Killin It

TONY ROBERTS

• London Brown, Justin Hires, BT Kingsley • Episode 39

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0:00 | 1:17:45

Comedian, Tony Roberts, talks about getting his start on Def Comedy Jam, meeting his comedic idol Sinbad, developing his signature writing style, serving 10 years in the Army, and more. 

Hosted by @RealLondonBrown, @JustinHires, @BTKingsley

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Executive Produced by London Brown, Justin Hires, BT Kingsley

Engineer: Aaron Brungardt 

SPEAKER_01

Sinbad. I watched him do a special Afrozen Bell Bottoms. Yeah. That's hilarious. Dude, I've been breaking ever since. You know, and me and him had never met. I didn't meet him till last year, a year and a half ago, when we did the tribute for him. Right. And he was in a wheelchair and all that at the uh SoFi Stadium joint. Yeah at the theater. I walked in a room and I just wanted to introduce myself. And he had like, it was like five or six comics. We had Chris Tucker, DL, Ducky Fresh was hosting. We had Earthquake. We had all these guys, Dion Cole. He was in the room. I walked in the room with my wife, and he just said, wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's Tony Roberts. I almost cried. And he just stroking everything. That night. You're talking about pissed off. I was third. Every time I go check the lady to do my music, I said, look, so I'm going next. So I want you to say, no, we put you down one. Now I'm fourth. And then now I'm sixth. Now I'm seventh. Right, right. Everybody was going looking at the lineup. Then nobody wants to go behind me. Absolutely not. So then now I'm ninth. Out of ten comics. I was third. I was so pissed, dude. I started to go to him. Yeah. And tell him, come out the wheelchair, show these. You cover them. They didn't save. It didn't help him though. I oblivated that place, too.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

Tell me, man. I got the best show in the world. Man, hey, listen, man. Man, bro. Oh, uh, first of all, man, thank you for watching Killing Day, man. Make sure you tune in. Thank you for subscribing to all the good stuff, man. I am one of the hosts. My name is B.T. Kingsley. London Brown. Justin Hyundai. And today, man, come on.

SPEAKER_02

You see it? You see what we're doing?

SPEAKER_05

I am beyond excited, man. Dude, first and foremost, man, the guy that I have coming on is a friend. Okay, we ain't got nothing to do with comedy. I love this dude. This is uh one of my brothers, but he is by far one of the funniest people to ever walk the face of this earth, past, present, or future. Argue with your mama, not me. Uh Detroit song. Too many specials to name, too many credits to name, one of the best to ever fing do it. Tony Robert. Bring up. I love that guy.

SPEAKER_01

I love it. Oh my goodness, bro, man. Did y'all do y'all sit in order of complexion? And then you got the you know morning too. And this nigga running when you gotta get the kids out of school. Y'all look like y'all sit there in complexion. Yeah, man. Like a lance was here. He'll be right over here. Like over there.

SPEAKER_05

No streetlights. Who was that? Bro, I'm so happy you're here, man. We've been trying to figure it out. We got it done, man.

SPEAKER_01

Man, I'm not gonna miss this. You've I've you've been talking about this for a while. Yeah. You said it the other day. I'm like, oh, I'm here. All right, let's do it. Yeah, yeah. You said when you when you came at the business.

SPEAKER_05

Uh I don't know where you start. Y'all I know y'all like to start journey first, so you tell me how we doing it.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I start with this. I start with this. This ain't one to really start with, but what, you from Detroit? Born and raised. Born and raised. How were you as a kid? Because I feel like you was bad. You know what? But I wasn't bad.

SPEAKER_01

Like, I couldn't be a class clown. My mom was like, my mom was Ike Turner. Oh. Yeah, she'll come. Remember back in the but my my when I was growing up, you can come to the school, punch me in the face, and walk out of there and deal with the blood. You still gotta take that math test with the blood on the paper. So I I was never a class clown. My mother didn't deal with it. So I was, and when I come out of school, I'm off, I'm off the chart, dude. Me and two of my guys, we was bananas. What y'all was doing? Everything, dirt, snapping on people, kicking girls down. We walk behind them and dropkick them and they fall for. But we let we let them get on the grass.

SPEAKER_02

Y'all were gentle grass. I'm a bully, but I'm a gentleman.

SPEAKER_01

You know, we had a couple of girls that turned around to like punching your face. Yeah, kick the wrong one. But we knew the girls. You know, y'all better stop playing. And you do it again. And then you know, we had girls that was men early. It was early, they were girl men.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Balls and balls and man. I grew up hard, man. Yeah, I'll add. Between eight miles and seven miles. Oh, say word. Yeah, man. But the thing about it is, now I go to my neighborhood. I don't get out the car. It's Beirut. It is Afghanistan right now. Yeah. Jesus. Y'all airport nice, though. Yeah, we got the beautiful airport. They're trying to revitalize up there. We got, you know, Delta is one of the hubs. We got one big airport, one of the biggest. It's not big as O'Hara, but it's almost. Yeah. And it's all Delta. Yeah, that's the one with the train in the building. When you go in there and they got restaurant, they got the store. It's a mall. Yeah. And then when you go in there and you go to the lounge, you know, then you go in this room, get a massage, you get your spa treatment. I'm lounge. I'm I'm Delta Southwest. You can get a happy ending at the airport. If you want to, depends on how happy you want it. Just how happy you like it. If you don't miss your flight, you gotta go back in and get a refund. You gotta watch yourself off your mouth. On your back, however, you like it. I'm a bad boy.

SPEAKER_02

So when when did cop when did you start taking comedy seriously? When when you first stepped up.

SPEAKER_01

I did ten years in the army first before they come up. You did army first. And I was silly as hell. You ever see that movie, Sergeant Bilko? Yeah. I was him. I was acting like I was a soldier. But I was so good at it, they kept giving me rank and more money. Before you know it, I was six, seven years in. I had a tank, two trucks, one truck is full of explosives, and 30 people. I'm like, yeah, I am not the man for this. I'm a clown.

SPEAKER_05

They come out juggling the grenades.

SPEAKER_01

But I was everybody loved me in my group because they know we off and then everybody was on watch. Because I lived in the woods. I was in artillery. I shot tanks. Oh wow. So I was in the woods for like two or three weeks at a time. So we we had to set up the big nets and we was living under there, living, sleeping when you can on the ground on the on the tanks. We was hard. And then we always had somebody watching out. Say, brass coming. My captain coming. Yeah, come here and everybody had their books and they had some drills. All right, calibrate that right, soldier. Okay, at ease. How you doing, uh, officer? How you doing, sir? All right, good. Sergeant Roberts, carry on. That's it. He gone, okay, pull the cars back out. We gambling. This nigga got four magazines.

SPEAKER_03

Wait, so what we even how'd you even sign up? What made you go there then?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I had like six jobs. I them all up. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02

Messed them all up. And who told you to go? Did you like one of your parents tell you to go?

SPEAKER_01

No, one of my boys. We went together. Yeah. I couldn't keep a job, man. I couldn't do it.

SPEAKER_02

So how how were you able to like not get in trouble while in the military? Like, was it difficult for you to do? I was too slick.

SPEAKER_01

No, I got in trouble a couple of times, but it wasn't like take my rank or nothing. I was I was too slick. Okay. When I got to Texas, I went to Korea, Germany, Texas, and Fort Cell, Oklahoma. Right. When I was in Texas, when I was in Korea, they made me the captain's driver because I was always sharp. And that was I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know how to drive a stick. And then I was, you know, I'm in the in the jungle in Korea. Grinding the gears, the captain's doing this shit. Like, why'd they pick you? No, why about it? With a concussion.

SPEAKER_03

But y'all be there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And so then when I moved, when I got to Texas, I was, I knew how to be a good cop, a good soldier. I'm just I'm an actor, dude. I took it there. And they pulled me out of the line and said, just gonna be your next driver again. So this time I knew how to knew what I was doing. I knew how to maneuver it. When you get all the pot the all the privileges, when you're a captain driver, a lot of guys think you're an ass boy. Don't mess with Roberts because he's gonna tell on the. I'm the one that's selling you weed. I'm selling weed. I could tell on myself. So I gave one dude two bags of weed to do my laundry. I'm about to go hit the town and I'm going to Austin for a couple of days. I gotta do my laundry. Do my laundry, make my bed, make everything ready for inspection Monday. I got two bags, two big bags just for you. He got caught, told on me. Oh so I think they say you need to go to the office. Uh, not just the office, the regular office. You gotta go to the police station, to the police office. Oh, wow. Um, military police. I said, what's going on? Maybe somebody got hurt and they need to meet. I don't know. Soon I walked in and I seen this thing, crying like on first 48.

