60PlusThePodcast
A podcast where we dive into conversations that remind us of who we are as human beings This isn't about what the guests do as a job, career, ability or skill set. its about what MAKES THEM HUMAN
60PlusThePodcast
Comedy Made To Look Easy | Episode 10 pt 1
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We bring Neko White into the studio for a raw, funny, and moving look at craft, hustle, and the choice to keep going. From a shy kid in Harlem to a comic who filmed a special with no audience, Nico shows how urgency, resilience, and community shape a career.
• starting stand-up at 14 and finding voice
• early influences from Martin Lawrence and Cat Williams
• bullying, boundaries, and backbone
• first bombs, tough crowds, and timing
• family reactions and choosing not to go to college
• road gigs, mentors, and the Donnell Rollins push
• Caroline’s lessons and being ready for the room
• albums, Marcellus, and sharpening material
• Netflix opportunity derailed by the pandemic
• creating Darkout without an audience
• chasing press, gatekeeping, and small wins
• why urgency and craft still lead the way
Warm Welcome And Riffing Chaos
SPEAKER_00Today's guest is a comedian, writer, and performer who's been sharpening his voice on stages since he was just 14 years old. Raised in Harlem and shaped by New York's comedy scene, he's built a career that blends sharp social commentary with deeply personal storytelling. You may have seen him on Netflix, Comedy Central, Stars, True TV, or Kevin Hart's LOL Network. But what really sets him apart is how intentional he approaches the craft. From traditional comedy albums to experimental specials like Darkout, he's constantly pushing himself to find new ways to connect with audiences. He's someone who's done the grind, hundreds of shows a year, while still asking bigger questions about identity, time and vulnerability, and what comedy is actually for. Please welcome to the podcast, Nico White.
SPEAKER_06Let's go. Oh man.
SPEAKER_05Wow.
SPEAKER_00How was that? How was that?
SPEAKER_05I'm teary-eyed, man. I didn't use it, I was looking around. Who the fuck is that? What is he talking about? And that's a yo, that sounds nice, don't it? That was a good one, man. That was good. And then, of course, we had, you know, the lighter melanin mess up the whole thing, nigga. Couldn't just let me have my moment. I'm over here all teary-eyed, like yo, military really did that intro for me. He don't usually put words together like that. And here you go with fucking Love Jones playing out your phone. Man, you can always count on them, boy. They never. And I knew I knew he was troubling when he walked in, just cultural appropriating and shit. Goddamn Puerto Ricans. Goddamn Puerto Ricans. Oh man. Hey, but nah, real talk, man. Thank you for that. That was that was very, very nice. Uh I, you know, comics with anything that sounds like a compliment, we feel like we don't deserve it. But thank you for that. Um, I'm honored to be here with y'all, man. Congratulations on the show. Thank you. I know Amir from um, he used to do a podcast with me, you know, and then you know they let me go. But um, yeah, man. That's a whole other story you gotta tell. Yeah, that's a whole other story. We'll get into later. But I love this guy. I'm happy to be here. And when you call when you hit me up for this, you did a lot of shit that people that I'm cool with, I don't like when they do. Don't over-explain to me when you want me to do something. Like, if I fuck with you, just be like, yo, yeah, like, hey man, I got a I got a joint, man. He did all this extra explaining bullet points.
SPEAKER_04Before you say no, it's bullet points and shit. It's like, bro, it's us, man. Keep it simple. All right, keep it simple. We good, how we doing?
SPEAKER_05But I'm I'm I'm honored by that introduction, man. Thank you very much. So I'm glad to be with y'all. It's nice to meet you two brothers, you know what I mean? Um, congrats with everything. And hey, man, however, y'all want to drive the car, I'm in it with you. So all right, bet.
SPEAKER_00Mike, do you want to start the first question or do you want me to just start off the first question?
SPEAKER_07I'll let you start because you got the heavier questions. Once you figure it out, yeah, you got the heavier, you know, something like that.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so we usually break this up into like tougher questions and then light questions. Okay. So before we did light questions and tougher questions.
SPEAKER_07Okay.
SPEAKER_00So Mike reformatted the whole thing to do the tough questions up top, and you end on a on a good note. That's fine with me. Whatever else happened to you.
SPEAKER_05So if if okay, so I just asked for one favor. If you get to ask me tough questions, I get to ask some back. Of course. Okay, back. Of course. All right, so I'll start. What's it like to kill people?
SPEAKER_00Well, I've never actually done it. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah, he's he's ex-military, by the way. Ever since I met him. Simulations? Yeah. All the radio simulations.
SPEAKER_00No, give it. I will give you guys a story, right? So we were deployed and we were doing real.
SPEAKER_05You know, this is my fault because I was only kidding when I said any of that. And only because I knew he was gonna be raided. Like, just look at this nigga. He raided. Whenever your toes point out like that from your kneecap, you ready to really dig in. Oh shit. I I love you. I was just playing with you, but you know. It actually wasn't me, it was the uh other. Hey, Amir, since we all being honest, you gotta take that hat off, man.
SPEAKER_06There you go. Yeah, Derek White in this motherfucker, man. Yeah. Talk about you got serious questions, nigga. Serious questions, man. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Hey, Sion, I'm crying.
SPEAKER_06Uh that's all I wanted to do. We can talk however you wanted. That's literally all I wanted to do.
SPEAKER_00We got two ACs on us, it's not enough. Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_03That's all I wanted to do. Today, no, let's get sentimental. Yeah. Oh, here we go.
SPEAKER_04Wait, no, I want to hear the killing story. Wait, I don't want it.
SPEAKER_05Nah, I don't want it. I was only messing around. We're gonna open that door.
SPEAKER_04Now we gotta walk through it. Nah.
SPEAKER_05Or gorge through it. Well, see, the thing is, like this, he's actually he's actually a military veteran. And my brother's ex-military, so I have a lot of respect for him for that. But he never killed anybody. This all stuff we went over in last time. We worked with it. It's just funny to know that he was about to pontificate so deeply. Oh, and now I just want to take him away from that. That's all. That's all. I really just want to just dangling in front of him, just to put it in people's minds, like you don't know who you're fucking with. Like, don't let don't let this smile and composure fool you. This is John Wick is in this.
SPEAKER_00I'm just saying. You know what's funny about that? I'm just saying. What's funny about that? Last week, a podcast on 17, they had Keanu Reeves as a guest. Oh, who's that? I'll show you when we get up there. Who's Keanu Reeves? Uh John Wick, The Matrix.
