Killin It
Comedians London Brown, Justin Hires, & BT Kingsley converse with top people in entertainment and culture that are killing it in their life and career.
Killin It
AIDA RODRIGUEZ
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Comedian, Aida Rodriguez, discuss being mentored by legendary comedian Paul Mooney, Chris Spencer encouraging her to become a stand-up comedian, being a political voice in comedy, being a part of 'They Ready' Netflix comedy special produced by Tiffany Haddish, wanting to be seen as a comedian regardless of her looks, and more.
Hosted by @RealLondonBrown, @JustinHires, @BTKingsley
YouTube (Full Episodes): @KillinItPod
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TikTok: @KillinItPod
Facebook: Killin It
Website: KillinItPod.com
Executive Produced by London Brown, Justin Hires, BT Kingsley
Engineer: Aaron Brungardt
So do you like where we are like today? Like where the industry is going in the essence of content is king, uh, a lot more independence is is happening, or like are you exhausted from from doing it from so long?
SPEAKER_03Uh I'm not exhausted from doing it so long. I wanna do it till I die. So I'm never I I don't feel exhausted. I'm tired of the bullshit from the industry. Yeah. I love the fact that you can create content and go direct to consumer. It's created some sort of balance where people who never would get an opportunity are now getting an opportunity. It's also flooded with untalented people who just want to be famous. Because and there's nothing wrong with just wanting to be famous, but it's framing it as if you're an artist is is disingenuous and it lacks integrity. And you could just be honest about the fact that you will try anything. You a singer, you a rapper, you an actor, you a comedian. Because what you want is people to know who you are. And it doesn't matter what art you exploit, but whichever one works out for you. Whereas we bleed for this. You know, we all showcase for all the same shows, and you'll be like, you you'd be at your touch the sky moment. You'd be like, mm-hmm, that much better than me.
SPEAKER_05You'd like that What's up, y'all?
SPEAKER_06Killin' it is coming live to Flappers Comedy Club November 11th. That's right, we all hitting the stage and we slangin' them jokes. We slanging after the show, too.
SPEAKER_08Hey, hey, hey, hey.
SPEAKER_07Come on, ladies pull up.
SPEAKER_08Y'all get the tickets. Don't come by yourself, man. Get the tickets if you've been watching us online. Catch us live.
SPEAKER_06Get them tickets right now, flapperscomedy.com. Go for it.
SPEAKER_07Oh. You know what's funny? Y'all don't know when we're coming back, but we back. Y'all don't know what's going on. Y'all don't know how often we shoot, but let me tell you, we're working over here, and man, today is a great day. Uh, welcome to Killin' the Man. Uh, I'm one of your hosts, the one and only BT Kingsley. The London Brown. Justin Hyatt. And today we have an amazing, amazing, amazing guest. One of the superstars of our industry. Uh, one of the best in her field, one of the best doing it male, female, or indescribable. I don't know all the all the letters and terms. Don't make me lie to you. Um, I love her offstage. This is actually a friend of mine, uh super accomplished. Too many credits to name, but we getting into it today.
SPEAKER_03The one and only I love that everybody, that's my friend, has developed an accent. Doesn't say my name. Yeah, that's it.
SPEAKER_07Gotta get it right, baby.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's so funny. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. You know, comedy will humble you. You'll come off a special and then be like, I ain't like, I ain't gonna never be nobody. Like, it's just the comedy's designed. I I think if you start feeling so good about yourself, you become a worse comic. Like everybody that's That's a fact.
SPEAKER_07Especially if you don't come down the hill. I uh I yeah, the people that get the money that don't come down the hill, boy, we will wash y'all boots. Because we're still very active. You know what I mean? But every now and then you'll see one of them, you know, bad backers. You know what I mean? Them hurt backers. I don't know what to call them. I don't want to call them old. You know what I mean? One of the uh one of them comes down and I'll be like, No. Boy, your reference points is all over the place.
SPEAKER_03Because they bring that with that energy with them, they don't evolve. I do open mics and they people be like, especially when you gotta pay for the open mic, then people be like, what you doing here? Yeah. I was like, Can you loan me five dollars? I don't have no cash.
SPEAKER_07No cash. You you I mean, that's a good place to start. I love talking stand-up with you, uh, because we do this all the time. You would no, no, no, no, because you lies like to go journey first You guys always do journey first. I I I'm gonna dive right in.
SPEAKER_06Okay, BTB like how much money you make? That'd be his first question. Question number one. Yeah, 401k package. Uh what's all included?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because I go for where are you where are you from? What do you mean in terms of where I grew up? Yeah. I grew up in Miami, and with little splashes of New York, I would go back and forth. But I grew up in Miami. Yeah. Yeah, I grew up in Miami. Yeah, that's I know my Florida people because we don't really get a lot of props when it comes to comedy. People really don't realize that we're from Florida. Yep, right? Like everybody, and then in Florida, there's Marvin Dixon and Benji Brown, and there's a specific like brand of humor that, but then they don't Malik is from Miami. Malik's from Miami. That's okay.
SPEAKER_06Little Duval. Little DuVol. Yeah, we out here. We we covered up. Pre Preacher Lawson spent time in Orlando. I don't know if he's originally from there, though.
SPEAKER_03Preacher is a nomad. He's from everywhere.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, he is.
SPEAKER_03Every time I see him, I'm like, where do you live now?
SPEAKER_06Right, right. And I mean, what this is so crazy, you you you were a model at one point. I was. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Even though the internet is like, you know, the haters, they're like, she wasn't no model. I'm like, I was. I got paid for it, and I got a burn on my foot to show for it. From a photo shoot that I did with this Italian photographer that had me on this steamer and would not let me get off, and I was like crying. He was like, Stay in the moment, Aida. And I was like, he's trying to kill me. But um, yeah, I was.
SPEAKER_06What made you transition from the modeling into the comedy space?
SPEAKER_03You know, I was gonna transition out of modeling anyway because it wasn't fulfilling for me. I was I I was a smart kid, and I used to hide my smartness because I was in the hood and I had to survive, and I for some reason I I had this idea that, you know, what we you know, you know, that there's this duality of being an intellectual thug is not the coolest thing nowadays for me, because I had to lean into who I am. Like I speak that too. But modeling was just unfulfilling for me. I didn't do drugs, so I was never gonna be fully immersed. Not that they all do drugs, but I I didn't I wasn't a drinker. I was never gonna be a part of that culture because I grew I was from the hood. And I'm in around these, you know, these girls that grew up with money, and um, and it was just I was bored. I was I wanted I was cracking on them. It's like these are glorified hangers. But um, and also I had a I developed an eating disorder, and I was like, I gotta get out of this because I'm gonna die.
SPEAKER_07Come on. So I have to uh that's a I haven't got the access in a while. Yeah. It's back. The question is back. Being uh okay.
SPEAKER_06You're gonna be like the rest of the women in comedy are ugly.
SPEAKER_07Oh my god, I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I have asked uh women who have sat in a seat that are hilarious and also uh beautiful, how navigating the business has been for them because at a point in time it shifted. Let me tell it, it's all post-Tiffany. Like after Tiffany's explosion, then there's like, oh snap, this is like a a different thing. Cause before nobody before her reached the heights that she reached looking like her. Right. So so how has the business been navigating it, being hilarious and also being beautiful?
SPEAKER_03Well, thank you for calling me beautiful. I appreciate that. You see, I'm looking down because I'm already feeling uncomfortable. Yes. Cause I'm always like, I feel like uh Sonale and basketball and love and basketball.
SPEAKER_02I'm a baller, just like you.
