.
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: Me and Arnire's j could not freaking stand each other.
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: We had because a show happened, and you know, comments
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: get there early and go on first. You know, Artie said,
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: got that and didn't do the order either. Something happened,
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: but we had beef. Nobody knew about it, right, and
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: I'm sure how God worked.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Nobody knew about it. COVID came. I'm sitting on Delta.
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: I'm in for a lot of the airport, getting ready
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: to fly to Atlanta where I could drive home, you know,
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: And I see a dude getting on a plane with
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: a mask on.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: He got fishing rods Well, who fished? Arn SJ?
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: Lavell Crawford and What's my Man? Shadik Houston. Those are
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: the three comics that really fish. They fish fish, they
• 38:31
  Speaker 5: go fishing. I said, it's RONJ.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: I had spoken to IRONSJ in twenty years.
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: And so I got up and he was sitting right
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: next to me, and he sat right next to me.
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: I didn't say nothing. That's God I saw as I said,
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: I know that's ARNHJ. I hadn't talked to him in
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: twenty years like we had. It wouldn't so ugly be
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: like I'm gonna kill you, just like forget you, forget
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: you or whatever. And you know, I'm a Christian person.
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: I'm all about resolving and loving on people because that's
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: my heart. And I grabbed his arm and he did
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: it like that, and I looked. I grabbed it and.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: He's like like what, And I pulled my mask down. Man.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: He started laughing. He started laughing, So Charlemagne, give me
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: your hand, the other.
• 39:18
  Speaker 5: Hand, the whole, the whole, the whole flight me andre
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: Jay like this because when he started telling me that
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: the twenty years, all the people that passed away, everything
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: that happened to him, we cried the whole flight from
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: full lot of them to Atlanta. I said, now I apologize.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: He said no.
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: He said, my wife been trying to get me to
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: call you for years, been on me about that.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: I said, nah, you don't have to.
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: It was just love because because I had always said,
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: if I see on the show again, I'm just gonna
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: tackle them.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: I can't Cat. I saw Cat one time and he
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: had said some stuff.
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: That's before the internet came out, and said some stuff,
• 40:03
  Speaker 5: some stuff years ago. He was roasting all the comedians
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: that wore a dress, that play a character. You know,
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: he was roasting I was talking about it on the
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: fox Hole one day and I'm driving down Fourteenth.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Street in Atlanta. I saw Cat walking across the street
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: and I had my granddad in the car.
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: Then my Ford f one pity and uh, you know,
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: I'm one of the type of dudes I'm gonna be carrying.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, Cat was up. He was walking the Starbucks.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: I never forget it. He said, come on, have a
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: coup of cough with me, a cup of coffee with me.
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: So I went over there, and before he went the Starbucks,
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: he came around. I said, hey, man, Cat Wave. I said,
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: this is my granddad or whatever. My granddad saw you
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: on TV before. My granddady said yeah.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: And Cat stood in the door had a conversation with
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: my grandfather or whatever. And that was like one of
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: the last times I saw him.
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: And there was no issue because it's all love or whatever,
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: because you know, I don't know why I never did
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: anything to him if I did, you know, I'm always
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: open man enough to apologize.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: He felt like he was clearing the record on because
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: I think he or was it that he was supposed
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: to play a role?
• 41:06
  Speaker 6: You said, well.
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: What I did when I went out there auditioned for
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: that part, And uh, that's what I really auditioned for.
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: I didn't audition for the Santa Claus. If I'm not mistaken.
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: The Santa Claus role was supposed to be for.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: What's his name? He played in the First Friday, the
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: comedian that passed away? Oh man, that was that was
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: that was on drugs and stealing and breaking the people
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: house Johnson. I think A. J. Johnson was supposed to
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: play and this is what what I heard or whatever, and.
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: They put me in that role because at that time
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: I was on B E T and stuff like that.
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: But I did audition for it. That's what I went
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: out there and read for. My manager at the time,
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: came on the air, cleared that up.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: DAVIDY.
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: Talbert came on on Instagram and cleared up the fact
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: that there's no country. He had hired me, uh to
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: play my role in the movie first Sunday before he
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: hired he cleared he cleared that part of.
• 42:03
  Speaker 6: But q Q clasified it too.