SPEAKER_06

I said, cheeseburger. Telling everything.

SPEAKER_01

Told me three to five. And it was my word against his. So they didn't do nothing to me, but I took me off the captain drive because I had to even have that suspicion that you was doing it. I can't have it can't be turned.

SPEAKER_02

Where you was getting weed from to be selling it.

SPEAKER_01

Dude, every city got weed.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Every drug's been around so long. So, okay. I know if you had like a supplier. I'm doing my research. How did Lucas? I'm trying to do that. How the fuck you can get that Lucas? I mean, what is like some Puerto Rican? I don't know where that nigga. Where was he getting his dope from? I haven't sold dope. I'm trying. I'm trying to. You considered it now?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I was bored too, man. I ain't giving a damn.

SPEAKER_05

Am I tripping or weren't you uh also uh like uh a uh you worked in hospitals also. You was like a uh doctor or a nurse also, everybody tripping?

SPEAKER_01

Nursing assistant. Got it. That's one of the last jobs I had before I started comedy. Two of my sisters are nurses. R-Ns. So I needed another job. I had went to this job, that job, that job. Boom. One job I had was Thornapple Valley. I worked at the meat market. So they had me in hams. I had to, it was cold in there. They was throwing, I'm picking up stuff off the floor and everything. This I didn't realize. You picked up all that stuff that's excess in the floor and then running through it, and there's a hot dog. I'm like, oh my God. I still love hot dogs to this day. The shit was on the floor? Everything that they don't use, scraps, is compact into this machine and come out of a perfect hot dog. Yeah, the eyeballs, the balls, the teeth. No, no, no, that shit.

SPEAKER_06

The lips, the teeth, the arm peel, random.

SPEAKER_01

So one of the guys got sick and they said, hey, man, we need you to go in this similar line and take his place for a few days. So they got the pigs. You know, when you slaughter a pig as tall as this wall, they're the biggest pigs you ever seen, right? One guy, one guy got the right down the middle. Boom, all the shit come out of his guts, and everything comes out. My job, me and this guy's job, it's separate everything. The intestines, the heart, the liver, the gut. And and then uh, so 10 minutes in there, I threw up right on the damn pigs, all the shit. I just threw up and said, I can't do this, so I'll quit that. Let that go. So I started, I told my sister, I'm gonna do something, I don't want to do that no more. So a nursing assistant. Yeah. Cleaning them up. I had six, six patients, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Don't you gotta clean ass when you're gonna do that?

SPEAKER_01

I had to wipe their ass, had to clean their, change their diaper. The ladies had to do their hair or something, get them dressed, get them ready for the morning, work the midnight shift and get it ready. Yeah. And I remember one lady, one white lady, because they was all, it was white people too. And you know, they had their little racism, you know. And I was trying to get a sweater on her, she just fighting me, and she slapped me, I slapped her back. It just happened that quick. I was like, fuck. I see myself in prison, so that happened. I see prison, but you slapped the old white lady, you slapped me, I slapped her, and she just I ain't just slapped the shit out of her, but it was bam, bam, bang. She looked at me like this and just let me put the whole thing off. I slapped the sense of this bitch. Pretty much. You slapped the racism out of her out of her. So I think she was humming some Negro spirituals out there. But uh so I told my my sister, I don't want to do this no more. I don't want to, I want to do what they're doing. I want to, you know, do vital signs and you know, meds and all that. Yeah. And uh she said, so they gave me the backdoor exam. You know, she's good hooked me to hook up. Boom, now I'm an R I'm an LPN. Boom, I'm out there, I'm working midnights, we ain't hardly asleep. And me and these two other two girls, we were um passing out the meds right before they go to sleep and give them a little shit. And uh we was sampling the meds when we give it to them, like, hey, go you, Mr. Johnson, one for you and one for me and one for her. So we knew how many We knew how much to take off. We took extra, because we know we up all night. We don't know the business, but we never knew the side effects. That was my neck, because how did you even know what was going on? Either we burn it up, I can't get out of thirst. Or we we horny me and one girl next to a lady in bed, we then kiss in the room.

SPEAKER_06

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Look, are we running up and down the halls? And my sister always knew something. She said, Y'all going to jail. You're going to fucking jail. And uh and then um if if a patient dies on you and that you know for a minute and been wet, they'll give you like three days off. Yeah. And I walked in the room, um, I got this in my documentary. I walked in the room and uh the guy was dead. I was, you know, I shake him up, wake him up, and he was like, he didn't move, he was moving at all. I thought, oh, he did.

SPEAKER_05

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01

So now I gotta, I gotta pull on the the drama, you know, because I cared about him, but it wasn't three days off. I need to go deeper. I need my money. So I went out the door and came back in. Ow!

SPEAKER_06

I'm just talking at you.

SPEAKER_01

So it gave me three days off, and that night in the strip club, that's how I heal. That's how I heal. That's how I heal. That's how I go in my lab, I'm like, yeah, it's it was that it was sad.

SPEAKER_05

So, yeah. Wow. So, uh how wait, so after this, when do you decide to start comedy?

SPEAKER_01

When did No, I didn't I wasn't trying to be a comedian. But I was so good at snapping me and my boys from the nigga. So we was in the open mic night, we just went to drinking, me and my partner, Perry Conway. Um we've been knowing each other since fourth grade. Got it. So he didn't want to talk me into this shit. So we was at an open mic night at uh Mark Ridley's Comedy Castle in Michigan. Uh They said, Who wanna get up? Three minutes, come on, three minutes of fame, man. A couple of coup people was getting up and getting in line. He said, Go on up there and do that. You I said, I ain't getting on stage. You out your damn mind and do what? Go out there and just say something, make them laugh. No, you crazy. Me, hair broke, he bet me $50. I need $50. Give it to me. I said, You got $50, give it to me. I went up there. Then maybe two minutes, maybe a minute and a half, maybe close two minutes. Just talking about him. You know how he looked. Bad habits. Bad habits. Stupid ass gave me $50. Two dumb girl jokes and some shit, and then good night. Everybody just clapped a little bit. So he bought me a book and said, just start writing stories. Just do anything. And find some open mics. So I'm in in the open mic nights, just like nervous and shit. I kept leaving. I kept going there when it's almost my turn, I leave. Wow. And I like it.

SPEAKER_02

And he wasn't a comic.

SPEAKER_01

Hell no.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. What do you think made you keep going back?

SPEAKER_01

I did a show. I started talking about my um my family. And I had about three or four good laughs, and he was there, and he convinced me. I'm telling you, just keep doing that and keep talking about, don't try to make stuff up. Say this was real. So I just kept talking about the stuff getting your ass beat. Your mom used to my mom was hard, dude. Oh my god. I described all the ass whoopings, how they went. I did how I did this old joke, and I did it, I did it a couple of months ago. One of my first jokes was like, I seen my mama turn so fast, her wig didn't. She said, clean the room. I'm over fuck that room. She said, What? Yeah. And I knew, and then I just started going to open mics, meeting the comics, and bam, bam, bam. Yeah. Before you know it, there's like a group of us, seven of us. And we all, you know, you get to your group, and then you just hang together. Yeah, you just have to mic.

SPEAKER_03

Are those guys still doing uh stand-up? Out of that crew? Well, you look at eight of them died, nigga.

SPEAKER_01

No, it's just like a couple of them just not out no more doing it. Some just still writing and doing it at home. Hitting the roll sometimes. But when Comic View came out, they had auditions, and I was the f I was it's all seven of us. We worked with together, we boost each other. Right. I'm the first one that got TV. The next day, the next year after that, I got Def Jam. So it was Oh wow. So I just boom left New York went to New York. So that's how, but we still, you know, was together.

SPEAKER_05

But yeah, you still got to do it.

SPEAKER_01

When you do that, you you moving now.

SPEAKER_05

So when, so you're how how much are you in Detroit versus New York during the top of the journey? Are you like after you get TV, you're in New York pretty replacement? I moved to New York. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I knew, yeah. When I got there. Okay. When I got look, dude, dude, when I got Death Jam. Okay. No, when I got Comic View, three months before I was supposed to go to LA and do it, I popped my Achilles. So you know how I am on stage. You know me. Active, right? You know, I'm breaking, I break so many stages and I mean mics and chairs. I got I had to stand there. That's why I had to fly there with a cast on my leg. First time on TV and just sit there, put the crutch down, and just talk. And I ain't had no, couldn't move. Later that year, they had that's the only time they had an award show. They had an award show for Comic View. Yeah, I remember that. I won the Robert Harris Awards for most original comic of the year. Wow. With a cast on my foot. Wow. So I'm like money. So I got Death Jam.