SPEAKER_05Oh, okay. I'm I'm the worst movie buff to ever exist. I've never seen The Matrix and all that stuff. So part of me world. That's my fault. Sorry, uh, Keanu.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they had him, they had him on the on the podcast. Ah, shoot.
SPEAKER_05That's dope as hell.
SPEAKER_00Who the fuck was the engineer? And why didn't they say something in the group chat?
SPEAKER_05Or let us know he's here. They just wanted to flex, be able to say they got him.
SPEAKER_00No one did. No. I definitely would have been there with pictures in the group chat.
SPEAKER_03They were the first ones to just, you know, to come across him.
Why Comedy Found A Shy Kid
SPEAKER_00Yeah, have him in the building, man. I just wanna if they want us to find out, they're gonna yell at someone. Oh shit. Um, so we're gonna start off with Damn. We're gonna start with question one. Okay. All right, Nico. So you started doing stand-up at 14.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00What were you trying to understand about the world back then? And how has comedy helped you process those same questions as an adult?
SPEAKER_05Okay, what was I trying to understand about the world back then?
SPEAKER_00Yes, when you first started comedy at 14, what were you trying to understand about the world?
SPEAKER_05That's deep. I I'll be honest with you. I'd be lying if I said I knew, right? Because I was too, I was too young to have that all figured out. You know what I'm saying? So I'm not gonna make up an answer for you. Back then, when I started, I had no idea that was ever gonna be something that I did, right? Growing up, I was um, it's I'm I'm I'm weird like this. Of like, it was you're you're you're you're you're your one self, right? But you're multiple things at the same time. Of like at home, even from the time I was a baby, I could talk way early, right? So whenever you're supposed to be able to speak, I was a little bit ahead of that, right? And ever since I could talk, I started off mimicking, right? And like if you said something around the house, I would repeat it back, right? And ever since I was really little, there was something about making people laugh that kind of stuck with me. So my mom would tell me stories like I was a baby, I was in the walker still, and I would hear what they would say around the house. I pull up to my grandfather's door and I would relay it back to him, what everybody was saying, curse words, everything. Whatever words I could understand. I wasn't missing no details. Yeah, yeah. And he was like the window right there, he would sit there, he'd feed the birds from the window, he just sit there and laugh, right? He thought it was the funniest thing ever. Now, now I I look back at that, I wasn't conscious back then, but like even that, that's a way of performing, right? So we talking, I was doing that that young as a baby. Right. So now you you take that and you go from, okay, when I got into elementary school and things like that, I was a shy kid, man. I'm not, I'm not, and when I tell people that, they're kind of like, you know, no way. But it's like, nah, yeah, I was a shy kid. I didn't I never went to pre-K or anything like that. So going straight into kindergarten, it's like, what you mean? I got I'm I'm not with my my family. And I gotta be here with you people. I don't know these stink ass adults, all these badass kids. I don't, I don't even really want to be here. But I was always able to like make people laugh. And I wasn't the class clown, never that. I was more of a smart aleck. Like, if you said something to me, I'm gonna say something back. It might, people go, damn. Like, all right. That was that was a little harsh, you know? And then that grew into when I got into like third, fourth grade, when we would write stories and things like that, I was uh I always had the story that was funny. And it got to be a thing where kids starting to asking for my stories, for me to share my stories during class when it was read-aloud time, right? So, whatever that thing was, that relationship of like doing something, getting the laugh, I really appreciated it. And it just so happened that every sitcom we watched was comedian-led. Stand-up was always on, I always noticed it. My earliest memory being I was three, my dad was watching Martin Lawrence, he was so crazy. And he was, you know, he pops, he on the couch, he asleep, one eye open and shit. So now Martin Lawrence, who kind of built my sense of humor, Martin was on stage, using that black leather that had the um like the peace symbol on it. And he was talking about, he was talking about white people. And he said, um, like, you bought us to this motherfucker. We was in Africa chilling, and then he did this act. He was like, under la, on the la under la la, on the uh-uh. I'm three years old, I'm laughing my ass off. I don't know what he's talking about. Talking about, right? I don't know what he's talking about, I don't know why he's talking about it, but what he did stuck with me. I'm talking about, I remember that, I remember that day right now, from three years old. So now when I leave, I ain't gonna talk about leaving. When I'm when I'm in middle school, right? Sixth grade was easy. Sixth grade, I was popular, all that type of stuff. Seventh grade, seventh grade could have been easy, but I had a bully, right? I but not not even try. Like this little short nigga, Corey, was like evil. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know that you know that kid that, and I don't know how he ended up in the future. I hope not well, but like it's it's one, it's one of them things where it's like he was evil. Remember that evil eyed kid, the eyes was always like this. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know what I'm talking about? We always have that one in the bag of my dog. No, not I I can't, I ain't gonna put that on him. He wasn't crusty nose. That motherfucker was like just the hood demon that like had these eyes, like he was looking for something that left. I was gonna end up saying that word. Yeah, like his dad. So now he it was it was brutal, dog. So like I come from a family of people that like because I never I never told my parents or anything like that that was the case, right? Because if I would have, I don't I don't come from a family of people that would put up with that, right? Right? Right, and it's like I would have been fighting every day, his parents would have been fighting every day. And it's like he rolled. I I'm I'm from the Bronx in Harlem, but like in the Bronx, he had a crew of like 10, 15 kids. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, I can't get niggas from Harlem all the way up here at Teller Avenue, you know what I'm saying? Oh, oh my god.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, why with the 125, MS328? Hey, okay, that makes sense. All right, all right, right. 1000 Teller Avenue, New Millennium Business Academy.