SPEAKER_03And it makes me feel uncomfortable because beauty is relative. It's always in the eye of the beholder. So you could say I'm beautiful. There's gonna be 10s on the internet. That bank cute. Gee, oh, she that. I will say this before even Tiffany blew up, I had to get a big brunt of it because of Last Comic Standing. Because Keenan Ivy Wayne said that I was attractive. I was they killed me on Twitter. Like they were, and it was a lot of women, which was really hurtful. Um, my grandmother had just died, so I wore this yellow dress to honor my grandmother because that was her favorite color. She also liked me to be very feminine. And she was like, When you go on TV, I want you to shine like a star. I want you to be beautiful, I want you to lean into all of your and when I did, I I remember the day that we were getting ready to go tape, the isolation that I felt when I came down to the lobby in the hotel in that dress, and the reaction was split. There were some people that were like, Oh man, you look so nice, and then I could tell people that were like weirded out. Um, you know, I think that I'm talking about that in my new special, just addressing it. When I went to Korea, I learned a very valuable lesson. I went to Korea in 2007, and I noticed that people kept looking at me everywhere I went, right? And I was like, yo, this is so weird. So finally I asked someone who I trusted that would tell me what was going on. And I was like, hey, why do they keep looking at me like that? Right? And he's he was like, because in Korea, you are ugly. He said, You are dark. I'm dark in Korea, because they're very uh white centric, Eurocentric. Like these they they uh some of them, not all of them, but they like they bleach their skin. He was like, also you're not like super, super skinny, because at that time I was a little thicker. And he was like, You don't meet the beauty standards, so they're not they're not looking at you like out of admiration, they're just looking at you like, who is this? You know, like he's like, you just so I'm like, I'm Godzilla. Oh no, who is that? Because that was weird, and it was a very valuable lesson about what racist anybody, I'm sure it was.
SPEAKER_07Anyways, I'm listening. But we listened. If I say niggas like chicken, then they can't because niggas like chicken. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02What did I just step into? Cause then you, y'all say this and then be like, that bitch just sat there and didn't do nothing.
SPEAKER_03Niggas like chicken. That's what the internet is like. It's crazy. But I I think it was a valuable lesson. Not that I needed it, you know. I just thought, especially like the women that I know in comedy who have been deemed attractive, we have to go harder. Like, we always like, let's go. Like, we ain't got time for that bullshit. We gotta be, you know, when you think about, you know, the the beauties, you know, there are a lot of beautiful women in comedy that it it you forget that they're beautiful because they're good comedians. That's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, you're hilarious.
SPEAKER_03And then sometimes you're like, oh, dang, she's she's pretty. Like Candace Hides, you know. You think about Zaynab, you think about there's a bunch of attractive women who are funny also at It just feels like a newer thing, though.
SPEAKER_07It feels it feels like, I mean, even like supportive wise, and you could probably tell me better than this. I I you I remember seeing uh women that I know in the business that are hilarious go on stage, and you can feel the teness of sometimes of the women like like say like oh this bitch thinks she's cute, like that kind of energy. Where now it feels a little more uh all right, go on, girl, okay. Yeah, you know, your boots or whatever, whatever the energy. It feels it feels your boots, it feels, it feels somewhat more supportive. You would you would know better than me.
SPEAKER_03Well, I think that we have to remember who does that, right? That's not the people, it's the machine, right? The machine told us for so long. Let's talk about men. Like for a long time, what was supposed to be funny was what wasn't conventionally attractive. Facts. And then a Richard Pryor comes along and he's like, he Richard Pryor was fine. And we don't think of him now because now we think of a older Richard Pryor. Like you see all these people like, oh my god, Jackie Jackson was so fine, Michael Jackson was fine. Right. But they that's who the young girls had in front of them. And um the machine is always making fun of us as people of color. And they told us what was funny. Right. So they're black people, people of color. They're like, You g you gotta be bigger, you gotta, you gotta be angry, you gotta do this. That's the machine. And we just buy into it, and then Richard Pryor comes along, or Eddie Murphy and his leather being fine as hell, you know. Um, I just I I was too young to appreciate it, but then I look at it now, and I'm like, damn, Eddie Murphy was fine. Like, I was like, I never thought of Eddie Murphy as fine. He was just funny to me. But now I look at him and I was like, oh, damn, he was fine. Like, coming to a little bit of it.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, it was selling uh the random rip open on Roy as a.
SPEAKER_03You would forget it because he was also very funny, but the machine has always told us was funny for so long. But with white people, they can just have a spectrum, right? Like it's like you can be anything from Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball was a pretty woman.
SPEAKER_06She was beautiful, yeah. She was actually one of my first crushes. Yeah, it comes. Beautiful. Look at that, Jess. We learned stuff about you. Black women, no, I'm joking. I'm joking.
SPEAKER_02No, but she was beautiful.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, she was. Um, guy, we had uh Guy Tori on a little bit ago, and he was talking about uh him and uh Alex Thompson, we're talking about people surviving in comedy, and one of the points he brought up was how it's not that people have just fallen off or women have just stopped comedy, but one of the reasons was the harassment that women have to go through just to get stage time and having to um being presented but having to be slept with in order to get that sort of thing going. My question to you is do you feel like the harassment that female comedians receive, do you feel like uh it lessens as your respect is gained as you move up? Because people are like, yo, as opposed to being somebody new, and they're like, okay, well let's take advantage of her because she don't really know the ropes. But if you're already respected and established, is it is it different?
SPEAKER_03That's a good question. Um, you know what I would say? Uh sometimes I think I'm just not fine because ain't nobody ever asked me to sleep with them for some stage time. Like, God damn, man, I'm not hot enough for this game. Like, I like I'm I Louis Louis C.K. watched my set and in at the cellar. He actually was bumped me. Like he was like, and he was gonna, he was gonna go after me. And when he saw that I I got happy because he told Este, I'll go up after her. And then I got happy, he saw, he was like, nah, I'm gonna go in front of her, and then I'm gonna watch her set, right? So I go, I do the show, and then I I realized he's not in the audience, and I'm like going off on him. I'm like, this asshole did this. But when I turn the walk out the cellar, he's on the steps. Because he was like, if I would have been inside there, they would have just, they wouldn't leave me alone. And I was trying to listen to the set. So we went upstairs, he gave me notes. And it was all very, you know, it was all very casual, whatever. So when, you know, we're comedians, but we can't, we're not afforded a joke. Some when the somebody from the Hollywood reporter asked me, like, whatever, and I was like, I guess I ain't his type, because he he just gave me notes about my set.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But um, it and so, and then they wrote pieces about me and about how I'm a rape apologist, which it's really crazy about because I said, I said, he gonna come back. He never gonna leave. Like, people just act like they don't know that this business is what it is. Now everybody's like, oh my God, we're disappearing. Y'all better stop acting like that shit ain't been the status quo. Like, get out my face with this foolishness that because they made three black shows during George Floyd, that things just changed so drastically. We always been out here fighting for our lives. I D H D be kicking my ass. All right, so let me go back to the question. The question is: do I feel I have gotten more respect? I think a pervert is gonna be a pervert regardless of who it is. And you could be the most uh decorated woman in comedy. He's gonna be like, she got some good titties. I don't think we should have to earn our respect. I don't think black people should have to earn their respect from white people. But when, you know, they'll come up to us and be like, you're smart. And you're like, most of us are the dummies are in the minority. It's not the other way around. Right. It's just like, I don't think, you know, um, I don't think we should have to be uh anything other than funny for our humanity to be respected. But I will say that people who don't respect your humanity, it doesn't matter what you do, they won't.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. So okay, so that's a great transition for me to ask. Um one of your uh I don't want to, I don't know if uh you tell me if it's a mentor or not, is Paul Mooney. Um and I I remember whenever I found this out, everything was clear. It was like the resounding voice, because uh, you know, my my mentor is Don DC Curry, and I just remember that that yeah, that that that cut of of a generation, they feel a very specific way, they understood the business in a very specific way. What was it like working with him and having uh him and still so much in you?
SPEAKER_03You know, um, so the thing is with Paul Mooney, Paul Mooney was so funny and off that stage. He was so unapologetically himself. He was also very angry, and I identified with that anger because when I came in the game, I was very angry, and I felt like I had to wear that as a weapon to get keep men off me. Like I had to be like, I'm one of the boys, right? And so uh I learned what I learned from him was that I always wanted comedy to be a joyful experience for me because I don't want to be committed, because it would feel like bondage to be you know trapped by this art that I love so much, but feel miserable while doing it. Right. And so I I remember opening for him in Sacramento, and he sat on the stage and sucked on lemons, and then he would just spit spit the seeds out, and wherever they landed, they landed. I was in awe of him. Like he could do no wrong. And I was like, I wonder how I should sit and spit my seeds. Like I like because I would I was still developing and thinking what I was doing my best impression of what I thought a comedian should be as I was developing. And I was just sitting there and then I was like, oh, he's not happy. And they they exploited him so much in this business and overlooked him because he was actually ahead of the game. You know, he was saying things that other people were afraid to say.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_03And instead of people rallying behind him, is what they they do that to me sometimes. They'd be like, girl, you be telling the truth. But then I be running on that, and then I look, and I'm the only one running. Everybody be like, Yeah, we're gonna tell the truth by yourself. Because nobody, everybody's scared. And what I saw with him was a sadness that that made me change in comedy, that I was like, I don't, I don't want to be sad doing this, and because I love it, and I know that he loved it too. But what I did learn was that that you own the stage and you own the room the moment you sit on it or stand, and that it belongs to you. You're the navigator, the captain, and you take it wherever you want to go. Right, right. Because I've never seen so many people get up and leave for a show.