SPEAKER_03

Check out this story. Everybody, stop what you're doing right now. Make sure you subscribe to Killin' It Pie. Boom.

SPEAKER_01

Remember um Crush Groove?

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. For LL, it was over.

SPEAKER_01

About any movie. He pushed his way in there, I'm bad, and just boom, boom, boom, and they sign you. But the but the remember that they told me it's over. Audition's done. And he bowled his way in there. That's how I got Death Jam. I mimicked my that's time for that movie from LL. Tina Graham, the mother of comedy, was casting people and Bob Sumner. Tina was telling Bob about me for like a year or so. He said, I don't think he's ready. He said, I don't know, blah, blah, blah, blah. So she called me, she said, you gotta drive to Chicago. They got auditions. This four-hour drive. You gotta go be there tomorrow. And they got 18 people they watching. But the whole season was booked. They needed one more slot. So I went there and I was late. It was on number 15. He said, and he induced me, she introduced me to Bob. Bob said, I know I could, yeah, but I got everybody loaded, maybe next season. But she said, No, you gotta watch them now. And I was like, and me, I'm depleted. Like, I can't believe this shit.

SPEAKER_03

No, yeah, this time.

SPEAKER_01

30? Oh my god. Yeah. I ain't start with Tommy until I was 30. Gotcha. So I'm like, shit, I gotta I can't believe it. He just, you know, and she just kept bugging him. And she told, he told her, fuck you, go ahead. He lasts, he's gonna go up, just whatever you want to do. So I said, ah shit. He gave me eight minutes. Now I mean something like that. So I went up, my turn to go up, and I see him talking to he got his back turned. You know, bam, I'm hitting them three, three quick ones. And then I see them trying to turn around, do this, and I see them looking at me. Now I'm trying to go down their throat, right? I did like seven and a half minutes. Gave me the spot that night. Wow. I wasn't even on the bill. I'm bad.

SPEAKER_05

That is like a shark's meal.

SPEAKER_01

That was a that was meant to be. Right. I went in, man. The night before Dev Jam, I found out I'm the first one out the gate, the first taper. Russell picked me because of my energy. Right. Okay, mind you, we had a big party. Everybody get ready for the next day. We starting to kick off the season. All the old heads came to me, all the legends. Look, look here, newbie. You're gonna fuck this up. You know, you first out the gate. Don't make us look bad. Okay, I'm throwing up all night. I'm trying to find drugs, I can't find them. Drink myself to death. I need to call nursing homes. Send me them pills. Right. I was a mess. So I had no sleep.

SPEAKER_03

Now at that time, who were the vets at that time?

SPEAKER_01

We're talking about Bernie, all the deaf vets, okay.

SPEAKER_03

Cedric. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Uh Arnes.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Shir Underwood, Monique, all of them coming at me. They just Yeah, what's up? Welcome to Deaf Jam. But don't fuck this up. You know, so I'm in my dress room pacing. The day of I'm about to go get a knock on the door. I said, come on in. It's Russell Simmons. He comes in with a list. Hey, look at this. He heard I was upset about going first. So he said, look, let me tell you why, motherfucker. I don't make motherfucking mistakes. I like your energy. I think you can do it. You're gonna go out there and do the motherfucker's thing, motherfucker. You know what I'm saying? Motherfucker, I don't do that, motherfucker. I'm like, okay, all right, fuck, all right, man. No, I thought you're gonna hit me or something. Knock on the door again. I said, come in. It's Spike Lee coming my dressing room. Right. Mind you, this is a this I'm fucked up. Right, right, right. I said, hey. He said, how you doing? I'm Spike Lee. I said, really? You think I knew you need to tell me that? I said, I'm sorry, Spike. What's up, man? What you on? I'm just my man. I gotta get on. He said, I got my crooked hat and my baseball jersey from my brand. Would you wear this tonight? Wow. I'm gonna wear your bra.

SPEAKER_06

Put a nick in my head, nigga.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's hilarious.

SPEAKER_01

If you look at my death jam, 1995. I got that Cookland jersey and then had them. And then Wow. Damn, hit him, hit him with all the one-liners and shit. Bam! They was they was cheering. I said goodnight. I came home back to Detroit. Marcus Aurelius.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, you know this is Well yeah, what year is this though?

SPEAKER_01

Like 95? 1995. 95, yeah. And I took my ass and was straight moved to New York. No, I got there. You know, hook up a talent, Capone, Rob Stapleton, all the legislators. No, it was running the city. And they take me out, and I they introduced me to everybody, and then I hit the stage, I was the new nigga in town. It would take but three weeks to say Tony Roberts here. Tony, you see Tony Roberts? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

I used to I heard stories about that. I heard you and JB would do some shows together.

SPEAKER_01

Woo! And y'all would peel the fucking shit. Oh, we had the co-headline.

SPEAKER_05

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

The Atlanta. Yes. Um comedian. Oh, it was the Smokey. Smokey. Okay, yeah. Chris Tucker had his um club in Atlanta. Atlanta was on fire then. Yeah. We had the co-headline. So we both had to do 40 minutes. They had no feature or nothing. We had to both had to do 45 minutes and switch and keep flip-flopping. And every time he's up, I'm on the side. Like everybody crack, I'm on the in the hallway looking like, fuck, not that joke.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah. Shit.

SPEAKER_01

He said the same thing. He almost threw up. Yeah, he said he didn't get me. He told me. I had him go up so hard. He was like, fuck, he wants to smoke a cigarette. We never forgot about it. Every time I see him, we talk about that weekend. It was stressful as fuck. But we were cheering each other on, but it was like you got to go behind the shit. There's no nine and a half. Yeah. You had to go on ten. You gotta take him on ten, or they're gonna say, well, the second comic, he shouldn't have gone. It was none of that.

SPEAKER_03

It actually makes sense though, because both of y'all commitment levels is through man. Actually, y'all two, and I always talk about this guy, it's it's only a few that really, even if the last ain't even there in the first few, the commitment level of just stand right in there and then the room just rips in ass.

SPEAKER_01

But you know what that's from? You gotta let people love you. I can say a joke and air lib and mess around and pause and look, but they owe my every word. Cause they gotta love you. Once they love you, then you can do anything.

SPEAKER_03

How did you how do you feel you developed that with the audience?

SPEAKER_01

You know what? I don't know at what time it was in my career, but I knew at one point that they waiting on, they love my comedy, they love my attitude. Because what I do, I play the victim. I play the bully, the bully got me. My wife, I can't control her. I'm on, I'm always under the table. Oh god. So people root me.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, and I'm like, fuck that shit.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. You know? And so my wife, you know, I got that old joke of my wife said, I want breakfast in bed. Bitch, you better sleep in the kitchen. Right. That's what the pancakes are gonna be, bitch. So, like, it's always the underground, this shit. Like, my wife took me to the hot tub in the the cold plunge in the in the gym, and I got in, my dick went in my body and closed the door. All the suffering I'm going through. People love that shit. That's what my kids and shit, and uh, fuck, man.

SPEAKER_02

Where did you get your one-liner style from? Did you see anybody?

SPEAKER_01

How did you do that? No, what it was, okay, when I first started comedy, the first year and a half, I left the mic on the mic stand. I wouldn't leave the mic stand. I was just trying to, who I know who I wanted to be. I'm so busy trying to put jokes together. I wasn't thinking about, okay, am I comfortable with this? So I wasn't moving. And I seen um uh I'm drawing a blank. We got so many stories. No, I got uh Sinbad. I watched him do a special Afrozen Bell Bottoms. Yeah, that's hilarious. Dude, I've been breaking shit ever since. You know, and me and him have never met. Oh, wow. But Horace Sanders from Detroit, he was on the road with him. Just he had one uh Star Search. And Horace Sanders came in second two years after that. So he was telling him, my friend Tony Roberts, he's the first comic I met when we started. My friend Tony Roberts, he was his idol, and blah blah. He used to look at my film, but we had never met. I didn't meet him until last year, a year and a half ago, when we did the tribute for him. Right. And he was in the wheelchair and all that at the uh SoFi Stadium joint at the theater. And I walked in a room, I just wanted to introduce myself. And he had like, it was like five or six comics. We had Chris Tucker, DL, Ducky Fresh was hosting. We had Earthquake, we had all these guys, Dion Cole. I walked, they was in the room. I walked in the room with my wife, and he just said, wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's Tony Roberts. Nigga almost cried. Yeah, I was like, this nigga just, and he just stroking everything. He said, it's Tony Roberts. And I wanted to look behind me. He's like, he ain't Tony Robertson. And I was went up there and he said, Come on, man. And I was like, what the fuck? You know, like you just won your first spelling be. I had fucking bumps everywhere. I was all over the place and emotions out there, but I was like, you know, still with him and kicking it. That night, you're talking about pissed off. I was third. Every time I go check the lady to do my music, um, I said, look, so I'm going next. So I want you to about said, no, we put you down one. Now I'm fourth. And then now I'm sixth. Now I'm seventh. Right, right. Everybody was going looking at the lineup. Didn't nobody want to go behind me. Absolutely not. So then nah, I'm ninth. Out of 10 comics, I was third. I was so pissed, dude. I started to go to him. Yeah. And tell him, come out the wheelchair, show these niggas. I'm gonna roll this nigga. You cover motherfucker. They didn't save, it didn't help him though. I oblivated at that place, dude. Yeah. All I had was 14 minutes, 15 minutes. Oh, it was.