Bullying, Backbone, And Finding Voice
SPEAKER_05So it's like, and Corey was one of those like just again, he scared me because the motherfucker was short and evil, you know what I'm saying? Napoleon complex on the case. Oh, but he had it bad, dog. And whatever it was about me, he just didn't like me, right? So now I cut class for 33 days, right? And I remember they sent the letter to my house and shit, right? So I got to spanking and all that, but I never told my parents what, you know, what you was doing, right? Right. So now after that, I was like, well, fuck it. It can't get no, it can't get no worse than that. So I remember I went back to school and I I ain't gonna lie, I did some shit to get back at them. Like, there was a teacher, shout out Miss White. I can't believe I'm even telling this story. Don't this can stay on the pod, but don't clip it. I don't need this clip. But I remember Miss White had her grade book, right? And she had all the problem kids' phone numbers and shit, right? So I took the whole grade book, right? Took it home, took it to the house. I knew how to use Star 67 for the private number. Nigga, I called Corey mom's and started laying down the law. And because I was so young, I had no bass in my voice. So I sound like one of the real housewives from Atlanta, nigga. So now, or I'm like, I'm acting like Miss White, like, yeah, because that was her name. I'm acting like her. I'm like, yeah, your son's a piece of shit, blah, blah, blah. You know what I'm saying? Like, oh, I'm giving the whole run through. And I remember her being like, you doing this, that, and the third. I'm not doing this, that, and the third.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that was me, nigga. That was me, nigga. Surprise, motherfucker. Surprise motherfucker. Let's hope Corey don't see this. Oh, I'm growing the shit now.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, we'll we'll both be going to we'll be going to jail for months. But now, because when you when you go through that shit, like it became a thing, and it's something I had kind of had to temper down as years went on. Of like, when you get bullied, when you finally decide, like, oh nah, that ain't happening no more. Right. You mean that ain't happening no more. Some shit like you might have to hurt me. You might have to hurt me before another motherfucker bully me. Right. Shout out to him. He got that back in seventh grade, but like, ever since then, I've never went through that. Because like once that was done, I was like, And never again. Never, never, never again. I'm never feeling like that again, right? So now eighth grade came along, eighth grade was cake. And I remember, because I guess I only had one bully. I was I wasn't scared of the rest of you. Right. That little short motherfucker had the devil in it. Right. You can tell the evil. Oh, yeah, no, I could you can feel it. Right. Right? Like he's going to hell. But I remember one of his friends must have thought it was sweet. And it's like, and that was another thing, it was like an identity crisis because I'm not, I'm not a punk. Right. I've never been a punk. Right. Like, but it was one of those things where I remember this kid named, I think his name was DJ. And mind you, he was much bigger than Corey ever was. This is eighth grade now, right? And he thought I had I remember my my little junior high school girlfriend and shit. I had my I had my little iPod and whatnot. He thought he was gonna take my iPod. And he thought it wasn't gonna be no fight about that.
SPEAKER_04Nigga, in what world?
SPEAKER_05No, never. That ain't happening. Because I'll tell you this, even Cory ain't never taken no property for me. Right. You you think you about to take my iPod? I don't know if you can tell by these headphones stapled in my neck. I really like my music. Right. So I remember me, me and him, me and him fought in the hallway. And you know how when like that whole, like his whole the class of bullies, like they all like, what way he putting in his work? Knocking how?
SPEAKER_04This should be it's like, yeah, I've I've never been right. I ain't no pussy. I've never I've never been that. I don't know what you thought. Like you rode with 30 people. Right. I'm scared of the 29. Nine. Not the one.
SPEAKER_05Not the one. Right. I'm with you. So now that's um, that's junior high school, and then like just coming up in the part of Harlem I came up, it's like everybody's funny, and we all saw so much. You know what I'm saying? Like that 2005 through 2011 group of kids that we all hung out around my neighborhood, we saw a lot, man. Like a lot. And to have to absorb all that shit and keep smiling, you know, you you f you find you find your way, you know what I'm saying? But I've always been funny. So then I get to high I get to high school. This is okay, I'm going fast. Before I get to high school, we go on a paintball trip, right? Before the school year gets started. And it just so happened on our way back on the bus, we watching Martin Lawrence run tell that. Right? Again, don't know, you know, this is gonna mean anything, right? But I remember watching it and absorbing it, right? Okay. We had a neighbor that summer, this is the summer of um summer of 07th. So you graduate junior high school in June, whatever, then we're about to start uh high school. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because let me see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you started ninth grade. So it's 2007. So now that summer, that remember bootleg DVDs were still a thing. We had a neighbor in my building, shout out to Miss Cynthia. They were on their way, they were moving, right? So they had this giant, like 10-gallon Glad garbage bag of bootleg DVDs, bro. And they bought it upstairs and they gave it to us. So now I had all these DVDs. So I'm looking through them looking for the porn, right? So now I find it is what it is, bro. So now I'm look I'm looking through shit, and then I find Cat Williams Pimp Chronicles part one. Right? Classic. Classic. I I I would I would fight and I I would say that's top top five specials to come out in the last 25 years. Yeah, and it's not five. Yeah, of the century.
SPEAKER_07Of the century.
First Sets, First Bombs, First Lessons
SPEAKER_05He he he really put in work and it was something about how he did it. Like all the things that I like. I love rap, I love wrestling, I love, I'm from Harlem. I don't like people that don't have confidence. I don't like all that, oh, super self-deprecating. Oh, I ain't shit. No, we don't got time for that. I grew up in a place where niggas was broke, was pissed in the elevators, and motherfuckers still think they fly. And they're still fly. Like the smile through those situations, Kat was a revelation for me of like he was everything kind of wrapped in one, and that special was 45 minutes of I'm not fucking around. Yep. I'm not fucking around. Every joke is hitting like when you watch that crowd and you see these people going like this, and it's the way he's hitting them, it's like boom, boom, pow, boom, boom, pow. So I'm what I watched that shit so much that my PlayStation left a ring on it. Oh fuck. I watched it that much. And like just the way he was come going in and out of ideas and shit, of like, um, the whole thing about insurgents, the whole thing about um insurgents that came in the house is a good thing. The way he came back to that idea, but when he I don't think people go into how profound it was to say, uh tell me what the Iraq uniform look like. That that real simple line is so deep. Uh-huh. Cause you don't realize until you say it, like, shit, I don't know. Oh, we ain't killing the army, we are killing them. Uh-huh. So, like, just those kind of big ideas being, it's like the the medicine and dog food, right? Of like the way he masked it. I thought he was doing some genius level shit. So, and this is all before we got I got to school that year. So now I get to high school, very first day, it's me, you know, you meet your very first friends and stuff like that. So I met a kid named Rodney. Rodney and Rodney are still close to this day. And we kind of sound alike, you know what I'm saying? Like our voices sound a lot alike. And Rodney's super funny, super, super funny in conversation. So I