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: You said that you did audition for money, Mike, but
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: when they saw how you move, they thought you'd be
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: better for Santa Claus exactly.
• 42:10
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: And I don't have no have no beef. I love everybody.
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: If there is an opportunity to resolve, That's why I'm
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: the rap beef and stuff with the rappers get killed.
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: I don't want comedy to ever come to that. You know,
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: that's not what I do. That's not how I was raised.
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: You know, we're from the South and we just don't.
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: We don't, we don't do that.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: I want to talk about some of the revolutionary stuff
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: I feel like you've done in radio. I feel like
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: this nation, you know what I'm saying, we had never
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: seen that before. And I mean, you know, as a radiohead,
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: to see radio personalities on TV in that era, that
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: felt like watching Howard when Howard did it on E right,
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: So that was that was a revolutionary thing. And also
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: making the move to urban ac Yeah, like knowing when
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: it was.
• 42:54
  Speaker 6: I don't know if you knew it was time or
• 42:56
  Speaker 6: like how that happened.
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: It just happened perfectly. We you know, we was on
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: hip hop stations and it was great. But we was
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: getting older. You know, I'm in I'm almost fifty brat.
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: You know, we all in our forties or whatever. We
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: ain't got no business playing certain stuff because.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: We just gonna You're gonna naturally age. You just can't,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: you just can't can't be on the radio.
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: We don't even know who some of the some of
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: the we didn't know who some of the rappers are
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: that were playing like who is this now? Rat Brat
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: the first female rapper seller for me, and she's like,
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: who you got? You got the backseller song this who
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: We're looking over the top of our glasses.
• 43:34
  Speaker 7: Making funny that I used to watch y'all.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but but we just naturally got older.
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: And then when Tom joined her retired, they just slid
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: us over and and now we were playing R and
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: B songs and now just relaxing in the morning.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: We just we chill.
• 43:50
  Speaker 7: Whose idea was it to throw Porsche or to get
• 43:52
  Speaker 7: Porsch on the show?
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: On this Nation?
• 43:54
  Speaker 7: Yeah? I think that was so good.
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: Well Porsche she would fill in for Porsche. Kane did
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: a great job, and she would fill in for Bratt.
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: And then they said, hey, you want to do this Nation,
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: So anybody came in and filled Then the producing and say, hey,
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: we can get you some makeup right quick.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Can you do dignation?
• 44:13
  Speaker 5: Here's the script and it's nothing, just reading a teleprompt
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: and he talk about what we have already talked about
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: on the radio. Then we were doing Dignation while we
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: was on the air, so doing commercial breaks, we would shoot.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: A scene from this Nation. Wow.
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: Oh, I don't know why I thought that was the
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: show man.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: We was doing. We were shoot when we first started.
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: We was in that damn same room for six hours,
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: were working out, asshole.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: And what did you what did you know you wanted
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: to do radio? Because radio was not a job for everybody, right.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: People say they love radio right then when they got
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: to get there an hour before and two hours after
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: and they can't move it, especially with comedians, because you
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: guys are on the road. You might not be able
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: to go on the road some days. So when did
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: you know that I'm gonna stay with this man?
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: I used to listen to these two white dudes named
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Mark and Brian. You remember Mark and Brian Charlamagne.
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: They big and Mark and Brian. They had this big
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: ass morning show. But they came from Birmingham.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: These first dudes.
• 45:07
  Speaker 5: I used to hear doing characters and they did some
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: prank phone calls to So I used to listen to
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: Mark and Brian in high school. They went to l
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: A and became famous fame, but they came from Birmingham,
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: And uh, I was.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Like, y'all ever listening to white dudes on kicks one
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: on six? You know? That's how I got in the
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: soft rock.
• 45:23
  Speaker 5: That's why I'm sitting up here listening to Fleetwood, Mac
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: and the Eagles and Stilly Dan.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: You know, i'd be on some chill stuff. You have
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: to listen to that stuff, you know. But I was
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: crazy about radio and I wanted to do it. And
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell y'all something I drove.
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: When they put up the New State Hip Hop Stession
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: in Birmingham ninety five seven.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Jam, you know.
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: Dashah, Yeah, THEYSA came from our radio station. Wow, Dasha
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: came from our radio.