SPEAKER_03

What a great compliment, man.

SPEAKER_01

But look, check it out. He comes out at the end and to greet everybody. He was on the Jumbo Trime. And they said, Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And his family was with him. They're standing up. The first thing came out of his mouth. Did y'all see Tony Roberts? That's my homeboy from Michigan. She once again, from the fucking Santa Claus and said, He loved me. My wife said, baby, he's a bit so gone. Get away from me. And no matter what they did that night, pointed straight at me. I was like, it's over with. I'm fulfilled. That's the first time I ever met him.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah. That's great, man. That him being your influence makes so much sense now. Yeah. Because your style is so unique, your own. And you you you helped me be okay. Because the California nigga in me talks fast. The Texas nigga in me, I started in Houston. And everything slowed down and the pacing slowed down.

SPEAKER_01

But that's your but that's your you look like you should slow down. Yeah, but you got that, you got that, especially, man. I'm telling you, man. This is the first time I seen this. When you did all this and let your stomach out. Dude, I thought that was, I thought that was a prop. I said, how do you keep that? He said, I'm tired of holding that stomach in.

SPEAKER_05

I almost lost it, dude. No, man. I remember in Houston, they kept telling me, they was like, bro, you gotta slow down, you gotta slow down. And then I saw you on Comic View, and your pace, it was great. I was like, no, man. I was like, this guy. Don't you know why I got that?

SPEAKER_01

Because I've always been shy. And then always never had the confidence. Um I don't want to think. I don't want you to think. I want you to just feed it, feed it, feed it, feed it. Because if it's like a 40-second pause, our our our our freeze. Maybe not now, but that was all that pushing it down their throat because I was nervous. I'm always nervous, more nervous. You know, I mean, I got a couple people like even Mike Yapps when we on the tour now, right? He gets anxiety sometimes. You know, sometimes you just gotta be out there. But before it happens, you wanna do some cocaine. You want to do something. You want to do anything. You wanna feel brave. But yeah, I I hit you, hit you, hit you, and hit you, hit you, and I act everything out and I'm still talking about it. Because if I stand still and look at you, something go loose. It's a mental thing with me.

SPEAKER_05

London uh brought up the style, and I I wanted to, and it's a quick one, Jay, and then please go. The you you used to do this thing on stage where you would like in between bits, you would like do like a B-box or some shit like that. Like I was like, is he keeping rhythm? Like, so it'd be this bitch just and then you go, mm-mm mm mm.

SPEAKER_01

No, yeah, that's that's that's that's the bridge. That's the commercial. Oh okay. That's the commercial. That's me thinking. Yeah, this I'm taking that that okay, now I go. Yeah, now I go do do do bam. Bop. You know what I'm saying? In my mind, I'm like, like this, who? Not you, him. Yeah. Yeah, it's like a uh like a jazz like a scatter. So that's my style though. I just gotta I don't want you to rest. I want to hurt you. We can tell. I want the headaches. We can tell. I don't know why. I'm slowing down just a little bit now. I think because of my my um No, okay, then slowing down, but my now my stories are connected longer. But that shit is. I still have my all my kids. And that's what I never do. I never talk about a subject, like the police and all this. Then I go down the line and I bring the police back up. I never re-repeat.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_01

I come back to me and my mama doing this. My mama's like this, and I I milk that. And then all the rest of my set, you never hear no more about my mama. I never go back to something. You know. Nah, I just don't like that part.

SPEAKER_02

I was just gonna ask, like, what's the toughest show you've done? Like, lineup wise. Like, everybody was heaters, and no. Or you like ain't none of these niggas fucking with me. Like anybody had a.

SPEAKER_01

No, no, I know what you're saying, though. Like, it was almost the toughest was with JB Smooth. Yeah, okay. That was when we were young, though. We were so full of power, you know, but I wanted to say, even at that Sinbad show, yeah, you know, no matter how funny you are, sometimes the people before you are like celebrities. Right. So no matter what you do, you're not they're not gonna get in the car and go forget about DL and forget about all these other cats. They, you know, but even though they they remember them in the car, I want them to mention me. Yeah. So that was another one, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Killing? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I say this in every and I'm not saying this just to be bullshit. I say this in and when people say, give me your top five. Um Red Fox, Robin Harris, Flip Wilson, Birdie Mack, Lance Woods. Every single time. That ass. Lance Woods.

SPEAKER_02

Lance in the biggest. Every single time.

SPEAKER_01

When this nigga we on the road with me, going after him, oh God. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That's high praise right now.

SPEAKER_01

That's Lance floating on the ball.

SPEAKER_02

If he don't 10, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I make up something. I say, you know what? I don't need no feature. It's in a way. Let's give some locals a chance. Let's say, but we like him. We don't know him like that. We liking him.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

He knows your teeth. So this is this is like, I'm doing this for the prison. This release thing with him.

SPEAKER_02

So the uh the the opposite of that was a shout out the man. The opposite of that is what's the what's the worst show you've had? Like just it was just crazy shit either happened in the audience, maybe a club promoter, or you know.

SPEAKER_05

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01

12 inches of snow, me and my boy Melman from Detroit. We drove from uh Detroit to Flint, an hour drive in the snow. Soon we got there, first of all, we on our way, and you you ever I don't know if you're from the if you're from snow, a town that snows. Florida. They got this black ice, and you can't see shit. So the the the the the truck just starts spinning around for nothing. And we holding on, and cars are coming past us, and everybody dodging us, and we don't know why why it's happening. They go up the like the grass and come back down, and we sat there for like 10 minutes, 20 minutes, and then took back off real slow. I get to Flint, Michigan. It's a Super Bowl, it's on YouTube. It's on it's a Super Bowl Sunday, and right at intermission, I was supposed to do some comedy, me and him. We were so late, it was after, and it was after the game was over. Everybody drunk, everybody crowded out. They go, they go, Tony Roberts, get the get the floor ready for them. I want no stage, it was a floor. Sheesh. They shoving people out the way. Get out the 23 bodyguards, drunk niggas and bitches, and they cussing people out. Get the fuck out. We got the entertainment about to do it. I said, no, just just just forfeit this. Don't worry about that. Don't worry about me. They didn't give a shit. They were so heated. I get up there trying a couple of jokes. They was like not having it. I'm like, this is some bullshit. I said, but I'm up here now. I gotta stay and do my 20 minutes. Bam, a fight broke out. I got in with the chair, stood up and narrated to fight. Then another plate jumped over here. I'm just going at him. Look at that, look at the oh my God. Can somebody bump? Boom. Look at God. Because I was about to eat it. They don't hear nothing.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah. That was bad. Yeah, that's bad. That was bad. I have to ask this, bro. And I and man, it just is what it is, bro. I have to ask why you're here. You are a comics comic.

SPEAKER_01

You know what? I never came up with that. I don't know how that started. And it's hard for me to own up to it.

SPEAKER_05

Bro, it it's a you you have a very uh unique career amongst the credits, amongst all the TV appearances and TV shows and all this stuff. The reason that people buy a Tony Roberts ticket is because you are hilarious. Right, right. And a lot of a lot of comics are like, oh man, I gotta do some TV, so people come see me do comedy. No, no, no, no, no, no. They coming to see you because you should, and I've seen whoever name you name them uh audience. I've seen the boss say, oh God, Tony Roberts is here.