remember thinking to myself, there's a girl named Crystal, and the only kid that it came from my high from my junior high school to my high school is a kid named John. So me and John only know each other. So me and Rodney become cool like from the start of the day. And it's me, Rodney, John, this girl named Crystal. And we all, you know, talking shit or whatever. Everything Rodney's saying, Crystal is dying laughing, right? Everything I'm following up with, she's like, So, Rob, what you talking about, right? So, nah, it's how I beat. So, I'm like, yo, high school is gonna suck. Because I ain't I ain't never been the one that felt like, yo, I got the most game. I, you know, best looking, blah, blah, blah. But I was like, I can always make them laugh and I can get them that way. But the way he's killing, I'm like, well, shoot, my niche is gone. This is some bullshit, right? It just so happened, maybe the next day, because we did orientation, whatever. We come back for the first official day. And the way they did in my school was you had gym for three days and advisory for two days, or you had gym for two days and advisory for three days. So advisory was just like, really, just like a free period of like your homeroom teacher, you all in there with them, and you know, she picks however she wants y'all to be productive. Gotcha. Miss Richardson, shout out to her. She was like, Does anybody have a talent? A girl named Esther went up, she sang a song. As she's sitting there, not sitting there, as she's standing there singing a song, something in my mind said, go tell jokes. So I raised my hand, Miss Richardson let me go up. I do like five to six minutes, and I do it on the day that we had, first, like first day of school. Um, I remember I had a teacher allergic to chalk and how crazy I thought that was. Um that is bug. What? That was bug. Yeah, yeah. She would shake hands like at the top of the day, and she had, and shout out to Miss Kesri because when you think about it, to be allergic to chalk, teaching on a chalkboard, it's actually real dedication. Right. You know what I'm saying? Especially we in the Bronx, and you know, people can be unruly. You know, it's like little school up there. And I went to Vanda. I went to Bronx High School of Right Communication. Yeah, it is what it is, but it wasn't a Vanda, Vanda, it was Bronx High School for Right Communication. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, even better. But it's one of those things where it's like it, she was dedicated. You know what I mean? So I went about that, having to, we had a teacher named Miss Green, it was real voluptuous and all that. It's like gonna be hard to learn with that, right? Right. And then I ended my set talking about white people, and then it went really good. It went really, really good. Whatever that feeling was of telling a joke, getting that reaction, and they seemed like they liked it so much, I fell in love immediately. Now, for the record, I never wanted to go to college. My my big brother had been in college, you know what I'm saying? And it's like when I heard the debt you could be in and all that, and I was sick of school even then, you know what I'm saying? So when I found that, I really, really enjoyed it, and I just kept doing it. So Ms. Richardson would put me up a couple times a week, right? And then from there, I remember she asked me, Have you ever done an open mic? I didn't even know what those were. So this is September 14th, 2007, when I first uh went on. It's either the 14th, it might even be a week earlier, because I think we started school earlier than that, but I always register the 14th. So uh, whatever the case, keep doing it, keep doing it. That's September through December. In January, me and Rodney start doing like uh every now and again, once like a once-a-month show where kids would get their lunch upstairs, bring it down to room 246 or 236, and we would do a show. We'd split the show. I'd go first, he goes second, blah, blah, blah. So now I kind of sharpened my, I sharpened my sword doing that, like doing it in school. And it's like, we talking about kids in the Bronx, man. This ain't the I got one of the tougher crowds, but ain't nothing funny. We're making it work and they enjoying it. You know what I'm saying? Some people even starting to look forward to it. You get what I mean? So that built my confidence. You couldn't, you couldn't tell me that I'm not funny because I I even back then I knew that this crowd that I'm in front of is not a weak crowd. Right. They not just giving it up. They we don't know each other yet. They don't got no reason. We all freshmen, they don't got no reason to like me. In a heartbeat.
SPEAKER_04Shit, I got booed at Winterfest 2008. It's all good.
SPEAKER_05I was hosting and I killed, I killed up top. Because, you know, you come out as a host, do your set up top. I killed that. They somebody was um late, one of the um not dancers in that way, but somebody was supposed to do a dance performance, and I I don't think they showed up on time, so they wanted me to do a couple minutes. I'm fucking 14. I think, okay, my joke about uh what was it? Is it hemophilia, whatever the shit is, where you can't get a scab if you cut yourself or whatever. I had a joke about that and didn't go over, right? So I got a couple booze spattered out in the um in the auditorium. That was it. Right. So it's like you can't lie to me. And I've always been like that. Like, you can't lie to me. If you tried to tell me I'm not funny, it's like by that point I had been on stage about 50, 60 times, and I had good to decent to good sets 40 to 45 times, right? So I'm not delusional. Right. You know what I mean? Don't nobody here like me enough to lie to me. Right, right. It ain't your parents, it ain't no.
SPEAKER_04No, these ain't no get up there, tell the jokes with the kids. They would be more like, man, shut this motherfucker up.
SPEAKER_02You know what I'm saying? Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't even think that your teacher would even put that much investment if that's the case, if you wasn't even.
SPEAKER_05Hell no. Exactly. Why would I stop my class? Right. You know what I'm saying? Right. So I was able to, I was able to get a lot of confidence built up. Then when I started on the open mic, because I thought, you know, if I come do an open mic and kill it, I could retire. Like legit, I thought that. Then I came, I did my first open mic. It was the High Comedy Club, and shout out HP, he was hosting. I think I was number 21 or 22. And I've always had a good, like, I have a really good sense of humor. Don't take much to make me laugh. I'm having a great time, right? Now I'm dressed up like I'm an adult and shit. I got a Kangoole on, I got my Easter outfit on and shit, right? So now I'm everybody else is getting whatever they're getting. People ain't really laughing. I'm like, damn, what's wrong with everybody? These people ain't not funny. Right. And I'm like, ah, whatever. When I go up, I'll, you know, it'd be different, right? I go up, I bomb. I bomb. I had never bombed like that before. Of like, nothing hit. The biggest reaction I got, my closing joke about one of my cousins leaving um um a turd in the toilet, was uh the reaction I got was ha.
unknownDamn.
Family Buy-In And Choosing The Path
SPEAKER_05Did you get uh no, none of that nigga, you can hear the you can hear the ice melting. Damn. Yeah, yeah, like I said, the biggest reaction I got was ha. But even then I was like, well, if that's the worst that it can be. It's only up from here. Let's go. Right. Let's go. Cause I I I know even back then, it's not, and it's not because some people try to be like, oh, it's cockiness. It's not cocky. I proven to myself with enough repetition that I do this thing. If it didn't work this one time, I bet I'll come back. Let's see what happened. Came back, sure enough. And then so on and so forth, started learning more about the thing, learning how you could um, you know, rise and just working my way to rise. So I don't know what I was trying to find out about the world as much as I was trying to find out about myself. You know what I mean? So it was a journey.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Like an unintentional journey that you were on.