SPEAKER_08Wow.
SPEAKER_03But it was, but then the lady at the punchline said, white people do this all the time. They know exactly who Paul Mooney is, they come to his shows, they pay for the tickets, and they get up and walk out. And it's like this is just part of the experience. They're like, we they're now counting how many people gonna leave. They're like, oh, it was 15 and the Thursday show. Watch, let's see. And I was like, it just became part of the sport with Paul Mooney. They come to intentionally get offended. But what I learned was that I don't ever want to not be joyful doing stand-up because I really love it, and I'm not gonna let a machine, the industry, other comics tell me that it has to be a bad experience for me.
SPEAKER_06Y'all been asking how can y'all support killing it? Well, we got an answer for you. We got one. Cash app.
SPEAKER_08Boom.
SPEAKER_06We just like every other money. The money symbol, killing it pod, is where you can donate. We are independently produced right now.
SPEAKER_07Y'all be asking about a Patreon. You don't even have to, this ain't even much of money.
SPEAKER_06Just go and put something in there right now. Mr. Mooney, uh, why were you so upset with Hollywood? Boy, people, they scare me.
SPEAKER_08No, it's the truth. Open your eyes. They thought they were coming to see Ricky Mooney. I had a chance to work with Paul, man, a couple times. Uh, I remember I was at the, I forgot, uh Lin, wasn't uh not Neil, I think it was. Um, she gave me a caution to say, hey politic. I used to do this little Paul bit. And um, that was my way of low-key telling my truth was through Paul. The stuff I wanted to say about, you know, white people and race. I can't stand racism. I think racism is such an insecurity that is beyond me. But anyway.
SPEAKER_02Brilliant.
SPEAKER_08So I would use my Paul Mooney to get my my point of my point across. But I had a chance to sit next to him, and this is when he was a little older and everything. And we sat next to each other, which is one of those pictures I just I'm glad if someone caught it. And uh, but he did give give me a lot of give me a lot of game and just really I'm right here, a real quick Paul Mooney story. Um I got called to uh do a spot with him in Oakland. And um, again, this is when he's a little older, so it was just a little fun thing for me to do with them for them. And so um at the end of the s at the end of my set, we're both just on in backstage somewhere. And um, and I'm just really humbled by I said, man, I and I was just asking just uh out of reverence, hey man, is anything I can get give for you? Can I get you anything? Your ring. I said, What? Your ring, you asked me if I want anything. I want you your ring. Take it off. And I remember I had a n a nice little two-ring like this, and I gave it to him. And I said, Man, it it it it it you know, it's nice. It fits. And I just was waiting, I was like, wait for the and I was like, man, I don't think he's taking it off. And then I talked to his manager, I said, Does he does he want to keep it? He said, Yeah, he probably wants to keep it. I said, Cool. Oh, nigga, I don't want a ring. I just took it off and we had a little laugh and all the little things. But I gave him his ring. But anyway, he's uh he's such a respected. And like you said, I think a lot of people didn't realize, uh, at least at the time. But when you think about it, a lot of the greats are like that anyway. When you when when Ollie was popping off, you know, and uh when when Caps was saying, I'm the best, I'm the greatest. Now, after the fact, people were like, oh man, he but at the time, to go to go against the grain like that, yeah, is uh, you know, is is not easy to do. But so with you, and you let's go back a little bit. So what even how did you even get to LA? What what was the thing that said, okay, you know what? I'm about to move to LA and do this comedy, or if it was comedy, I don't know if it was comedy, but what was the thing that said, okay, because I'm always very um I uh it's always very um salutable for you guys that come to I'm from here, obviously, but when you guys decide I'm about to leave whatever might be comfortable at home and just go and then actually stay here and be here. Right, right. What was that transition of saying I'm about to go out here and and do this thing?
SPEAKER_03So I uh I always wanted to be a star, right? My and that was something they used to shame me for when I growing up in the hood. People, I want to be a doctor, I want to be a d because uh, you know, I also I'm in a black, only exclusively black and brown community. I didn't grow up around any white people. There was my community was exclusively black and brown. And in Miami, I grew up in Alapata. Like the only white people at our schools were the teachers. I think we maybe had one white, one white student, maybe, like, so we didn't grow up with that reality. I had to leave there to be around white people, right? Like, because in St. Petersburg it's different, but Miami is an immigrant community, so I grew up with Jamaicans, Bahamians, Haitians, but white people, people were scared to go to our school. So the so you you sitting around people whose parents migrated here or are, you know, second generation uh college graduate, black students where their parents are like, You're gonna be a doctor, you're gonna be a lawyer.
SPEAKER_02And I'm like, I wanna be a star.
SPEAKER_03If you don't sit your ass down somewhere like you said, you committed to the struggle for lifetime, is what you're saying.
SPEAKER_08How now how was this? Little.
SPEAKER_03I started I never wanted to be anything else. Uh and I I tried to do it. I went to school. I was, I I tried genetic engineering as a major. I wanted to go to law school. I tried all of it. I mean, uh in my head, I was like, I'm gonna do what everybody else is telling me I should do. You're a hilarious lawyer. I know. I probably would have just got kicked out of the courts, arrested for contempt. Because there's no way I would have been, I would have followed directions. So I I uh I wanted to be an actor. And so I was starting writing, I've been writing, it's so timey, because the very first script I ever wrote in my life was a script that I wrote for myself as a movie where I was a girl named Nakia and I married Michael Jackson.
SPEAKER_05That was my very first script.
SPEAKER_03Because it it was it was the very script that I wrote, and I remember writing the names in parentheses and then the dialogue, because I didn't know structure. So for me, it was like this your part. You know, we we playing it in the in in uh you know, in the neighborhood. I'm like, listen, you playing Michael, so you need to, these are your words, you know. So in my head, so uh I wrote a script and I submitted it to the Sundance Writers Lab for the film festival competition, right? Wow. And it made it to like the next round, right? And when it made it to the next round, I booked the tickets. I say, I'm gonna be a star.
SPEAKER_02I'm moving to LA and I'm gonna make it.
SPEAKER_03And I moved, uh I got an agent, Holly Davis Carter was my first agent at Agency West. I got an agent like quick. Um, and I booked an independent movie, and then and then it's always happens, like, you know, like you you think you get a job and you like, it's on, and then it ain't on. And then cut to your day job, and you're like, I moved to this, bitch, the cost of living is high. And I had kids, I have my two kids. But I always wanted to do the entertainment business. When I was little, I wanted to be a comedian, and they they beat it out of me because they were like, girls, don't do that. In my culture, that's not a feminine thing. Nobody's gonna want to marry you. And so uh they were like, no, because I used to love Lucy and I love Richard Pryor when I was little, and I didn't even I remember listening to his jokes, not understanding what he really was saying, but I knew it was funny. Like I that the I remember the bit about the dog getting high with the dog, right? And thinking, like, just laughing and my and getting in trouble for it. Like, what you know about that? Like, why are you laughing at this? There's not for no little girls to be laughing at. You, you know, just a little fast ass, all of that in Spanish. But I just I was like, I just knew the joy that I felt from Richard Pryor, because I love, love, love, love Richard Pryor. And then um, they just bit it, beat it out of me. So I tried to express it in different ways. That's why I became a model, because modeling came to me. I didn't go out seeking to be a model. An agent approached my mom and was like, she's tall, she's she's ethnically ambiguous. And my mom was like, she knows, she's Puerto Rican. We don't do that here. But so that I had to eventually find my way. The way I ended up doing stand-up comedy, though, is I I was always talking and they said you need to go do the foxhole. So I go do Speedy Show. Oh, with Jamie and them? Yeah. This was on on Sunset. Okay, gotta go on Sunset.
SPEAKER_06So what year was this?