SPEAKER_01

It's like it's like I ain't never heard that. You I wasn't an audience. Oh shit.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, no, that is a yes, that is a thing. I've I've seen I've seen for sure Chappelle. I've seen for sure like uh whoever everybody is raving of. Do you feel like you? Do you feel like nigga? Two days ago, Nate had six show-down shows at The Last Factory Crazy, him and Joe Cord killing, and Lily's like, oh shit, Tony Roberts is here. Tony goes on stage in the middle of the show. He's asking, hey, if this is your car, uh go through the license, but if you got a pathfinder that goes through, he's like, Your kids just woke up and walks off the stairs. Everybody like everybody just started dying laughing. That's my punch. And they're like, literally, like, y'all giving up Tony Roberts, uh, the funniest man walking the face of his earth. As he's on stage, there's six sold-out shows. Do you feel that, bro?

SPEAKER_01

Do you feel like like you you? Nah. Nah. I'm the same guy that go home and take my kids to school. And then what I do is I never go to after parties. When I when I do a show, uh, the comedy clubs or the theaters, yeah, I go back in my room, put on the the Netflix, and I sit on the floor and eat popcorn. I'm just like, I like that. I don't like the the the limelight, the partying and all that. I don't like that.

SPEAKER_02

Well the piggyback on that is because one of my questions also was like, do you feel underrated? Is there a part of you that feel underrated?

SPEAKER_01

You know, I don't feel underrated because the people that really know my comedy, they know where I'm at. It's just it's up to me to get more.

SPEAKER_02

And what I mean by underrated, I mean by the Hollywood system.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, because I haven't given them enough to know me. I got a lot of stuff working in the works right now. Everybody always has some in the works. But it's it's the point of every year or every other year, I have five pitch meetings. And I've right, I got three sitcoms written, I got two movies. I just wrote a gospel play that Quentin Perry, he did the uh Marvin Gaye, and now he does the big play. I did two plays with them before I met my wife years ago, like early 90s. Not early 90s, 2004, 2000, 2003. So I wrote a gospel play. I took my wife to see the Michael Jackson thing on Broadway. Yeah. I said, I need to be, I've been sitting on this plate for two years. Went at it. It's called These Are Not My Sandals. It's a gospel play. Is it biblical time? We're talking today's language. Yeah, yeah. It's hilarious, dude. It's stupid funny. So I'm going to do that play, and I got um a lot of stuff I want to come out with. But until I do that, until that something hits and airs, like the like I know agencies, they'll see me and come to me and say, Hey, Tony Roberts, how you doing? And I had a couple of people in the factory say, Hey, why don't you come on over here on this side? Like trying to get me to lead the agency. Right. Unless they do something stupid, I ain't leaving. You know, what you gonna do that they're not doing? Right, right.

SPEAKER_02

So uh not a damn thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So in Hollywood, I have to like even when I did um the sitcom with um Mike S. Mr. Box Office. Oh, I did Mr. Box Office. Oh, yeah. That was like Uncle Buck. Uncle Buck. Mr. Box Office was under underground. Right. Right. Uh yeah, that was cool. It was like come on the off channels. But Uncle Buck, when it premiered, I did like four episodes. They let it go over eight episodes. Um when it premiered, the very first episode was me. And I'm saying I'm bringing on my boy, and I had the whole tile of cards at the bar and everything. I opened it up and then it panned out and blah blah blah, it went on. That went like eight episodes. I knew that was gonna cancel. It was too black. Right. It was too black.

SPEAKER_02

And you want to know how I knew it was gonna get canceled? Because it was on the same, it that and blackish aired at the same time on the same network. And I said if they gotta choose between blackish and Uncle Buck, they're gonna go with blackish. Oh yeah. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01

They was too rich. It was too black, it was it wasn't that, it was like almost boring. I was on set and knew that was this one gonna make it.

SPEAKER_03

How do you how do you feel? Um, what do you think your family thinks about what you do? Do they understand? Like the kids and everybody, do they do they get it, or it's just like dad's going to work and it's just no, they come to my shows.

SPEAKER_01

They've been coming to my shows since they was like nine. And I just give it to them right in front of them. And they'd be like, oh, then they watch people come at me taking pictures. They be like, oh, they uh not they older, you know. Right. But uh, yeah, they can't believe the shit I'm talking about, their mom. Some of the stuff I had to leave out all the sex shit because they'd be hitting. Mom did that? That's lucky. I don't want to do that. You can't forget the shit like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Well, you know, speaking about family though, I think something that's commendable about you is that you do travel with your wife.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I made her my made her my road manager. You made her your road manager. What went behind that decision? Because I had a road manager when I met her. Um, first of all, when I met my wife, I was living off the hookup. I was on bogus airline tickets, I was on the hustle. Right. My credit score was four. Right. You know, she was she was so business and everything, right? So uh I had this manager, this role manager, and I found out he was he was stealing money. She found out. We started dating, and she he was stealing money. So I confronted him, and then we didn't even get into it. He admitted it and just said, just I said, I'm gonna just go without a manager. So then I some cities she wanted to go to, you know, she flew with me, and uh, she woke me up for interviews or I have to do this, and and she'd say she should wear that and blah, blah, blah. Um, then one time I got busy, she went and got the money. I said, Why don't you just so we're gonna kick it and stay together? Why don't you just do this? Right. She was uh uh writing big grants for big companies. Oh, she was already. She got her own money though. Yeah. When I met her, her husband just passed away. 30 years old, heart just stopped. Oh, wow. So she left him and her dad, and they left her a lot of money. So she got her own money. So um I said, just come and work with me. You know, we be we on the road anyway. We all together. So blah, blah, blah. We had a nanny for the kids, and blah, blah, blah. Then I got met. I met Tamara Goines, my agent, at the same time I met her. So I introduced them. And then Jenny came along. Yeah. The innovator. So three women run my career. Wow. And these hoes are mean to me. The only fight I got is. I'm on the flyer, bitch. I'm on the flyer.

SPEAKER_02

Jenny text you back.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, like if it like if a few days later or something.

SPEAKER_02

Jenny be like, hey, text me, Justin. I'm like, oh, okay. A week, two weeks go by. Crickets. Crickets. Now she didn't text me back anyway. That's the way that's a good thing. You don't represent me.

SPEAKER_01

But you can't say, hey, I'm uh I'm at the blood bank and they're out of blood. I need some blood. You you can just hang it up, chicken. You gotta go two days. You better find a puppy and get some of that blood.

SPEAKER_03

Well. You seem to have um the fact that, first of all, the fact that you're even uh aware and comfortable to have, you know, women around. Because you know, a lot of times it can be male uh chauvinistic and it gets kind of weird with having women around, but the fact that you I first of all, I do feel the way you feel. I feel like women are just way more organized at those kind of details where it allows you to be free as an artist. Being that you have these strong women around you. I want to know, um, if you can let us know what this photo and and what she means to you, brother.

SPEAKER_01

Oh man, I can't believe that.

SPEAKER_02

We'll put it in post. The people already don't know what you just said. Uh, from good times.

SPEAKER_03

I just I just handed uh Tony a photo of his family and his and his beautiful mom on there. And like I said, speaking of strong women around you and being raised by one how she didn't put up with no nonsense. Let me tell you this story of this picture right here.

SPEAKER_01

My mother's beautiful. When I was date, when I'm when I was coming up, everybody tried to get at my mom doing it. Wow, really? But this picture here, my mother was a uh worked at Chrysler for 40, 35 years or something. She was one of the beasts of her family. She came up with a brother and two sisters, oldest. I'm talking about she was raw. Like, she said she was pregnant at the club, smoking a joint, and her water broke with me. She said, Y'all gotta go have this damn baby. I'll be right back. My mother's hard. My mother, man, and she is the and I said in my documentary, she the strongest woman I ever met. Really? This picture here, we were all dressed up going to for taking family pictures. She forgot about it. She hung out all night, drinking the smoking, kicking it. Just her with a hangover. Wow! Wow. Just do nothing to herself. Walked in the camera, just like a movie star. Right, right, yeah. Who can do that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

What did she teach you about love?

SPEAKER_01

Nah, about love. She said, only thing she ever told me about love, she said, if if it ain't in your heart, forget the situation. If you got some girl pregnant and you I'm gonna stay there because it's the big No. Don't care what the situation is, don't stay. If you ain't, if you ain't, if it ain't in your in your heart. You got some responsibilities. You can do that and don't be with her. Yeah, because you messing up. You're gonna be unhappy for nothing. So she always told me, don't because she's never been married. Alright, my my my mama never been married. You can't deal with her. She'll whip. She talked back. She does shit. She she did what she wants. Can nobody handle it? Could nobody never handle her?

SPEAKER_02

Your mama liked that too.