SPEAKER_05Very much so. And not to be corny, but it's like, I would on the positive side, it's a calling of like I legit was sitting there with no intention of ever doing anything like this, right? And then when I'm watching this girl sing the song, and something came to me and said, go tell jokes. I raised my hand on a whim. You know what I'm saying? I could have sat there and I did nothing. Right.
SPEAKER_00So what trajectory of your changed everything.
SPEAKER_05I'm 32 years old now. I've been doing stand-up more years in my life than I haven't been. Right. And I've only ever done stand-up.
SPEAKER_01Oh wow.
SPEAKER_05You know what I'm saying? I grew up in, you know, in Harlem and in comedy clubs. You know what I'm saying? I feel like I understand my thing. I feel like it's my favorite topic. You get me to talking about it, I will keep you there. You know what I'm saying? I've had strong opinions on it ever since I first started. And I feel like I work really hard. I don't have step. When it comes to the stage work, I put in the work. When you see me, always got one of these. You know what I'm saying? I'm all I'm always in the lab. I'm always trying to, when I'm on stage, give the people their money's worth, whatever that means. So I still don't know um what I'm trying to figure out about the world, and I kind of don't want to find that out yet. You know what I'm saying? That's okay. Yeah, I hope I hope by the time it's all said and done, I'll be able to answer that question for you. But right now, it's too, it's too it's too early because I ain't I ain't figured out nothing yet. Right. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's all a journey. I don't know, I don't know nothing. This is my first time being alive, as far as I know. So I I take it as it comes, man. I'm just happy to be a part of it for real.
SPEAKER_07So that's great. I was gonna say is when you was 14 and you tell your parents, like, I want to go to the comedy club and I want to be a stand-up comedian, what was their reaction when you told them that?
SPEAKER_05So it's a couple things. First of all, I didn't tell them necessarily anything for a minute. You know what I mean? I was just doing it. Because remember, I'm doing it in school. Right. I don't gotta leave school to do it. So it's like, I don't gotta tell y'all anything yet. Right. When I start doing the open mics in March or whatever, I'm already getting$5 or$10 a day just to go to school. Mic cost$5. So I would go like literally my second ride on my bus pass. I wasn't coming back home, I was going straight to the open mic.
SPEAKER_06Right.
SPEAKER_05Which I mean, right? Hilarious. That's in New York.
SPEAKER_02Man, you're getting paid to go to school.
SPEAKER_05That was just the bacon, egg, and cheese money. I don't know what was going on in your house, but it ain't give you five dollars. I get it, it'd be it'd be rough out here.
SPEAKER_03Nigga, give me a cat with me. We got something close here, go to the cat.
SPEAKER_05But it was one of those things where it was like, you know, my second ride on my bus pass, I'm going downtown to go to whatever open mic. Now, if I wanted to go back home, I could be home before seven o'clock. You know what I'm saying? It's not a lot of questions asked. Right. You know what I mean? And then when I told my parents that I was doing stand-up, like my mom had heard me say it, and I don't know how much she believed me, you know what I'm saying? Like, you were a kid. Yeah, I'm a kid. When you're young, yeah. It's like, yeah, you can be doing stand-up, but also it's like, for all I know, they probably, my mom probably thought I had like a little weed habit. And I ain't smoke weed until like 2019. But it's like, I'm asking for five, six dollars every day, right? But like on top of the$10 I'm getting and like, what the hell? I ain't five or whatever, whatever. But then I invited them to a show, right? I was doing a show at the Creole Lounge on 119th and Third Avenue. And when they came to the show, I killed. You know what I'm saying? Like I did really, really well that night. So their first time seeing me do the thing, they didn't see me do bad. Right. You know what I'm saying? They didn't see me struggle. They saw me. It's all such a shit.
SPEAKER_00So it was more polished, it was more put together.
Hitting The Road And Early Breaks
SPEAKER_05They they just saw me hit. I don't I ain't gonna say that it was so polished because I was still only, I think then, maybe 15, this 2008, August 2008. Right. So I don't know how polished it was, but I was fuck all that. I was dope. You know what I'm saying? That they already seen you, like you know, not even that they seen it. Exactly. They saw me do something that I enjoyed, right? They didn't see me fail at it. You get what I'm saying? And they saw me stand toe-to-toe with the other adults on the show. Right. You know what I'm saying? The closing comedian that night is the only comedian that had a better set than I had that night. Right. Her name was Don B, and she murdered that shit. Right. She, I, I, I, I, I, I did good to great for what's expected of me at that time. Right. She murdered just unanimously. Right. No caveats. Right. Right. So now from that, you know, I just kept doing it. I remember when I made the decision, I didn't want to go, you know, to college and all that shit. And I remember I called my pops, and I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting him to say what he said. He was like, Look, man, you like it? Alright. You gonna go hard? That's all I asked for. Because he always, my pops only ever wanted, like he said, he only ever wanted to make money. You know what I'm saying? So whatever job he had to do to do that, he was gonna do it. He did it. Right. Right. I found something that I really have a passion about. They didn't kill that. Right. You get what I'm saying? They let that be that's so important. They allowed you to do to pursue it. They let that be. Right. And for that, I'm super appreciative. Like, no matter how it goes, no matter how you gauge success, it can, you know, if I die tomorrow, I got to do what I wanted to do. Right. I didn't I didn't get to do what motherfuckers told me to do. I picked my path and stayed on it. Right. That has its ups, that has its downs. When it's down, it's down. You know what I mean? Don't think it's always pretty. It's a lot that comes with that shit. Like one of the things last year, right? One of the things that I did the most different, I made time for the most other people than I have in a very long time. Right. You know what I'm saying? Being so focused on, you know, your thing, the movement of your thing. Of like, I'm I'm selfish in that way. Like I was, I've been very selfish about my pursuit of my thing.
SPEAKER_06Right.
SPEAKER_05And things that I let in in conjunction with it. I haven't I closed a whole bunch of doors, like I'm good on all that. And it's a bunch of shit like I'm still good on all that. Right. But I made more time for friends that I hadn't seen in like 10, 15 years. I made more time for family. Like I went to events and not just funerals. Right. You dig what I'm saying? Right. Of like, I made myself available for more of my friends. So, you know, again, I don't know what it's taught me about the world as much, but I'm happy to be a part of what I'm a part of, man. And I really I really do like the art form. I really do. I really, really do. And like, I think I'm I think I'm creative. I don't think I really don't think if you I feel like if you take my work and you compare it, you ain't disappointed in what I gave you. No matter what you compare it to.