SPEAKER_03This was this like 2006, 2000. So then I uh I have a friend uh named Leah that's friends with Chris Spencer. They went to college together. She has a birthday party and she says, Hey, I want you to roast me. And I was like, Roast you? Like, why? She's like, because you you funny to me. So me and Chris Spencer do her roast. Oh, wow. And after the roast, Chris said, Come here. He said, I want you to go do an open mic. He said, I think you're a comedian. He said, I know you want to be an actress. You can be an actress too. He said, But I know a stand-up comic when I see one. Wow. So he said, go to the Westwood Brewing Company, try it. If you don't like it, you don't have to do it again. But he said, please do me the favor and go do it. Because I know, I know that, I know what I'm talking about. And so I went and did it. And then I never, and then I did it, I never stopped doing it. I just kept going back. And then I did uh I did a show with Speedy in Arizona, my very first show. I got paid $500 for it. Little did I know that I would never get paid again until Barack Obama became the president.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_03I went and did this thing and it and I got a standing ovation because we did a church show. You know, church people, if you're funny, they gonna show you love.
SPEAKER_07That was so funny.
SPEAKER_03I had never done stand-up before. I'm I'm Thelma from Good Times, Burning Dead Standards is hosting this show. I'm on a show with my hero. Like, I'm sitting here with the woman I thought was the most beautiful woman I ever saw on television. I'm doing this show. I get a standing ovation. I'm like, I'm a stand-up comedian, right? So then I go do Chocolate Sunday's first impression. Lord have mercy. That's the day you learn, right? I uh Pookie's like uh Leah, the lady whose birthday we roasted, she's her and Pookie were really good friends, right? See, they like put her on. It's Labor Day, right? They're like, put her on the stage, put her on the stage. You know, Labor Day, chocolate Sundays. It's packed in there. It's packed. And that's chocolate sundays. It wasn't milk chocolate like now. It was chocolate chocolate. It was before all the white people were like, what they doing over there, you know? So I'm on the stage and I start doing well, right? And I see Pookie in my vision. And I was because Pookie was like, she's not ready. She's not ready for this. And Leah and them arguing with him, they're like, she is ready. Teka, put her on, put her on, stop doing women like that. He's like, she's not ready. He said, All right. He puts me on the stage the first few seconds, killing it, right? Then I see Pookie and I say, I told you, motherfucker. And from that point on, I proceeded to eat the biggest penis known to man on that stage. I just died for the it was like, you know how two minutes, you know, as comedians, two minutes can feel like eight hours. You I was just sweating. That audience was like, get her ass off this stage.
SPEAKER_02It was brutal.
SPEAKER_03And then when I got off the stage, I said, Oh, I'm committed for life. I gotta figure this out. How do I crack this nut? Like, I want to do this. That was the bomb is what solidifies.
SPEAKER_07I tell I tell comics uh that are like about to do it or consider it, I said, listen, only four things happen. You go on stage, you kill, and you say, I never need to do that again. I knew I was hilarious. Or you go on stage and you kill, you say, Oh my god, that was such a rush, I have to do it again. Or you go on stage and you bomb and you say, That was the worst shit ever. I'll never do it again. Or you go on stage and you bomb, you say, Oh, I'm gonna figure this out. Yeah. That was a rush, it just didn't go right this time, but they they got me fucked up.
SPEAKER_03You should write a comedy book. That's really profound. That's right. That speaks to all of our experience.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, it it that it's the only, it's the only one. I mean, you've taught me, you've taught me stuff, and I don't even know if you know. I don't know if it's for a month or for a week, but you would do this thing where you would scrap all your material and not even scrap it, like you'd just shelve it, and you would just purge on stage and just kind of just kind of talk. And and I I remember I see you at Crack Em Up or I see you at a spot, and I'd be like, and I it'd be like three or four spots I see you. I was like, Well, you haven't said nothing. Done and he was like, I'm just no, I'm this. Like flush, it's like a flush month. Like she won't write any materials. Like, no, I'm just gonna see what happens for for a month.
SPEAKER_08Which is great, because I this is one of my um this is kind of the space I've been in been talking to a couple cats about this process, which is what's the line between purging and venting and uh getting your thoughts out and and and sitting in the silence and also being funny. Like for example, I remember um I saw Dion, you know, he's working out, I saw him at the improv. Shout out to him, shout out to Ocean and um Mr. Byron Allen. And so I remember Byron Allen Allen was talking to Dion, I was just like, man, the the genius in your and how you work is the fact that you're able to sit in this in you know sit in the silence. So my question to that is what exactly does that mean as far as you because we can because uh lots of comics get on stage and let's say that okay, for example, a young comic gets on stage and they get a lot of silence. Right. But they talking. Right, right. So what's the difference between that and like what you and the Dion would do as far as sitting in silence, finding the material. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_07Like you laughed. Ida.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.
SPEAKER_07I uh I I I remember I told you like I I you was you was doing the day, and I was like, bro, you're you're in the right spot. I was like, I used to do this all the time. She would like purge through. So yeah.
SPEAKER_03Oh first of all, I want to always give credit where it is due. Jeff Garcia, God bless his soul, was the one that told me to do that. He was like, I already know you have a point of view. He was like, I know you're smart. He was like, and I know you have something to say. He said, But I need you to relax on stage and be able to just have a conversation with the audience. And you're not gonna have a conversation with the audience with your material because you've memorized it and now you're robotic. He was like, So I want you to start practicing having a conversation, making the mundane funny. He told me that. He was like, I want you to be able to make an observation about your day and make it funny. That's how you learn to write, right? You're a showman when you're on every time I I uh uh London used to get on my nerves because he always was so polished on stage, right? Like he always looked like he had it prepared. I could see him tormenting himself before he went on stage, like you gotta leave him alone because he's he's in that flow. It's all f it's it it the your your process includes every part of your body. And I've struggled with physicality because I'm a woman, I didn't want anybody objectifying me, so I would just stand up straight on stage because the minute you start, I don't want nobody to think I'm fine on stage.
SPEAKER_05Right, right, right.
SPEAKER_03Like people, some women need that. They need validation. They half naked, like, look at my ass. I got titties, which is fine. I I celebrate every woman and everyone. I've been objectified since I was a very little girl. I got sexually abused. So somebody thought I was pretty when I was four, and that's weird and creepy. So I have that trauma. So when I go on stage, I'm like, I don't need nobody to think I'm fine. I want them to think I'm funny, right? And I want them to know I'm smart. Like, that's so important to me because that's my wound, and that's not to diss anybody else's wound. But I don't, I don't need that. Right. I look at this one and this one, because you know, y'all not, y'all don't look like the comedians that we grew up watching.
SPEAKER_02Y'all not bitches. I know y'all. Like, I know you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_03Like, I know this world is different because y'all have man clubs and women that are like such and such.
SPEAKER_08It's a very different shut up.
SPEAKER_03It's a very different reality. But you, every ounce of your body, so I understand how, because you, it's the show. But I have an athlete's mentality because I was with a professional athlete for so long. So open mics for me is practice. So that's where I would do it, right? Now I'm going on stage to do a show. That's the game. Right. And the and the special is the Super Bowl, right? So that's how I think about it. So when I am in practice, that's where I'm gonna run the route the different way. That's when I'm a I'm a I'm practicing so I can catch the ball with my hands and not my chest, right? Like I grew up in in such a football culture that I applied that, because I I respect athletes so much that I applied that to my comedy. So when I go do these open mics, which because I know, I know, I don't know when you would be there. Anytime I had a special, be the night before I taped, I would go to Marty's. And people would be like, What you doing here? I'm like, I am amongst my peers. Because I remember my ex was a wide receiver and he was like, I don't care what anybody says about me. I need my teammates and the other players in the league to know that I'm bad. Like, and so for me, it was like nobody's gonna sharpen this because you will pull me to the side and say, Here's a tag, or say, Yeah, I don't think you should say this like that. I would always I'm always gonna do open mics, right? So for me, it's like that's where that came from. Like in practice, I'm gonna talk about my day and do all that shit. But I'm not gonna do that on the city. Right, not when it comes to it.
SPEAKER_06No, absolutely not.
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_06Nice. Well, um, go ahead. I feel like I ain't asked shit. Somebody, somebody out there go care that I ain't asked no questions. Trust me, I get it all. I don't right. Why let it don't be saying nothing? I'm like, do Paul Mooney. Um, this one I wanted to ask. I had two questions. One, did you feel like you saw um or who was some like uh Latino, Latina representation that you saw as a child, if any?