SPEAKER_01

Your mama liked that too.

SPEAKER_02

They might know each other. Here's a question I have. I know you be posting kind of this is a little pivot. Wait, let me back up a minute.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah, go for it. When you talk about this is about five comics that's on tour now. When, you know, they're asking me how you do this thing with the your wife make doing all the business. And I said, just do it. And he said, we tried. It just didn't work. Because you gotta let her alone. Leave her alone and let her do it. If you think she's stupid, then you ain't gonna have her in the first place. Right. You can't be the boss. You can't micromanage her. You can't micromanage her. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta leave her alone. Let her do it. Whatever she planned to do, just go do your job and let her do hers. It's hard for guys to do that. They don't want, they, they don't want the um, they don't want to control their money and everything. But leave but leave her at home there.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, that that family structure has been very powerful for you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Because I'm so busy, I ain't got time to micro the finances. She does all the finances. She got my credit score from four to eight hundred. Wow. I ain't never had no people asking me for do I want a loan? Hey, I got $500,000 for you. Oh, you want a new car? I don't want that. Right. I'm just sitting on good credit. I don't need nothing. But I'm when I'm gonna get it, I'm gonna need it. I'm coming for it. Except the strip club. They don't give me credit. Give me nap dancing. I'm gonna come back and pay you. You don't trust me.

SPEAKER_02

This is what I'm about to ask. So, as a you're you're an older comedian, like you're you're a tier or two above us, right? Two tiers. Two tiers. Like two tiers above us.

SPEAKER_01

You turn 63.

SPEAKER_02

You look great, bro. Yeah, yeah. Look at my face. Look at my face. No no diddy shit now. I got a different podcast. Like caress my chin. Um when did you start seeing the importance of posting on social media? Because I think sometimes there's resistance. And maybe you don't see the importance of it.

SPEAKER_01

I do. Yeah. I'm lazy with that though.

SPEAKER_02

So when did because I know you post with Lance sometimes and stuff like that. So when did when did it click for you to say, hey man, I know I come from the old school, but I gotta kind of keep up and start evolving with the times.

SPEAKER_01

When I seen comics with half the talent getting two million views or just doing something constant, and it's not that they funnier, it's consistency. Lance always told me that. Yeah. It's consistency. Every time we do a skit or something, he's the one that's posting it. He had me accept it on my page, then my wife will start, you know, doing it. So I'm just so into other stuff. Um my head is stuck on what I used to do. Now the news, the new life, the new era now is social media. And I'm like, God no shit. But I'm so I don't, I don't, it's not like don't want the limelight or the the thing, but I just can't grab it like I want to. Yeah. It don't mean that much to me.

SPEAKER_05

Y'all have y'all have a natural chemistry that works works well too, is like between the Shannon Sharp stuff and and you know, because you're one thing that everybody that's in the social media space knows is everybody's watching. But then you're you, you're you, and everybody's watching. So it's like all the people that are already fans of you and all the celebrities that are already fans of you. So anytime you post something, everybody's watching. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01

So it's it's a couple of things. I get some nice response and a bunch of views, but to do it every day or every other day and just keep doing it, it's like I got a lot of stuff I'm doing, and that's not my priority to me for some reason. I gotta make it though. I can hire my daughter to do it. Yeah, you know, I could have I got a niece that that lives with us, and she's 10th grade. She pop pop. She do I do TikTok stuff for her. Yeah. You know, and I'll be the TikTok dad. TikTok uncle. Yeah. I gotta jump on that more, man, for real.

SPEAKER_05

On the on the on the network side though, I remember you told me something when you was, you said when you was on Uncle Buck, it was like, you know, trying to get your funny in that kind of uh arena. It was like it you said you can't raise a hyena in the house. Yeah. It was like it's it's like it's a lot. I'm hilarious. So it's like trying to structure this is like it gotta be the right platform right now.

SPEAKER_01

I think they left me out a couple of episodes because I was telling them, this is not funny. I said, if I say this, that'd hit harder on that. They go, yeah, but just do it. Just you know. I said, I'm telling you, dude. And I kept, you know, and they I was Mike's, I was Buck's best friend in the thing. He had a yard party, and I wasn't there. Yeah, yeah, that's how good. That's how good. Our writers get mad if you tell them they're Y'all had any black, y'all had black writers on the show? I didn't see any. Maybe one or two. I already knew the answer.

SPEAKER_02

But I just thought I'd ask.

SPEAKER_01

So if they was at the table, like all the writers don't be at the table. It's only like three or four there and say, hey, uh, this line goes like this or whatever. And always ad-lip to stuff.

SPEAKER_05

Yes. I'll tell you this, because this this has been my new experience, and you guys have done substantially more uh network than me, so y'all could probably what's my minute? I don't want to ask anymore. I stopped trying to correct her because I did that in an audition for a commercial. The uh they and they said something to me about do it like da-da-da. And I was like, and I totally just did it differently. I was like, why do you do it like that? I was like, respectfully, I said, I don't want to disrespect the writers or nothing. I said, but I'm the I'm definitely the funniest person in this room. I was like, I'm the only person in this room working on funny every night, every day. I'm writing consistently. I was like, I don't know how often y'all do this, right, but I really do this in front of real people. So now I just trust my instincts. I'll free fall. If I'm wrong, let me be wrong. I will apologize after, but right now I'm gonna trust my instincts. Right. I'm gonna stay in the world and the field. Y'all tell me if I'm fucking up because they'll be getting caught like that.

SPEAKER_02

So I'm about to say, uh, you definitely was like, and that was an arrogant nigga. Thank you for your information. Yeah. So, yeah, if you said that to the level boy. I just said that I'm a white man. Um, I don't say that properly. I got that job. I beat it. I got the job.

SPEAKER_05

I got, but I wonder, but uh, but you guys might understand from a different perspective of like, do when you had an idea, do you just trust it and go?

SPEAKER_02

Wait a minute, hold on. I gotta correct this real quick before you go to that. When I say I'm a white man, what I mean by that is I don't identify as no goddamn white man. What I'm saying is I've worked with so many that I know uh some of the mindset.

SPEAKER_01

But that's a that's a plus on your your character.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I appreciate it. You don't sound like you nowhere stupid. Yeah, thank you very much. People in the room when you hear you talk, they that's what they see. Well, I graduated Madacun Later.

SPEAKER_02

But come on. No, I'm just saying, so so I took some pills in a in a uh nursing home.

SPEAKER_05

I apologize for something. But so like I think you trusting your instincts because uh you know what? That's a good way to lead into this. You've uh what is your your motivating first for all your independence? Because you've produced specials on your own, you're producing a documentary now. I know that there's film ideas. Where does that energy come from as opposed to chasing the Hollywood system and waiting for these niggas to give you some shit?

SPEAKER_01

Wait no, no, give me some shit.

SPEAKER_05

I'm tired of waiting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I got a few things I'm getting ready to put out.

SPEAKER_05

Uh because I was at the I want to say, is it wired? Is that the first one?

SPEAKER_01

Wired. Yeah. So when I got wired, I had my other manager, uh Williams, uh he's uh they took us in the office. And uh out of nowhere, they said, hey, you um what's the name of that company? I don't know if they're even up right now. Okay, we want to do an hour special with you. I said, Hell yeah, we pump fist pump. Okay, let's do it. They said, like when you want to do it. They explained everything how they want to do it and everything. I said, when you want to do it? They said, uh, Friday. This Wednesday. Like Friday, like, what date? Friday? He said, in two days. Can you just you're not you can't do it? Yeah, but who gives me two days? Right. I gotta go buy something to wear or something. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So I went out there and just winged it. A lot of it just was coming in my head. Shit that I didn't even have developed all the way. I just had to, I was so pissed. It was a 350-seater, it was 70 people there. So they crowd them all in one spot, packed in one space.

SPEAKER_02

This was it, Comedy Dynamics? This was my first special. Yeah. What company? That's what I'm asking. I can't remember the company. Okay, my bad. It sounds like that though. I'm about to say, I've heard of Comedy Dynamics. They hit me up, but they were like, we got 5,000 for you to do a room. They a book. I don't want to talk shit about comedy, right? But I know it was like I didn't do it, I passed on it, but it was other comedians. You can see that shit on Amazon right now.

SPEAKER_01

But I've heard people tell me that's my best work. Oh, okay. But I was all over the place, man. I was all over the place because I was sweating back. Yeah. My nerves is running. Then I'm pissed because the shit is half empty, and I gotta act like it's full, and and I'm just going, just hitting and going and going and going, and then it was over with. I'm like, and then Leslie Jones was the next one. She that same day, they take it.