SPEAKER_06Right.
SPEAKER_05You know what I'm saying? No matter you take my projects put up against anybody's, I stand with mine, because I know if nothing else, I performed with urgency. I performed like I wanted you to know that I care. And in everything, because I don't got the most views, I don't got all that, I don't really care to do the social media thing. But it's one of those things where I feel like if you go and you look at my work actually and you absorb it, I think I know what you'll leave saying. You know what I mean? I don't think I'm inferior to anybody. I never never thought that. Right. Sorry. But yeah, man.
SPEAKER_00So I don't know if I answered any of the questions. No, you did, you did in so many different words. Okay. Yeah, in so many different ways.
SPEAKER_03So sorry.
SPEAKER_00No, you good? Do you want to go?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I was gonna ask. So you're killing over, like, you know, locally and everything. How long until you realize, or like, or until it just like it gets you where you're like, you know what? I think I'm ready for like, you know, going out of state. Like, okay. How long until that happens?
SPEAKER_05So the road started kind of like, the road just happens. So like you got places like New Jersey, Connecticut, and all that stuff that's just like right around here, right? So I I probably there's a lot of places I probably wouldn't go without comedy, right? So my very first road gig was Lancaster PA, and I'm working with John Witherspoon, right? Rest in peace. Rest in peace. Real cool, real cool guy. Classic, classic. And even my first road gig, I remember, I basically, excuse me, I got paid in sneakers. You know what I'm saying? We was doing a show for this drug dealer out there in Lancaster, and it is what it is.
SPEAKER_07It is what it is, man. It is what it is.
SPEAKER_05And I didn't necessarily ask, you know, what my pay and all that was gonna be. So when we all get out there, we all go to like a clothing store, and the guy bought sneakers for like everybody's stuff, just before John Witherspoon got there and all that.
SPEAKER_06Right.
Donnell Rollins, Caroline’s, And Stage Craft
SPEAKER_05But um, he bought sneakers and whatnot. And I remember it was like 400 black people that came out to the convention center in Lancaster. And John Witherspoon's super cool guy, did number tell stories, classic dude, classic, classic dude. Um it was me, JP Justice, Shantae Wayans, Nick Alexander, and John Witherspoon. And the show went really good. And then after that, in 2011, I started getting acts to come out the headlines places, right? So the first person I ever worked on the road was Danny Camacho. We go a couple spots and whatnot. Then things just so happened to build. You know what I'm saying? It's not that I can't even say that I looked for it necessarily. It's my course, it just happened. Right, exactly. You know, and then like, you know, your friends and stuff like that, y'all start going around, driving places and whatnot. So, you know, it just kind of just spiderweb. It was there's so much I didn't plan because I didn't, I'm walking into this with no knowledge. I thought you had to go to college to do what like Martin and all those guys did. Right. I found out that you didn't have to. You get what I'm saying? I found out you could just steer your steer your car the way you want to steer your car, right? You know, and that's uh that's an ever-changing mindfuck. You know what I'm saying? Because it's definitely your car. And stand up is weird in a way of like it's a single man team sport. You know what I mean? Of like we're all solo acts, but we all kind of need each other. You know, like the show I was telling you about the Creole Lounge. Don B, if I'll meet Don B that night, there's a lot of my career that goes differently. Right. Because meeting her, she told me about Donnell Rollins having a show at um the Laugh Lounge, right? So when she told me that, I didn't, she told me Ashley Larry. So believe it or not, I didn't watch the Chappelle show growing up. I only ever heard the rep. I'm born in '93. Oh, yeah. So when it comes on, like I had cable and I didn't have cable. Right. You know what I'm saying? Of like, I watched cartoons and shit like that. So I remember all the references in school, like, I'm rich, bitch. You know the kids that watched it and all that, but I didn't. So bad, remember all those on-demand channels that we had? Right, yeah, yeah. Music Choice, uh, HBO, all that stuff. Video on demand, yeah. Right. So I used to watch Bad Boys of Comedy, right? Uh-huh. On demand. Donnell Rollins had one of the breakout sets from Bad Boys of Comedy. Uh-huh. So I remember watching his set on that. So I knew the name Donnell Rollins. I didn't know the name Ashy Larry. So now when Don B's like, um, yeah, come down to Laugh Lounge on Monday, Ashy Larry has a show. I'm like, okay, the show started eight. I'm so young that I show up, I want to be punctual. So I show up like two hours early, right? So I show up in time for the open mic. So now when I get to the open mic, I meet people that will end up being like my friends for a very long time. People like Shout Out Pudge Fernandez, Angel Gonzalez, Brian John, Chris V. Stefano, people like that, right? Right. And like, I go up and goes well, whatever. I come upstairs, Delilah, who used to own Laughlin, she would make food. So I remember she had made Peach Cobbler or something like that, right? And I'm sitting there, I'm meeting a peach cobbler, and I see a short dude, bald guy, sitting at the bar. I recognize him as Dino Rollins. I still don't know that this is Ashley Larry. So I just walk up to him, like, hey man, I'm a big fan, blah, blah, blah. He says, thanks, son. And shake his hand, I go on by my way. So now it's time for the show, right? And this is one of the first lessons I learned, right? Of like, so the show is about to start. They take all the people downstairs. Um, Donnell comes up to me, he says, I'm gonna bring you up first, right? So now keep in mind, up until this point, I had always been able to choose when I could go on stage, right? I had always been able to choose. So we're talking about whether it was school, talent shows, the show that I'm telling you about that we did at Creole Lounge. They'd always be like, when do you want to go up? So that's what I was used to, right? So because I was used to that, my response is like, oh man, I, you know, I I don't usually pick to go first. Like I usually pick second, right? Just so I can have something to riff off, like see what's going on in the room, whatever. And Donnell said this to me, I never forgot it. He was like, and he didn't mean no harm, he was right for this. He was like, You're gonna go first. All right, holler at me, you ready to be a comedian. He turned, he walked off, right? So now if you believe in fate, here's how God worked. Couldn't find nobody to go first, right? Nobody, nobody wanted to take the bullet spot on the show. So I remember him saying, he was standing in front of the little partition at Laugh Lounge where the person would take people's tickets. He's like, shit, I can't find nobody to go first. Don B was sitting at the bar, she had on like a something like a Kango hat. She was like, Nico, go on go first. He said, Nigga, said he don't want to go up first. So now I'm like, nah, no, no, I'll go first, I'll go first, right? I go downstairs and I have a good set, right? I ain't killed. Right. I ain't have a great set, had a good set. Right. Donnell Rollins put me up on that show every other week. Every other week I go up on that show, right? And even in the weeks that I wouldn't go up, I would just sit there and watch. Because back where I lived, shit was crazy. Of like we had a war going on outside. Of like, I would get calls like, hey, uh, where you at? I uh stay there a little while longer. They shoot. You know what I mean? I'd be getting reports of friends getting shot, all that type of shit. So like You said this was the Bronx or Harlem? Uh this is this is Harlem. That's Harlem at that time. Yeah, yeah, it's Harlem at that time. So now it's like the Bronx. Not yet. No, not yet.