SPEAKER_03Well, there was a comedian that we used to listen to in Spanish. His name was Alvarejede. He was like the first, he was like the Richard Pryor of Latinos in Spanish language. Like and and I say that loosely because Richard Pryor is just too grand to ever make there it there will never be another. But um he we used to listen to him, but he was a man, and that was where that whole thing came from. This is a masculine thing. So for me, it's never been uh it's always been. I just I remember seeing this comedian named Chocolate on Chocolate Hall. She was so beautiful, and it but she was funny, right? She's hilarious. And I was like, oh, she's high, she's you you forget she's beautiful because she's funny. But for me, it's always been Richard Pryor, George Carlin, you know. Um Lucy was funny to me. Like I was like, she was physically funny and pretty, and I was like, how do we master that? Um, but it it's never, it's always been black comedians that really shut that's where I grew up, my community, they were speaking my language, and I couldn't relate to any of the other ones. And the ones that were successful in Spanish were more slapsticky. And that was in my that was to me, I was like, what are they doing? Because I was already fully immersed into American culture. I was just like, I couldn't relate to I never I'm tall, so I was was worried about looking goofy. And I that's really bad.
SPEAKER_06And then my second part to that is like so Puerto Rican, because I I'm ignorant when it comes to this, is that considered Latina or Hispanic? Or is it Latino?
SPEAKER_03Uh well it depends on how people want to identify. Hispanic is people who speak Spanish, like and Latinos are people that are from the countries that are of of Latin origin. Um now we've evolved to the pa place where like some of us don't want to identify as either, because they are both colonial terms. So like even the because the b it erases like the black people of Latin America, so now they're calling themselves Afro-Puerto Rican, Afro-Argentinian, Afro-Aqu Ecuadorian to make sure that they claim their blackness. And then there's everybody else who wants to be white and will never be white, they will never accept you.
SPEAKER_06Okay, hold on, hold on. I wanted to get in some of these. So that gets me to my next question, which is how because you do a lot of political comment commentary, uh, which is great. Do you feel man? Okay, do you feel like your political commentary has hindered you in any way?
SPEAKER_03Sometimes. I think, yeah, I know it has because I don't work a certain club because the the booker said I think she's funny, but I don't like her political her political views, which is, you know, fine with me, because if you don't like my political views, that means that you have a problem that I stand up for black and brownness. Like if you don't see me in my full humanity, because you could disagree with another white guy who doesn't have the same political views, and it's not a problem for you. But if it's coming from me, then that's because you're that's the racist in you. That's just who you are. Um Sure. I do think that it has hindered me. I also think that people are racist and they don't think they're racist because they hang out with black and brown people. People are racist and don't think they're racist because they're married to black and brown people or have black and brown children and they don't they don't check their own unconscious bias. If you I have had people say, This, I don't want to hear this from you. Where are the jokes? But then you go to their page and their favorite comedian is George Carlin. And not that I'm comparing myself to George Carlin, because I don't need to be George Carlin because I'm Aidat Rodriguez, but I will say, and George Carlin is my hero, like right, one of my heroes. But it's just you don't want to hear it from me. And so, yes, I do think it has hindered me. And I think it's obvious because even people have told me such and such won't book you on their show because they don't they got a problem with you. And and I'm like, I don't need to be in those spaces because it's never hindered me from having what I need to have.
SPEAKER_07I I want to ask the the flip of that also, because I'm if I haven't told you this before, I'm shocked. But uh your voice is so necessary. So, you know, there's this world where comics are supposed to attack things that happen in the world or so on and so forth. And I'm not committed to that. I think some people are supposed to be focused on funny, some people are you do you do fart jokes, you do you the best fart joker, you do this, you do that, and and and if you it has to have a a lot of things have to happen for your voice to have your voice. You have to be as smart as you are, you have to come up in the world that you came up in and have the influences that build you to this place. Because I have told people, like, with people ask me political questions, I say, Well, what I just said. Whatever she said, I agree with her. I don't even I don't even need to know.
SPEAKER_03Sometimes I'd be wrong.
SPEAKER_07I I'd be wrong with you. That's a good friend, right there. I feel like that should be like the the position sometimes is like you get asked these questions and now you just you don't have enough information, you haven't read, you haven't researched. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. I I trust whatever she said. I I'm always in line with her. Do you feel that? And and in essence of feeling that, like, like, do you feel how necessary your voice is when you're in these space, whether it be Young Turks or the Breakfast Club or any of these places where where they have you speak up?
SPEAKER_03You know, I never uh, first of all, thank you. Uh that's called integrity, what you have, is saying, I don't know this, so I'm not gonna talk about this. Whereas people on the internet are filling spaces with information and they don't know what the hell they're talking about, right? All these patriots, and you say, say, what's the preamble? They don't even know what that is. What's the con the Eighth Amendment in the Constitution? They don't know, but they're patriots, right? There's a whole bunch of people just giving out bad information. Um, you know, I I don't know if I feel like my voice is necessary. I will tell you this. I am the mother of two black children, and I I present diff differently than they do. You've seen my kids before. My kids, no people, some people don't know their mix, they look at them. There is no way I would not use my privilege to speak on up on behalf of the two people that I love the most on the planet. And that's just point blank. And it's not people are like, well, you should just do that because of uh anyway. Of course I do it anyway. I come from a black grandmother, right? When I would walk down the street with my grandmother, people didn't know she was Puerto Rican until she opened her mouth.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_03Black uncles, you know, that present black, black, like because you know I claim my blackness, but I also have this privilege of looking the way that I look. So I'm not gonna try to pretend that when people see me, they see Florida Evans, because that's not the same reality, and we have to stop playing that game. But um, you know, it's just who I am, and every time I try to be something I'm not, it doesn't work. So I just was like, just be yourself, and it's okay. It's okay. I'm never gonna be silly because it's not who I am. And this is, you know, where I give you your flowers. You I used to get you used to get on my nerves sometimes because your commitment to the physicality was the commitment level. I was never gonna accomplish that. And he would tell you, I would be like, he gets on my nerves. Like, how can he get up that high off the ground? Like, you remember he was crumping? And I was like, he is flying right now. Like, this is Bruce Lee type shit. And for me, I was like, it was jealousy because I was like, I can't, I don't feel like I can do that. And it doesn't, it isn't received. I would just laugh and be like, that is so annoying. Showman, right? Uh London looked like he'd been on television since he was three. Right?
SPEAKER_02He always, he would always show up with outfit coordinated. It was like the Michael Jackson show.
SPEAKER_06You know, it was Johnny Shoes. Jonathan Shoes.
SPEAKER_03No, but it's always been like that. Then you, you, first of all, you are always an arbiter of joy, right?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_03You when you see BT on stage, you know you're gonna feel good, you're gonna be happy. You know, and I'm like, that is something that, though everybody has their gifts. And so I always want to give people their flowers because I love comedy so much. I love the spectrum and how everybody shows up. Bro, when I'm feeling down, I don't want to watch a me doing stand-up. I want to go see Tony Roberts because he makes me happy. Right. Right? Like he just makes me like, I'm like, I don't, I leave there like, I don't know what it's like, you just drink wine or you just you just need a happy. Yeah, there's a there's a spectrum. And for us, there's always this idea that we gotta be one thing or the other. We can't have the whereas with white people, there's Carrot Top and there's Bill Bird, who's my favorite comedian, and then everything in between. You know what I mean? Like, and then you're like, oh, snap. Like, but we don't have that. For me, I don't have to compete with the other women in comedy. I love that Ambria exists, that Takara exists, that Zainab exists, that Chloe exists. Yamonika, I think, is one of the funniest comedians that ever walked the planet, right? Right. She has not been given her proper flowers, but she is undeniably one of the funniest people, right?
SPEAKER_06Well, I DM'd her show, and she ain't open it. Yamonika, we look at you, Yamonika. She probably ain't looking to see it.
SPEAKER_03But yeah, she's she's but but but you know, you just like I that doesn't make me feel inferior as a comic. I'm I'm I mean, I took Yamanika, my they ready set, and I was like, can you help me with this? And she tagged one of my jokes that now is one of the funniest jokes, you know, like because she's brilliant. But to me, it's like that's what makes it beautiful that we have this spectrum of comedy. And, you know, like I get to be friends with, like, Vanessa Gradik is hilarious. She's a baby. You know, we have had conversations at Murderous Pussy? One of the greatest jokes ever. You're quoting it. That's what I'm talking about. I feel uh honored to be a president in a timeline with people. Like, I love our classic comedy.