SPEAKER_05

Oh, got you get the hour. Oh, God. This is what I remember, yeah. But man, I hated that show. But but you've you've also it was this the one at the crest?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, I'm different. Yeah, I'm different. One thing about that one is when I described them, I wanted look like the back. I want to look like I want the stage to look like a movie scene with the cameras and the the director chair and all that, like just on the movie set. And uh he went and got all the containers, the dusty ass shit that you put equipment in and piled it up, and it looked like a warehouse on the docks. No cameras, no nothing. I'm like, nigga, and then it was dark as fuck. Like I was like I jumped the fence in the middle of the night and started doing comedy. Nigga, what's playing with you? Is that what I wanted? But it was the day of when I seen it, and I couldn't.

SPEAKER_03

They didn't get your vision at all.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, man. But speaking of producing, so I see a lot of y'all like comedians on tour together. But I'm I'm I I was kind of thinking, like, how come you think y'all don't come together like do a film on something like um I'm gonna get you sucker or like uh Hollywood Shuffle, like the same reason.

SPEAKER_01

You know why LA's traffic is the worst? Because you ever go to L look at the traffic from now on. Everybody's there's only one person in the car. Everybody is going to do something. Don't want nobody to know what they're doing. What they're about to do. That's why it's so much traffic. You don't usually get three or four people in each car and it's minimize the traffic by 30%. Everybody is by themselves. Everybody is a secret here. Don't nobody want to get and share nothing like that. Oh, wow. They don't. Yeah, I'm part of the problem because I am secret McGee.

SPEAKER_02

That's hilarious. I've been talking to my wife. I'm like, yeah. I was like, yeah, London about to go film something. She's like, what are you filming? I said, I don't know anything. I was like, I don't know. I said, I don't be wanting to give people business. So I I hear what you're saying. Part of the reason I think why we started this show is I feel like where we're at now, we do have to develop our own stuff. We can't wait on Hollywood. Yeah. We have to share information, but also we have to come together and start collabing on work, on like films and TV shows. That's why I love what Kev on Stage is doing. Right. Right, right. Uh Big Ja's doing because they creating these platforms and then they're like, yo, he funny, she funny, he funny, they funny. Yeah. Right, right. Let's all come together and like find a way to start doing this stuff. Because I'm just thinking about when I'm looking at a tour with you, and if it's you and got there, Earthquake and Tony Rock, and whoever, whoever the names are, it's like, I would love to see whatever that film is.

SPEAKER_01

We on the the We the Ones tour right now. Exactly. Right. And that's flooded. That's like an internet-driven entity right now. But if I wasn't who I was and the ability of being doing, being a getting the labs, it ain't easy out there because they here, it's fans and followers. Me, Earthquake, um, everybody in that era. Fans. Yeah, they got fans. VL, DL, and all those. We got fans. Right. Followers are different. Fans, they know jokes. They want you to, they want to make, you want to, they gotta laugh at a good joke. Right. Followers don't care if you're funny or not. They just want to see you live. They just want to see you. They just mesmerize it. No matter what you say, and it's always more sex jokes, hard ass sex jokes, if anything. And they they they they adapted to that. So they were like, you know, yeah, and they just watch and they don't they don't think. They high and they want it hard, and they won't, they want what are you doing on on the um on social media. But they want to see them, like the show we on, they lose it when they come out. And then once it started getting it going on, it's not as powerful. You know, so it's it's like it's a whole different thing out there, man. Yeah, yeah. So and everybody, like you do a big show like that. Nobody came together and said, Hey, let's do this. We do 40 arenas. Not even the arenas. And nobody said, hey, let's let's get together and meet up and let's do make this a TV show, like a literary or something. Or some skits together. Nobody.

SPEAKER_02

Everybody just kind of go to their own. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

They go their separate ways. When did you start no uh noticing, you know, you you do Comic View, you did Def Jam, but when did you start noticing your numbers? Because at that time it was no social media. No. So how did you when did you start to realize like, oh, I think I can I'm filling out, I'm selling out this club and I'm I'm selling out the stereotypes. When did that kind of happen? Or what what do you feel caused that?

SPEAKER_01

The uh just the appearance. The consistency. It's been years since I went somewhere and failed. Everybody know when you buy a ticket to see me, somehow, okay if you just seen me two months ago, somehow I'm gonna hit you again. And I've got a phobia with that. That's my biggest fear. To go in the club, I don't even get booked, I'll turn on the booking. If I go to a club and do five shows, and they say, oh, you know what, they had an opening next month. Same club, shows, I'll turn it down. If I don't have 50% or like 65% of something new, because I can I can start off with going there with 25-30% of know what I'm gonna say that I didn't say that weekend. Right. And if I if that's hits hard, I'll milk it and make this 50 minutes. Or I'll come up with ad libs. Oh, you know. I'm gonna just go with the crowd, go with the crowd, because I ran out of stuff. Right. I go with the crowd when I feel like it. But I gotta have that. You can't come back and say, well, I heard those jokes. Some people want to hear it again.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, but I've heard Kevin Hart say what you say. Like every tour, they he made sure not only him, but the plastic cup boys got all new material.

SPEAKER_01

You gotta have new material. Some people don't say it to you a lot, but they uh he could probably say the same thing again. They know. And some people say I do a whole different 50 minutes and go, why you didn't do the one buck thing? I put my wife so she can see that. Cause I don't know. I don't I don't want to say the same thing.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, you better go get the video.

SPEAKER_01

Man, some people now, in my career, like for me, people got I got about 12 jokes people wanna hear, no matter how many times it is. For sure. So I gotta put out, I get to feel when this when it's the the meat. Yeah. That they never gonna die. This this joke, I gotta put it in there. Like I come out to you need your ass beat. Every single club. But you add to that. I I I I switch it around a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. So this is this is the man, when I tell you, this is the hardest form of entertainment in the world. Right. You can do anything on stage, anything. Won't nobody know they well, you won't know they don't like you until it's over. And then you might somebody might say something to you. You'll know in 90 seconds if you want to cut your wrist and go and go jump in the river. 90 seconds. Yeah. It's the only one that requires a response right now. Yeah. That's why I pay so much for so little time. Somebody told me one time, White Lady said, comedians are cartoons. Because we went through, can't nobody go through the stuff we went through and just survive it and still go on stage and act happy. We cartoons, man. We have just smacked around, we fell down, we stomped on, froze, passed. I mean, he, no matter what it is, we keep going. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

It's crazy. Before you get to your thing, I was gonna say Chris, but go ahead. Chris Rock said about promo. He said the greatest promo is still word of mouth. So when you said how when you was asking about how he was packing out rooms without social media, word of mouth, Chris Rock said he would go in on Thursday and destroy. He said he knew if he destroyed on Thursday, his Friday and Saturday shows would be sold out because word was spread around the city. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01

That's a good that's that's good though. I believe that too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah. Uh I just wanted to to make sure we talked about the impact of Comic View, because you wasn't just on Comic View. You were one of the mainstays. Yeah. And and it's uh you were one of the the focal points of Of that that model, uh, what did it mean at that time? What is it? Do you still feel that now?

SPEAKER_01

Well, you know what? Somebody told me that uh I've been told I became a legend just from stand-up. And the only person ever did that was Bernie Mack. He was a legend before he got to TV. He was a legend. Just from stand up. Just from stand-up. And Comic View made me a legend from stand-up. Yeah. I did like seven seasons, eight seasons? Yeah. Um that's hard to do a be a legend just from that, just from stand-up. Yeah. The very the last the last Comic View taping, the last season they did it, was two weeks before Katrina. It was in New Orleans. Yep, I was there. And I did that joke about I said, What's up? I'm hitting them in there. I said, I'm from Detroit, and Detroit is in here. I'm with the home of Rosa Parks, our pioneer. They were like clapping, yeah. So that's right. I said, I met her. She's getting old though. She mo she wrote a book called What Bus? Right?

SPEAKER_03

So that's such a quick part.

SPEAKER_01

So look, people laughing, and some people didn't know how to laugh, but they was laughing. I said I said, so every they never put nothing out unless they edit it. They look at everything. I said they're gonna probably edit that out. You know, it was funny to me. You know what I'm saying? They didn't edit it out. So they when it aired, I had a oh my god. That day I had 150 calls. What were you thinking? My mama, baby, y'all know what the hell you talking about. Mother Pac did so much for the house. I mean, look, she was alive when I did it. If she heard it, she would have laughed. Got it, got it, got it. Get off me. Yeah. I didn't want them to air it, but it wasn't that bad.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, it didn't, yeah, you didn't know what you was gonna pass.