SPEAKER_04No, that's that's the Bron That's the Bronx today. Yeah, exactly. It wasn't our time. That's why I told you. I said, not yet. It wasn't our time yet. I know the time line.
SPEAKER_05These niggas wanna take me to the fucking Bronx. So now, so now it's like that dude, again. So remember, like I said, Don B putting me in um in that area led me to meeting Donnell. Meeting Donnell, Donnell put me on to Caroline's, right? These are all places that will end up being very big parts of my journey, right? When I first did Caroline's, Caroline's isn't here anymore, and that was one of my favorite clubs in the city. And when I first went there, it was mind-blowing. Because it was like Donnell's like, yo, come do a guest spot for me at Caroline's, right? I had, I probably hit that nigga up between the time he told me and that show probably 50 times. So finally he had to tell me, like, yeah, yo, you got the guy to keep hitting me up. Like, I'll see you there, nigga. Damn, right? Damn. And you don't, you don't get it until you grow as a comic and you get that. Uh-huh. You know what I'm saying? Like the young kid that needs to overconfirm, right? So now, sure enough, I go to Caroline's. If you guys never been, when you get in there, the podium and all that is right downstairs. So you go down these long thing of stairs, and it's like a little restaurant right there, right? Okay. So now I had done comedy clubs, lounges, hood rooms, and all that. So I'm thinking that right here is where the show is going to happen, right? And there's a comedian in Microscene, him and his wife worked there as like staff at the time. So shout out to Deb. I remember I um I walked up to her and I was like, uh, hey, so where do they set up the stage? She's like, you're cute. Go in the back, go through the um kitchen and make a uh left. That's the green room. I go through the back, go through the kitchen, I make a right to the showroom. That shit had 400 seats in there. I had never seen a venue that big, right? Wow. And Donnell is sold out, so the curtain is pulled back. I'm like, oh shit. All these people. So I'm excited, but I'm nervous, right? There was a guy named Kenny, he was the manager there. So he ain't know me. It's fair enough. So when I go to go in the room, he's like, yo, excuse me, who are you? What are you here for? Uh uh what are you doing here? Blah blah blah. You know, I'm I'm I'm young. I'm I'm dressed. I ain't never been the best dressed, you know what I'm saying? I'm dressed all dyslexic, fucking best, you did it.
SPEAKER_06Slack, hoodie.
SPEAKER_05There's a comedian named, there's a comedian named Talent, O G O G. I remember one time I did his room, bro, uh Broy Lafayette, something like that. He was like, uh, this nigga Nico dressed like a thug fashional.
SPEAKER_03Thug fashional. I used that one for now. I like that one. It's ridiculous.
SPEAKER_05This is before like I just started wearing clothes that fit me properly. Right. Like maybe 10, 12 years ago, right? So, anyhow, he's like, you can't be in the green room. Comedians that are headlining, they can get to the club whenever they want to, right? So because I was doing the guest spot, you're usually supposed to go first. So it's like the host, then you for your couple minutes, then the feature, then the headliner. Because Kenny didn't know me, Robin Montague and Rob Cantrell were on the show. Rob Montague the host, Rob Can't Trell the feature. So I ended up going up after the feature. And I held my own. I had a good set, right? And then on the next show, I killed it. But like Caroline's ended up being like a hub for me. Right. You know what I'm saying? And becoming a home. And I don't get that, you know what I'm saying, without that guy. So shout out to Donnell. He was one of those people that gave me um Donnell's type that teach you without teaching, of like, he ain't gonna necessarily pull you aside and be deep with advice. Right. His whole thing was like, go hard or go home.
SPEAKER_00That's like a tough love.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, nah, that that dude, that dude, I have nothing but the most respect for that guy. Like, you know, you know, I don't get to see him often these days, but like, nothing but the most respect. If you ever get a chance, go watch um Nico White One Mike. That's a documentary we did when I was 17. He um he spoke in and whatnot, he said nice things. So that's my guy. Close things to a mentor I ever had.
SPEAKER_03That's what's nice. That's what's up. That's a healthy mentor.
SPEAKER_05And like I said, his his advice is very simple: go hard or go home and kill him to solve all the problems.
SPEAKER_04Nice.
Urgency, Albums, And Owning The Work
SPEAKER_05Kill him to solve all the problems. And I've never been one to be like, I've been doing stand up 18 years, right? And I've never overthought the time. You know what I'm saying? Of like, oh, what it's been this long, why isn't this that? When you give me this, I'ma give you that. Gotcha. And I think I've proven that. That special that you're talking about, Dark Out. Hey, man. The audio, it's it's if if if I could sit back and pat myself on the back for anything, I truly, truly believe this. This ain't no ego. Fuck that. This is in a time when doing live shows was illegal. I stood in a room with nothing but a microphone and the jokes I had at the time. And I gave it to nobody. There was nobody in the room with me except my director and the man behind the camera, homeless pimp and New York video guy. It was just us. I did my set the way that I would do it if I was in front of people. Right. Right? I feel like if you go back and you watch Dark Out, even right now, it still holds up and it's deep. Like that, that as far as specials go, that's my soul bleed right there. Like, I let it rip. If you really know, if you know how to listen, you can learn a lot about me if you listen and if you if you watch Dark Out. Got it. You know what I'm saying? And there's a lot of shit that is in there that's still very much relevant now. But like the fact that I was able to do that, and then the struggle of not being able to get publicity for it, not being able to get, like, when I reached out to the people at New York Times to be like, hey, can you review this for me? Because like sometimes you got to get smacked by the process to realize nobody's above it. So I'm not telling this story with any malice, I'm not telling the story with any anger, it's just what happened. So now we in 2020, right? We were supposed to do a Netflix special that year, right? So shout out to Pete Davidson, it's my guy. And I remember he called me, right? I'm sitting at Staples, and I had, I I got, I had a bill that was probably$600 for something, right? And I just so happened to get a check from something from a project I did. It was probably a thousand dollars, right? So I forget what I went to Staples for. I needed to print something out, right? So I go to Staples to print something out. I get a call. It's Pete. It's like, yo, uh, what you doing on whatever, whatever date, right? I'm like, oh, you know, shit. I'm around, man. He's like, well, look, Netflix is giving me a chance to showcase five comedians that I love. And, you know, you one of the first people I thought of. You want to do it?
unknownOf course.