SPEAKER_05I love our clayton.
SPEAKER_03You know what I mean? Clayton, Bongerin. Those are my two closest. I was, I was, we we used to be city high of comedy. But I didn't I didn't sleep with them. But but let's stipulate. But it was just like just to be in concert with some of the brilliant most brilliant minds that you think, you know, talking about what's happening in the world has always been my privilege.
SPEAKER_07So so when, okay, you have this energy, you have this excitement, you love this art form, and then the opportunity, like they ready, shows up. How when when Tiff Tiff gets the light on her and she makes sure, no, no, no, no, no. There's it's funny because in our generation, it's like, hey, y'all, oh, cool, y'all see me now. Did y'all know? Like, did like this thing happens. What uh what is the what is the feeling like going in and what is the on the out on the outset what happens as far as like just the industry and the heat and because you was the standout. Not only on the show, you were one of the standout and amazing.
SPEAKER_03I appreciate that. Um, you know it's funny, there was a there's a comedian that we all know whose name shall not be who's trying to pit us again. This one was funnier than the other one. This one, I'm like, this is the reason why we can't have nice things. The the uh the point of uh they ready was to showcase people who she thought were funny that were close to her. I first of all I didn't think Tiffany was gonna do it that fast because when she called me to tell me, she called me first to tell me I'm I'm gonna do this. And I'm like, yo, you just blew up. I'm on the phone with Tiffany on a Thursday before uh Girls Trip comes out, and she's like, I bitch gotta get a job. Like it's oh, you know, like blah blah blah. Monday, she's in Variety Magazine. Tiffany Haddish is the funniest person on the planet, blast off, right? So then it a couple of months after that, she goes, Yeah, I think I'm gonna do this Netflix special, but I wanna, I wanna do this. And I'm like, You just this this is your moment. She's like, nah, forget all that. I'm gonna do this. And when she when they called, she's she took me to Bakersfield with her to open for her. She was like, I want you to work on your set. Like, I want you to, I want to see your set. And um, I was like, She's really serious about this. I remember us having a conversation, she was like, Who uh thinking about the people that the other people that she was gonna put on? And um, and it was just amazing to actually do that. So now there's double pressure. There's pressure for this is my first half hour show, but the other thing is I can't let my friend down. Right, right, right. Because she took a pay cut, she's talking big smack about us, and we're getting paid more than anybody's ever gotten paid for a half-hour special on Netflix. Absolutely. And so she's like, I want her to get paid like the white men are getting paid. So it was a lot of pressure, and I took it seriously because I had to honor the fact that my friend put her name on the line for me, and that was a big deal for me. I couldn't, I couldn't disrespect that. So I remember up until the day before I taped Wanda Sykes, because Wanda Sykes was one of the EPs, went to flappers with me. She went to um the we would the D-Ray show, which is petrifying at the time to run the set, gave me notes uh the night the night before that I had to make some adjustments. Um so it was it was a big deal for me because it was somebody who said, I believe in you, and I'm gonna put my name on the line for you.
SPEAKER_07Now it the show happens and it comes out. What is the after effect after that? Because it it feels like uh I talked to CP about it. He's like, it's feels like you be in the business and you working, you working, you're working, and fun, hey, you. You be like, You working, you working with her. Oh, oh me. Oh, y'all see me now. And you've been here, been hilarious, been super talented to hold the whole time. What is what does it feel like on the post of it?
SPEAKER_03Uh it was surreal. Um, first of all, you know, like I've been I all had put myself into the belief that one set does not a comic make. So I would always be like, that's just another set. No, you know, I left they ready. The next day I was I was back on the grind just to do stand-up because I was like, don't let none of this stuff fool you into believing this ain't comedy, it's about the sum total of the of the sets, not one.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_03Because if you only got one hot set, then what are you doing? Right? So, and I think my best set happened if my life happened uh in New Jersey last week and nobody recorded it. People who were supposed to be recording it did not record it. That was the the most fluid I've ever felt on stage, and I felt like I am now have now arrived. Um, but it was uh it was surreal. I got a lot of attention. I did The Breakfast Club that interviewed, also got a I mean, I I've been on the Breakfast Club like five or six times. But it was um, it was surreal because what it did was help elevate uh my touring. And that for us, that's what it is. How do you know, because that's that's the income. That's the weekly income. They could see there were other articles about you and you'd be homebroke. So um it was great. It was it was beautiful, it created a way for me. I re I honored it by saying, now I gotta go do the work to make sure that that this vouch is always gonna be worth worth worth the while. Like, I've that's why I was like, I cannot hang on Tiffany's coattail. I'm not gonna become, you know, I'm not gonna just be dragging on her, like, because I I have to now go do my own thing because she made lemonade with what Kevin did for her, and so on and so forth. So I was like, I gotta make sure that it's always in the back of my head. She put her name on the line for me, and I'm I'm never gonna be, they ain't never gonna be like, I saw Ida drunk on stage and that bitch was talking about some bullshit. And it just always it's always there. Uh, but it was great. It was a it was attention, but I just knew it's gonna die down. Don't let this self fool you. You I got celebrities in my DMs. Let's go to lunch. And I'm like, this bitch has seen me 18 times. He never asked me for a meal. No. So I just I just knew better. Um, and then I was like, I gotta work on my next set. I started working on my my next set the the day after they ready.
SPEAKER_08With um with you seem you seeming to be very aware of being conscious of knowing that the work doesn't stop. So if you had to spend a day with your past self or future self, which would you do and why?
SPEAKER_03Um, I think we I think I will go back to the past and give myself some grace. Cause I I was going on stage, and the reason why I know y'all is because we were all going up on stage. We were at the comedy union. We were on stage every day. And and I think my my uh my family life, not my personal life, suffered because I remember being on stage on Thanksgiving at Cobbs in San Francisco. Right. Right? Like I just, I was just like, I I gotta, I they gotta know I'm a real comic. Like I can't, I cannot come in this game trying to cute my way through this because this is not what this is about. But I think I would give myself some grace and I would go back and just take in some of the moments because I never, I don't ever, I don't ever let any of this stuff fool me into thinking that is more than what it is. I just be like, you did a good set? Bye. It's like uh when King Joffrey and Coming to America walked into the barber shop. He was like, I am King Joffrey. And they're like, hey, take a seat. You're like, hey, like, yeah, it's some people in front of you. You're gonna pick up all these damn flowers. Exactly. That was how I I treated myself because I was like, you can never fool yourself. I never comedy should never be about celebrity because celebrity ruins comedy to me. Comedy is the artist's most purest form of relatability relatability to its audience. And so the further away you get from that, the more you flex on your audience and you try to remind them and you become a celebrity, even though they worship you, they're no longer respecting you as an artist because there's nothing that you're saying that resonates with them on that level. And this is my opinion. Because I see these celebrity comedians, you know, and the the audience is like they're just in awe of you, but that's why Michael Jackson was the way Michael Jackson was. He was like, I did, I'm gonna give them thriller. You know, like it was not uh off the wall was yeah, but I'm gonna continue. I now you some people just bask in their celebrities so much they go on stage and they just be talking that bullshit to the audience. But they're not creating art that is it that makes people inspired. Like, you know, I don't so for me it's always been like, what you gonna do next?
SPEAKER_06Are you did you produce a movie called Hurricane? What is it, Hurricane season?
SPEAKER_03I did produce it. I was in it, um, and it was they my management was like she gotta be a producer. But um I uh I just did this movie and it was very sweet because that's what I moved here for. And comedy pulled me away from acting so I took off in comedy in a way that I never had time to not act, because acting is a craft unto itself, but go to acting class, right? And respecting it, not just pulling up and thinking, I'ma do a set on stage and that's on set and I'm gonna be. So yeah, that was my first uh I was the the number one on the call sheet. That was like my first time having that experience outside of my own movie that I made.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, because that's that's all I was about to say. When when I met you I was making a film, you was you was you was making a film right at that time. Yeah. Yeah, you so you've always been in that writing a producer bag. Hold on real quick. No, I'm saying with you. I'm in a producer bag.