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: She used to be she used to be up here.
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: She's on will List now right.
• 45:49
  Speaker 6: No, you talk about another day?
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: Another day?
• 45:52
  Speaker 6: Think about.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she's on with Kelly that TV show whatever.
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: Kelly and he used to be Ryan and Kelly.
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: Right, she's on that. And then Roy Wood Jr. Came
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: from We All come from w b HJ ninety five seven.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Jam.
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: I drove sixty miles every morning just for the opportunity
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: to be on the radio, and I got paid nothing.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: I was hungry and I wanted.
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: Steve used to tell me, Hey, get on the radio.
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: That keep your name out there, They keep your brand
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: out there. So now Charlotte. Man, I do my comedy
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: shows during the week I don't do comedy clubs on weekend,
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: so I do a show. I just go do a
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: seven o'clock show out of emprov. And I do the
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: emprov Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. That's my four shows and get.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: It in like that. I'm in bed at nine o'clock.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Show start at seven.
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: I'm back at the hotel sleep and uh, and I
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: have my weekends off seven.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: No no, you said the show started, comedy show. I
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: want to show start at five.
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: When you said, David, I don't know why I thought
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: of Egypt. But dajuah Wood she is. She used to
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: be Earthquake co host on b LS.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah with the short haircut.
• 46:59
  Speaker 6: Yeah yeah yeah.
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: She DJ on right Kelly and whatever. Kelly's Kelly and Ryan.
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: I think Ryan left to do Wheel of Fortune.
• 47:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, so yeah, man, we we had that was
• 47:11
  Speaker 5: a great station. We won, took down the number one
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: station and uh and just doing good radio morning show
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: boot camp, learning about breaks and timing and all that stuff.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: I take radio serious.
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: Man, show to rep air checks, you know, listening to
• 47:26
  Speaker 5: yourself playing it back like I take it serious.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: And if you're not serious about that's a lost art.
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that is a lost start.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: Doing radio the proper way, absolutely, airy checks, doing when
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: to go into breaks, teasing, looking at clocks, that is
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: a lost start.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you better hit that fifty three better? You know
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: about that fifty three?
• 47:44
  Speaker 6: What do you love more? Standable radio?
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 47:47
  Speaker 5: Oh god, damn, that's a good question. Radio don't give
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: you butterflies. Radio is just sitting in here, like right now,
• 47:56
  Speaker 5: I'm comfortable, it's cool or whatever. Stand up gives you
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: a little bit of anxiety. It because you got to perform.
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: You got to go out there. People paid money to
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: see you perform. But my stand up is being great.
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: I'm I'm probably funnier than not ever being. I got
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: a special coming out. We in negotiation with Kevin Hart
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: right now to release a comedy special.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I haven't done done a comedy.
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: Special in like twelve years. But it's funny as hell.
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: It's probably my David Talbert. He directed it, him and
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: his wife Lynn. They directed it. It looked good.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: It's gonna be funny, it's gonna be all over the place.
• 48:30
  Speaker 7: Recently shot stuff.
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I just recently shot it. Yeah, I paid for it.
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: Myself and I just went on stage and killed the ass.
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: So I'm really excited about that.
• 48:38
  Speaker 7: And what made you? I mean, Kevin Hart's Kevin Hart.
• 48:41
  Speaker 8: But a lot of people go to Netflix too, Like,
• 48:42
  Speaker 8: how did you decide where you were gonna who was
• 48:44
  Speaker 8: gonna house it?
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: Well, we're gonna, We're gonna see we in negotiation now
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: because I just did an interview with Kevin Hart and
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: he asked me about.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: The special, like I just shot one. I said, you
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: want to you want to present it?
• 48:53
  Speaker 7: Okay?
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: So I started started that.
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: Gosh, yeah, yeah, he's a good friend of mine. I
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: absolutely love him. Great dude, A great dude, Kevin Man,
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: Jamie Fox, all of them have been good to me
• 49:05
  Speaker 5: my whole career. I didn't I didn't know Eddie Murphy
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: was a fan. I met Eddie Murphy at his house
• 49:11
  Speaker 5: or whatever, went over there one day. I had a
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: meeting with Tracy Edmonds, I think they were dating at
• 49:16
  Speaker 5: the time, and she said, ed play your prank phone
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: calls the line.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: I like you lying? Are you serious? And I ended
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: up going over there and there's some comments over.