SPEAKER_01

What? Come on.

SPEAKER_05

Oh, that's great, man.

SPEAKER_01

You know Moser Pac's husband had a car?

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, yeah. I know as well, right?

SPEAKER_01

He was the white man. He drove a car, but she caught the bus every day. You gotta be.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Y'all didn't need.

SPEAKER_03

Um, no, no. Other than just give me some flowers, man. I love that joke. Um, you talked about how if you if a chick is ugly, she gotta be able to do some things. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01

Exit.

SPEAKER_05

Amazing. You gotta go and grab a fish out of the water.

SPEAKER_01

Pick up a moose. Right.

SPEAKER_05

Classic. Bite the fish head off. Hold the fish.

SPEAKER_01

Fastball in the face. Don't cry. Don't cry. My mother loves that one, boy.

SPEAKER_05

She owned that one. The fish and the fish grease, her hands ain't gonna burn because she's ugly.

SPEAKER_01

This is getting an idea, too. Greatest hits.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, special just back to the from the 90s. Absolutely. My new shit is all the stuff about the about the daughter and the family. That is all. Oh no, yeah. But yeah, but the greatest hits of the comedy.

SPEAKER_02

That's one of them I'm gonna love that stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Go go and do your thing. This is my last, last question. Because you're such a vet and uh last, last question.

SPEAKER_01

Last, last.

SPEAKER_02

And then we go get get to the game real quick. What's three tips you have for any young comedian? Like if somebody's starting comedy today, whether it's about doing stand-up comedy or the business of comedy, what's three tips you could give somebody?

SPEAKER_01

Keep your keep a part-time job. Because they're not as it's not as they're not as hungry as they they should be. There's no comics out there that's really hungry no more to just don't do nothing but to try to survive off comedy. Like some young comics when they starting, yeah. Keep a part-time job. Don't be afraid to say nothing that you think is funny. A lot of people say shit because they don't they don't think it's gonna people gonna laugh. I say anything I think is funny. Right. But I don't say nothing that incriminates to racism or sexual nothing.

SPEAKER_02

And it's not coming from a malicious place either.

SPEAKER_01

No hate or nothing. So Jeff, if you think it's funny. Not some comics say, I don't know about that. No, it's funny, just say it. You know, so that's that's the second one. If you think it's funny, just say it. Somebody else is gonna think it's funny.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You know, and uh don't don't take nobody else's joke. Straight up. Straight up. Some people take it and rearrange it, and you still know where it's coming from. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

All right, we got a game on this show called Kill It or Let Live. Kill It or Let Live. That's funny. I'ma I'ma throw out a topic and you're gonna make me nervous. This is that name. I know. This would this one you get canceled. No, but I'ma throw out a topic, you're gonna say, if you mess with it, you're gonna say let it live. But if you ain't messing with it, you're gonna say kill it. All right.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Kill it or let live. Yo lady passing gas at the dinner table.

SPEAKER_01

Let it live, man. Because I do it too. We all family. You're gonna be like getting all stuck up. I'll do it.

SPEAKER_02

All right. Kill it or let live. You get to have a hundred million followers on social media. Okay, you pop it. Right. But you have to partake in a ditty party. Stupid. There's the face.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, I'm gonna say let it live. Okay. Because I'm gonna have an armored suit on. I'm gonna be a timid. I'm having the ball. I'm dancing like this. I'm all it's gonna be metal.

SPEAKER_02

But if Daddy said, you gotta show up naked. No, I ain't gonna kill it. Kill it and kill him. Kill it or let it this part is amazing. Okay, kill it or let live. You get to experience time travel. Okay, you are even known as the inventor of time travel. Okay. But in order to time travel, when you first get there, you have to witness the night that you was conceived. Fucking stupid problem. Kill it.

SPEAKER_03

Kill it.

SPEAKER_01

Nope. Kill it. You just made me think about my mama with her legs on. She got the post. And a ball and a ball in the mouth. Oh, man. I hate that visual you just gave me.

SPEAKER_05

Alright. Alright, so this is uh keep uh keep three, kill five. So I'm gonna name off uh five, uh I'm gonna name off eight things. You get to keep three of them, and you're killing all five of them. So it's so it's it's uh reverse top five of this kind of top three, but it's blind because you don't know what's coming next.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_05

It's Eddie Murphy.

SPEAKER_01

I had to listen all on first, or just go to keep three.

SPEAKER_05

Yep, you gotta keep three. What's the list again? Uh Eddie Murphy movies. Oh, okay. You ready? Okay. All right. Number one. Pluto Nash. Let it go. Okay. Coming to America. Keep. Okay. Nutty Professor. Let it go.

SPEAKER_04

Holy man. Let it go. Come on, man. Boomerang. Keep. Okay. Life.

SPEAKER_05

I know. How many got left? Let them know. You got two left. You got two left and one keep left.

SPEAKER_02

Only one. You can only keep one left. Keep one more. Yeah, I'll keep one more.

SPEAKER_01

I'm gonna let it go.

SPEAKER_05

Haunted Mansion. You got one more.

SPEAKER_01

No. I gotta keep. If I let this go, I gotta keep the next one.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I'm letting that shit go.

SPEAKER_05

Harlem Knights.

SPEAKER_04

Boom.

SPEAKER_06

I don't like you to put that up top.

SPEAKER_01

No game again. Yeah. I'm not thinking that we're gonna have a bucket of water on.

SPEAKER_05

See? God damn. I didn't even like Norbit.

SPEAKER_01

I didn't like that.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, I was it's it's so many Eddie Burff movies. Um so this is the last question. Um before I keep going, man, hey, major shout outs to uh Lance Woods, man, for uh helping us make this happen, man. My dog's hilarious. Go back and watch the Lance episode if you haven't already, man. You got a full episode with that week seven, I believe it was. I think it's like the seventh episode. Right. Um industry-wise, you're killing it in every facet. What does it look like for you? Is it TV? Is it film? Is it TV? Is it arena? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I'm a TV person. I can write TV shows. I can I got a show about my family, how I met my wife, got the kids and everything. Well, I met my wife, she was, she had a four-year-old, a three and a half-year-old, a two-year-old, and pregnant with her son. Wow. I met her. I did a show up there. I've never been in Sacramento, I met her once. So eight months later, I came back. She had the baby. And I I was like, damn, I was at my show. And she had the baby, and uh she said, Hey, remember me? I said, Oh yeah, hey, you had the boy, what you have? Blah, blah, blah. I said, I was about to go on stage, get on stage, do what I do. I was at the stage, the bitches, um, you know, we taking pictures and shit. And I ain't see her nowhere. She told her girlfriend, I'm out of here, I ain't no groupie, I don't do that shit. She's fine with that shit. So I found her in the line, about to go to the bathroom, and she's about to go home. And I would never see her again. So I found her, I broke off the uh the pictures and left, found her in the bathroom. I said, I'ma be over here when you finish. Kissed her right in the mouth. Never and all the girls in the line, like, oh, yeah. Her girl was like, what the fuck? And she just looked at me and came in like a little grin. Boom, she was right there, waiting for her to come out. And we've been together what 17 years now? What year was that, roughly? 17 years ago. When did that move up?

SPEAKER_02

That's like 08. No, it was 08. Yeah, because my lady been for 15. I met that 08. Wow. Sheesh. Yeah, 17 years ago. Hey man. We did it, we appreciate uh everybody watching. Um, we was looking forward to this episode for show for show. Uh, make sure you like, comment, subscribe, let us know your favorite moments from the episode.

SPEAKER_01

And my wife's Filipino. So I'm from Detroit. I didn't, I never, I thought you're Chinese. I'm like, she's like, I ain't Filipino. She was in my ass. I'm like, bitch, rice is rice. Wait a minute. Is the weed on ones tour still going on? Yeah, we got like one month left. Um May 30th.

SPEAKER_02

Hey, so y'all check them out on the Weed On Wands tour.

SPEAKER_01

Follow me at Tony T. Roberts, all platforms. People, people can't find me because if you put Tony Roberts, you're gonna get the old white guy and they just give up. You gotta put the T in the middle. Oh, that's you. What's that alarm? That's that money. That's that money. Oh, that's that money. That's the money ring. I can tell the money rang. Oh, the money rang. You see what it's like. Oh, yeah, that's that's my agent.

SPEAKER_02

All right, we gotta get out of here. We've been your host. We've been your host. Justin. London Brown. Me T Kingsley. And the one and only. Tony Robbins. Come on, Lady's week.