SPEAKER_06The the did you so you just you just acted it, you didn't actually write that particular film?
SPEAKER_03No, not when I didn't, right?
SPEAKER_06Okay, got it. All right. No, no, but but the other thing.
SPEAKER_07I like in a producer bag. So the what motivated that idea? Because stand-up comics, we we're gonna get on stage, we're gonna do comedy, we love this art form, you're out of night. But the the discipline to write films, you was casting. You was you discipline. I had to do everything. You had to do everything. I even made lunch one time.
SPEAKER_03Um I think that uh I always wanted to be an actor. That's my my first love. Um, and I just was like, they're not casting you. We not in the breakdowns as much. We just end up, we look up about just bringing something so special to a role that they're like, we we have to, it has to be London. Yeah, it has to be Justin, it has to be BT. But it's not written with us in mind, and I wanted to write stuff with us in mind. I've always wanted to do that. So I've never stopped writing films and doing short films. Like I I did like three short films at that time that were doing, you know, one of them went to the film festival circuit. I've never stopped doing it. I just never did it in the machine because the I'm 5'10. And it that they will remind you, you too tall, you too this. So I just was like, all right, well, I'm gonna write my own movie then.
SPEAKER_07So okay, so that's a this wasn't even on my paper, but now I'm thinking, because we talk about this kind of stuff all the time. So do you like where we are like today, like where the industry is going in the essence of content is king, uh a lot more independence is is happening. Do you feel like there's a uh a heavy win for you in this new environment? Or like are you exhausted from from doing it from so long?
SPEAKER_03Uh I'm not exhausted from doing it so long. I want to do it till I die. So I'm never I I don't feel exhausted. I'm tired of the bullshit from the industry.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You know, um, I think that the I love the fact that you can create content and go direct to consumer. I think that that's been uh it's created some sort of balance where people who never would get an opportunity are now getting an opportunity. It's also flooded with untalented people who just want to be famous. Because it the the and the and there's nothing wrong with just wanting to be famous, but it's framing it as if you're an artist is is disingenuous and it lacks integrity. And you could just be honest about the fact that you will try anything. You a singer, you a rapper, you an actor, you a comedian. Because what you want is people to know who you are. And it doesn't matter what art you exploit, but whichever one works out for you. Whereas we bleed for this, you know. How many, you know how many no's we've gotten and how many times we've been uh, you know, you know, we all showcase for all the same shows, and you'd be like, you you'd be you'll touch the sky moment. You'd be like, mm, that much better than me?
SPEAKER_05You'd like you all have that, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_03Like, we all have had that moment. And we would be dishonest to say that we didn't, right? Because that's just human, right? But that doesn't mean that you're hating because this person got it, but you're not. I have, I hate, I remember I went to New York one time on a Thursday, and from that Thursday to that Sunday, I hit 29 mics. Yes. And I was like, between the cellar and the stand, New York Comedy Club, and LOL, I hit 29 mics, and I was like, I'm unstoppable. And then I came and showcased for something, and they were like, nah. And I was like, bitch, like, you don't understand that I believe.
SPEAKER_08When was that, roughly?
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean, when I first started working, the cellar and the stand, and LOL was still around, had to be around 2015, 2016, around that time.
SPEAKER_07Y'all got any? Uh yeah, I got I gotta go this one. The um Netflix, they ready happens, and then what's that feel like for when you're doing Fighting Words and working with HBO? Did you see a difference between them? And for now, we flushing out, we doing all the time.
SPEAKER_03Like it is Well the the Fighting Words was um so Netflix had the option to do my hour, right? They had all the options to do everybody in date ready's hour. They weren't gonna do my hour. Um and so HBO was like, Well, we're gonna ch well, we want it. So that felt good because somebody came and got me. It was HBO also. That's a little girl on the curb waiting on her daddy to come get her. My daddy came and got me, right? And I say it uh figuratively, but also literally, because through Fighting Words, I went to actually meet my real father, which I hadn't in the documentary portion of it. Uh it felt good. It was good. It was like um so I storyboard my specials, right? Like I'm working on one right now, and um the storyboard for Fighting Words was me. It was like from the outfit that was uh that I wore that had my great great grandfather's tribe symbols, the white okay white. Those are his my great my great grandfather's symbol from his tribe. Um and then it was made by uh a designer that, you know, we the every outfit, because I went to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and had this stand-up, and there there was all of it was crafted, you know, to what I was saying, to me absolutely fighting against there being a laugh track. I wanted people to hear when they didn't laugh at the jokes, which might have hurt me a little bit because the people that are not in the audience, you know, are like could but but but what it did was it let people know what my comedy was. Like, and that's what I learned from Paul Mooney was it is okay for people not to laugh at the joke. Sometimes they're listening and they're taking it, and sometimes they don't want to laugh at it because it's uncomfortable, and sometimes they don't think it's funny. And that's okay because I want my people, right? I don't want I that was where I decided I don't want everybody. I want my people because if everybody comes, then the show is a circus, it's not a comedy show. Because now I gotta do all kinds of tricks to try to get everybody. But I want my people, right? Like I want people who read books, I want people who are critical thinkers, I want people who enjoy comedy and nuance, I want people who understand the subtext. Like that's my stand-up. And I don't want to betray myself and become something I'm not. So Fighting Words was the epitome of that. It was during George Floyd, it was during there was a hurricane happening when I shot uh Fighting Words. It was Hurricane Henry, it was the most rain that ever happened in the in the in New York. I shot in the banknote building, which is the building that my mom used to give food stamps in when I lived in New York when I was a little kid in the box. So it was it was just that's the that's the food stamp building. It wasn't a fancy structure. I was in the corner of the food stamp building, and uh people thought that it was effects behind me because they saw lightning, but that was an actual hurricane. And for me, uh it was a hundred people in the audience. That's it, because of COVID, they had to get tested. It was during all of that stuff that was happening, and I got to say the things that I wanted to say about what was happening. And so it was special because it was mine. Right. Like I I meet Chris Mikado who directed it, he did a lookbook for it. It was just like it was the art for me. It was not just a comedy special. It was But that's what makes it special though.
SPEAKER_07For me, it did. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. For for everybody, I mean, for it to exist, it it is because you're a you're a comedian, you're hilarious, and when when you choose to to it's like when uh Dave did the special not too long ago and he was just talking the one they put the like the 14-minute one. It's like no no no, still still comedic points of view, and because our way of thinking and the way that we're wired is unlike anybody else. Yeah, that's that's beautiful. Everybody, stop what you're doing right now.
SPEAKER_08Make sure you subscribe to Killin It Pie. Boom.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it was big. It was also that when I first met my father, that was the first time I met him. It wasn't a like, cut, let's do it again. It was the very and I I trusted Nadia Halgren who directed the documentary. She's the one that did Mrs. Obama's documentary. And I was like, I trusted her because she's also Puerto Rican, and a lot of people don't didn't know that. And I said, I just want me and you. I don't want a crew. And she went in there with me with the camera and she captured my all my discomfort. Like I was like, you know, I was like, you're not gonna hug me, you ain't seen me, you know, and it was all of that awkwardness. I wanted to give it to the people.
SPEAKER_07That's beautiful.
SPEAKER_06Come on, man. All right. I know you're going to be here. About to get up on out of here. We got a game that we play. All right. But I I I kind of do you still do you do you actively date or or are are you tired of the male species at this point?
SPEAKER_03No, I'm I'm not. Uh I think we have a a problem in America, but I'm not gonna say that I I I have a son. I love my son. I love my uncles, and I have friends, I love y'all. Um I do we I do think we have a problem in this country because men are socialized very harshly, and it's hard, but I yeah, I I still like them.
SPEAKER_06Well, good. Well, we got a game called Mary Screw Kill. I got you. Mary Screw Kill. I've played it before. George Lopez, Marcelo Hernandez, and Fluffly, Fluffy Gabrielle Iglesias. Y'all don't like me.
SPEAKER_08Um, we we don't know what we don't know what's on this card. We don't know. We put it in the club.
SPEAKER_02What is this? Who put these traitors?
SPEAKER_08We put it in the group.
SPEAKER_02Put it in the group.
SPEAKER_07100% does.
SPEAKER_03You know how many times I've been called a traitor? Uh Mary, first of all, Marcelo is my little brother, so that's That's gross. Um, I'm killing Gabriel. He's fluffy. I don't care. Uh I guess I would have to marry Marcelo and have a sexless marriage. And what is it?