• 49:25
  Speaker 5: There, and we had barbecue, chicken, collar greens, cornbread, macaroni
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: and cheese. It was like we had some real soul.
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: And that was my first time to meeting Eddie Murphy. Man,
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: that was that was a pleasure. So that when you
• 49:37
  Speaker 5: get to do stuff like that. And I'm on tour
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: with Mark Lawrence right now, so that's my big brother.
• 49:41
  Speaker 6: So the funny thing is you talk like you not
• 49:43
  Speaker 6: wanted you not wanted them you in a conversation.
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: I'm just just humble, man. I'm still like I kind
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: of still feel like I'm kind of like just still
• 49:55
  Speaker 5: young and in the game because I feel young and
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: in the game, and I know I'm a little older
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: and stuff up and trying to coach younger comics and
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: I just kind of sit back and not try to
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: do too much.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: But I just try to make sure.
• 50:07
  Speaker 5: When I do do something that is special and that
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: is awesome and that is funny.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: And my karaoke nights uh uh be sold out.
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: My karaoke I see my karaoke nights sell out faster
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: than my comedy shows.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: My co host has down syndrome.
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: What my co host, Big Chris has down syndrome, And
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: he is the funniest damn person.
• 50:27
  Speaker 8: If you look at my huh, you can see you know,
• 50:31
  Speaker 8: I was seeing her trying to laugh.
• 50:33
  Speaker 7: I was gonna like, don't kill me last night.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: All you have to do, all you have to do
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: is look up. I'm looking at Big Chris. And that
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: was it was the he know all the song. He
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: get up there and he's saying you can't get them all. Stay.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: I said, hey, Chris, you're not getting paid. You need
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: to chill. Okay, I have to calm him down. I
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: know how to that.
• 50:57
  Speaker 6: I did come back like, how did that? How did
• 50:59
  Speaker 6: that idea?
• 51:00
  Speaker 7: Smiling Big Chris? You're so messy, Big Chris?
• 51:04
  Speaker 6: Not even what's all he be doing? Man?
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: What you made?
• 51:07
  Speaker 6: Him saying you never didn't cut your grandma?
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: Now I'm going you really really? I can't question go on.
• 51:23
  Speaker 7: I haven't say this is big Chris.
• 51:26
  Speaker 6: Yeah, Big Chris, Chris doing his thing.
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: Man, that's my call, Chris. Though you better pay double.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: He only make down payments.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's funny as hell.
• 51:46
  Speaker 5: So so he like the bring ladies on stage and
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: sit him in the chair and play a R.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: Kelly song and he serenate them like the Capitals.
• 51:53
  Speaker 7: Got down on one stage.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: You just got the ones out there.
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: I got this white the audience out. I take him
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: on the road with me. We do we do them
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: proving for a lot of it.
• 52:04
  Speaker 7: And Daniel Beach selling out has set.
• 52:09
  Speaker 5: He just I bring him on stage in the middle
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: of carry O and I have to keep have to
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: set boundaries for him, and he's going.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: He loved y'all. Oh, he loved y'all. He watch y'all
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: all the time. He always he got his phone.
• 52:20
  Speaker 6: I bought him Chris Man.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he always showing me something that y'all. Hey, he
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: wants to come on.
• 52:29
  Speaker 6: When I come back, I would come on. You come
• 52:32
  Speaker 6: for the special.
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: Bring him up here.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, someone my special come out. I will come
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: up here, promote. I bring big Chris.
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: That'll be my gift to your ass because because see
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: we have the same kind of human because we laugh
• 52:43
  Speaker 5: at the same Chris took me to the cemetery. Have
• 52:48
  Speaker 5: a cousin and died, and this particular cemetery. You go there,
• 52:52
  Speaker 5: you have to follow this red line.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: It's in Birmingham. We followed the red line. He was
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: at the grave.
• 52:57
  Speaker 5: Crying and I looked up at it till it was
• 52:59
  Speaker 5: Paul Bear Brown was a former head coach of Alabama
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: back in the seventy, I said, and I didn't tell
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: him that.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: See, you ain't ship.