SPEAKER_06Screw and then kill. You're killing Fluffy. So Lopez.
SPEAKER_03George Lopez, I guess, is the one I would have to screw.
SPEAKER_01Sorry, and I'm screwing.
SPEAKER_03I know, and and Mayan, then his daughter. Yeah, I think that's the only way it would go for me.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03I'm done.
SPEAKER_07Okay, there's uh I have a so I got uh what we call it. It's so hard for me to frame it this way. Kill five, keep three.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_07Kill five, keep three. So I'm gonna I'm gonna live dog.
SPEAKER_02I hate these on the internet. Like, which one of these RB uh singers gotta go? And you'll be posting that shit. That is so awful.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I uh I mean cuz because you know what? Uh when I do your top five, it feels it feels too like I'll put you on the spot.
SPEAKER_02You think you're not putting me on the spot by killing them? Well, you don't know what's coming next. Okay, go ahead.
SPEAKER_07So so you so I'ma just I'm gonna name them, I'm gonna name off eight. You get to keep three of them. So you don't know what's coming next. I'm gonna just name it, you keep a kid. Okay. This is uh comedy specials. All right. Number one. Oh, brother, this is horrible.
SPEAKER_03Sinbad brain damage. I'm keeping that. Okay, you got two left. Well, let's let can I hear all of them before I go? No, no, no, that's blind. Listen, I'm gonna keep Sinbad. Because Sinbad has mastered clean comedy in a way that's so funny, and I don't think he doesn't get the credit that he deserves. He doesn't. So I'm gonna keep it.
SPEAKER_08All right. And he's on his return. Low key for that. Uh Elephant in the Room. Patrice O'Neill.
SPEAKER_05I know.
SPEAKER_03I know how we only had two, I don't know what happens after this.
SPEAKER_08That's a bang.
SPEAKER_03That's evil.
SPEAKER_08It's clean, too.
SPEAKER_03That's one of the best comedy specials known to man.
SPEAKER_08That is clean.
SPEAKER_03I'm keeping it.
SPEAKER_07Martin, you so crazy.
SPEAKER_00I'll kill it.
SPEAKER_07Eddie Murphy delirious. I knew Eddie Murphy was coming up. You do one, yeah. And we had double four.
SPEAKER_03So do I, do I, can I just kill it and then I mean keep it and then I don't have to hear the rest? Or do you have to say that? I still gotta say the rest. Jesus Christ. The thing about Eddie Murphy is that I love Eddie Murphy. Eddie Murphy is my GOAT, right? I met him. And how they say, Don't meet your heroes. I went to Eddie Murphy's house. Eddie Murphy shared his cake with me. He is the nicest person in comedy that's famous that I've ever met. And Kevin's also been very kind to me. I the adoration that I have for Eddie Murphy and the respect, like I've watched a movie with Eddie Murphy in his home theater and cracked jokes with him. Me and Clayton, right? So the adoration that I have for him is unreal. He's he is He's my he's the Michael Jackson of comedy for me.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, too. So I mean, but would do you lead more delirious or raw?
SPEAKER_03I thought delirious was better than raw for me. That's Robert Townsend, right? That was the one we're talking about.
SPEAKER_06Robert Townsend is raw.
SPEAKER_03He did raw. He did raw. Robert Townsend is Raw is red, Delirious is purple.
SPEAKER_07Uh-uh.
SPEAKER_06No, opposite.
SPEAKER_03No, raw is purple, delirious is red.
SPEAKER_06Yep. Yeah, raw is purple, delirious is red. Yeah, raw had the sketch in the beginning. Raw is a purple, dark. No, no, I remember now.
SPEAKER_03Um I I would kill it because I don't think Eddie Murphy belongs in the category with anybody else. That's lovely.
SPEAKER_07Ellen DeGeneres or your little Queens of Comedy. Kill it. Okay, cool. Uh fighting words. Kill it.
SPEAKER_06That was the way.
SPEAKER_07Fighting words, yours.
SPEAKER_03It's my special. It's not in the in the category with those. My my my in that category hasn't come yet. That's okay.
SPEAKER_07Oh, the last one was uh Eddie Griffin Voodoo Child. Kill it. No, you kept it.
SPEAKER_03No, well then I I'm going back. No, no, no.
SPEAKER_06You didn't say it delirious. You gotta say it delirious. You gotta go say it delirious. All right, man. Hey, this is my last hold on, this is my last, last one is have you ever auditioned for the daily show? Because I feel like you would be great for the daily show.
SPEAKER_03I wasn't famous enough, is the note that we got back. It wasn't I wasn't famous enough, or yeah, they wanted somebody that was famous enough. But I just think that when it comes to Latin women in comedy, they don't expect us to have a social political point of view. Like the view itself took 20 years to put a Latin woman on that show, right? And then now they have Ana Navarro and Sonny Hostin, who are both Latinas, and they kill it. But it was like they we've never been framed. I've there's never been someone like me before, and that's not me popping my collar. Just a fact before. I had to go look to Richard Pryor and other people. Um so when my uh manager tried to get me re the most recent, I just didn't have a big enough name, especially now that they're doing the guest host, that I wasn't, I haven't, I'm not famous enough for that. I don't know if it's a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_08That's always like that. It's almost an interesting catch 2020, which is like, it's like, who's gonna be the one to see the the thing before the thing happens? Like some everyone that's famous starts someplace.
SPEAKER_07Who's gonna see it early enough to They gotta get on? Anyway, that's pretty absurd. Yeah, that's crazy.
SPEAKER_06Um let people know your soldiers.
SPEAKER_07Uh I have to I have to ask if if it can look anywhere you want it to look too. Yeah, if you can see it being anywhere you want it to look career-wise, what does it look like? Uh TV, film, specials, what what is it? What's your ideal of killing it? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, my ideal of killing it is uh Donald Glover, Issa Ray, uh Azizanzari. It's uh it's being able to do stand-up, write, create, make don do you realize Donald Glover made three of the biggest stars and not he made them, but he platformed three of the biggest stars in Hollywood. From one show. Zazi, Lakeith, and Brian. Like, that's that's what killing it is to me. I live by my mantra, as hood as I am, is it ain't no fun if the homies can't have nothing. No, it's did y'all see Michael Jackson, how lonely he was? Like, I don't ever I wanna I wanna go with my with my crew. I wanna say, hey y'all, I need y'all to pull up. I'm shooting this movie, I need you to do this. So for me, killing it is mogul-centered, like being able to create for myself, do stand-up, act, write, produce, direct, which I've been doing anyway, and having a being surrounded by equally talented peers and sometimes even more talented people, and be okay with that and say, we're building something like this that they've built here with all things comedy, being able to produce specials, which I've done and directed, but it's killing it is creating dancing with Raymond Media House, that's my company, just being a force in the business that you know that no matter what's happening in the industry, we're gonna still continue to center us. Everybody can come, everybody can come, but we're at the center of it.
SPEAKER_06Nice, nice one. Go ahead, man. Let me know your socials. What anything to look out for?
SPEAKER_03Please follow me because I'm so tired of my manager telling me that I'm not doing enough on social media. Funny A-I-D-A on Instagram, TikTok, on Facebook, which ironically I never go to, but the numbers keep going up. So thank you. Uh Ida.Rodriguez. And then YouTube is my name, Ida Rodriguez, A-I-D-A, and what else? Is there another? Oh, Threads is funny IDA.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, and check out the podcast, also, you guys.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's right. My pop I'm really bad. Um I have a book. Please buy it. It's called a HarperCollis book, legitimate kid. And then my podcast, Say What You Mean, is available everywhere. Podcasts are available. Y'all gotta come do it. I'm really bad at I'm I'm booking it now because the people that were booking it before, they don't know me. And then um also have a movie coming out called Hurricane Seasons with some amazing actors that I got to beat play with, which was really humbling for me because it worked.
SPEAKER_06He did it, baby. Come on, somebody give it up for the one and only. And that's been your host. Uh-oh. I mean, make sure y'all like, comment, and subscribe. Y'all doing a great job. We're building a uh phenomenal audience so far. Um, so we appreciate y'all uh tuning in, sharing the clips. And we've been your host, Justin Holly. London Brown, BT Kingsley. And the one and only how to read guys. We ain't shot in the money.