• 53:09
  Speaker 8: What you said.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: He took you to the cemetery.
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: Somebody had died and we was at the wrong grade.
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: But I just let him let him. I adn't want
• 53:18
  Speaker 5: to tell him that we was at that Paul Briant Gray,
• 53:21
  Speaker 5: so I had to get him back to the car,
• 53:23
  Speaker 5: took him, we got, got him something to eat, and
• 53:26
  Speaker 5: take him home.
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: Smiling ladies, gentlemen, grief is grief, man, he got it
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: out either.
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: Side.
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: Show is out right now. My god, I appreciate you
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: for joining us. Bro be a stranger man. You could
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: come up any time you would tell radio politics, and
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: we want you to come.
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: Look if y'all ever in Miami. I have a boat.
• 53:49
  Speaker 5: I'm a boat camping. I go to the Bahamas every
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: fucking weekend in the summer. I dare you to take
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: a weekend off.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: And we broadcast on the boat.
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: Then you add anybody, asked Jeff Johnson as David Talbot,
• 54:03
  Speaker 5: we go.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: I tell I drive all the way across the ocean
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: to them and the Bahamas. It's only fifty.
• 54:07
  Speaker 5: Five miles off the coast the fort out of there,
• 54:10
  Speaker 5: and I drive my boat. We go all the way
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: to the Bahamas. I have a house that I rent.
• 54:14
  Speaker 5: You are more than what if you just get the
• 54:15
  Speaker 5: foot out of that, you don't have to worry about ship.
• 54:17
  Speaker 5: I got you be there too.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: You set the boundaries on the boat'll don't.
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: Don't you see what I had them to do on
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: the front of the boat.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: Hold on.
• 54:33
  Speaker 6: I hope you ain't had them like a phantom emblem.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: You're finished, scream bro Let me, let me let me
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: uh no pictures.
• 54:42
  Speaker 7: This is Instagram or TikTok.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: Let me see.
• 54:46
  Speaker 5: I can't hear it. It's just slow because I don't.
• 54:48
  Speaker 5: I couldn't get figure out that wi fi. Here we go,
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: Here we go. You've been a screen when you see
• 54:56
  Speaker 5: christ these Okay, here we go, Here we go. When
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: I tell you you're gonna you're gonna follow down? You
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: see this video? I canna get to it. Where is it?
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: It's gonna be a me on social media?
• 55:08
  Speaker 7: Yeah, because he's been saying, here we go, here we go.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: You ready watching them?
• 55:19
  Speaker 6: Watch you gotta put this in the video. Man, cut
• 55:23
  Speaker 6: it out.
• 55:24
  Speaker 7: Man, I can't laugh that.
• 55:27
  Speaker 6: Cut it out.
• 55:27
  Speaker 7: I cannot last. Is somebody holding him?
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: That is not funny, man, man, it's a little bit
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: you got it like the Fantom even know when to
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: think about the Fanto?
• 55:44
  Speaker 6: What's that called?
• 55:44
  Speaker 8: In you?
• 55:45
  Speaker 6: The phantom one?
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: The Rose Array stuff?
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: And he got a listen front man, man.
• 55:52
  Speaker 6: You stupid man.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: That's not just in the video.
• 55:56
  Speaker 6: Laues and gentlemen.
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: It's Ricky Smiley.
• 55:59
  Speaker 6: Bring Chris and she's looking.
• 56:05
  Speaker 8: You're surprised, right, Oh yeah, Mhan thirty two.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: Yah that one had.
• 56:17
  Speaker 8: Man, I still sitting you're right, Big Chris, Back to
• 56:22
  Speaker 8: Big Chris.
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: I saw some video on somebody was trying to get
• 56:26
  Speaker 5: at you, was trying to get at you.
• 56:28
  Speaker 6: I watched that the baby was the baby? Wasn't it Halloween?
• 56:32
  Speaker 5: No?
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: The baby baby that didn't work out?
• 56:36
  Speaker 7: Work out. They didn't go past an interview. Where was
• 56:39
  Speaker 7: it going?
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: Wow?
• 56:40
  Speaker 5: Not?
• 56:41
  Speaker 7: You sit back down.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Right now.
• 56:48
  Speaker 6: And it's the Breakfast Club.
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: Good morning.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club