SPEAKER_05Hey, my niggas. Hey, brother. Listen, listen to me, bro. I've I still feel like this of like, I think I'm a dope comic. You know what I'm saying? I think I'm a deeply dope stand-up comedian. And I go, I think all I need is the chance, right? You give me that chance and you let me do the thing, I feel like I'm gonna do the thing. Right. I was so when I get really, really happy, I laugh. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't I don't want to cry and shit. Right, I feel you. And as you can see from the intro when he started making jokes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was asking from the intro. Yeah, yeah. So, and Pete, what I appreciate about him is like he's the first of all of us to like make it make it.
SPEAKER_06Right.
SPEAKER_05Right? Like, make it, make it, make it. And I've known we met when we were 17. Yeah, we met when we were 17. I'm older than him by six months. So we did it, we had a group called The Little Rascals of Comedy back then, right? We used to go out to Staten Island and all that shit. He's always been super cool, right? So to see him do what he did, right? And the fact that he called me with that opportunity, that meant a lot to me.
SPEAKER_01Right.
The Netflix Call And Pandemic Whiplash
SPEAKER_05So I'm on 125th Street. I walk out that Staples nigga. I ain't I ain't cry because I don't do that. But people had to think I was crazy. Because I'm laughing like Freezer, nigga. In Dragon Ball's big. Like, you're you remember when he sent the ball to kill the same? Yeah. Oh shit. Yo, that that that's me. Like, people criminal or some shit. Like, what the fuck? Oh, no, no, I'm telling you, people thought I was that shit crazy. It's like, who is this? No, no, no, laughing not the winning goddamn way. I sound like a super villain. Uh fuck. So it's like, but I was so happy that that chance came from that. Right. You know what I'm saying? It didn't come from nothing contrived. I didn't have to do anything but be me. Right. You know what I'm saying? This wasn't cut, this wasn't nothing out of left field. This isn't an opportunity that I'm not prepared for. You know what I mean? And the fact that you thought of me for this project, that meant a lot. Right. Right. So I'm walking down the block. I'm I'm bro, I'm telling you. Yeah, this shit was crazy. I was very, very, very, very touched, right? So now that's in probably that's in the last quarter of 2019. I find out we're gonna do that. So now, October, I just so happened to record an album, right? And I don't know that I'm recording an album. We do a show for the uh, I do a headliner show New York Comedy Club in October 2019. And I felt really, really, really special about that hour, right? And now we supposed to record in March or April of 2020, I think it was April of 2020. Netflix is a joke festival, the very first one, the inaugural one. So now 2020 start. No, I got that coming up, right? Uh-huh. We go through, we go through January, smooth, real good. We go through February, cool, March comes. Yeah, March comes, and we're about 20-something days from all right, you wanted to talk. We about 20-something days from the biggest payday I'd ever have in my life up to that point, right? And then when I had, when you consider, like, you know, at that time I had already been headlining on the road a little bit. I had some road headlining dates coming up, I had some colleges coming up, I got this coming up, and like this is what I what I could get in a couple of months. Right. Right? You know what I'm saying? In a night. So it's like if I can get to here, even if like before we know the pandemic's gonna end shit, right? Even if I could just get to this, I'm good. Before shit go down, I'm good. Right? So now, bro, right? Now, I remember I had just, I think I just paid the rent. I just um did my taxes for that year, right? The fucking news dropped. Everything is shut down indefinitely. Nigga, you go, why me? And I I had never felt that before. You know what I'm saying? Like, because like I told you, we I done seen a whole bunch of shit. Right. It's like it was stripped from you. Right, right. But see, but it felt personal though. And not error. But it felt personal because you go, who who would author such a story? It's a dark joke that I would write. Right. You get what I'm saying? There's no way. There's no way this really happened. Uh-huh. There's no fucking way. So now, sure enough, we get to when? My birthday is about to come up. So remember that thing I told you I record I I had did in October. Mm-hmm. Shit. We can't do nothing. I need something to do. You know what I'm saying? I took that hour and I turned it into an album. It's called Marcellus. And in my opinion, of what I've put out three joints already. So I got Nico White introducing me, my very, very first special, right? Right. Ever. Well, I was 21 when we did that, right? It never had the, even if you look at it now, it don't got the views that it should, because I ended up taking it down for some years when it was an album and a special that you could buy on payloads and all that shit. We tried to sell it to Netflix and all that back when Netflix was still like young. And we we couldn't. And then I re-uploaded it back to YouTube, right? So, and then I just stopped promoting it because I tried to make it an album, but somehow my goddamn cover got fucked up. And it looked like you remember channel 59 when it was like all the colors in stripes. Yep. Somehow that's how my album cover got done. And Tune Core was like, oh, well, we can't change it or update it or whatever, right? Right. So now that's my first one. Marcellus is my second one, right? And Darkout is my most recent one. Then you got, you know, the shorter sets, like The Gotham Comedy Live, Pete Davidson presents the best friends on Netflix. Right. Right. Marcellus, if you go and you listen to that hour, that's probably the tightest hour to have available. Even though I would say, nah, I would say introduce me, like as far as like just fun, joke, joke, blah, blah, blah, that's the like if you want to see the beginning of the kind of comic I'm about to become, that's the what you watch for that. But when you want to see that young comic become this professional comic, Marcellus, I got some heat on that shit. Right? Uh, Me Three, Missandris, probably my favorite bit off of it. But like, I got some shit. If we ever did a comedy versus, that's you getting four or five tracks from Marcellus. Uh yeah, and I'm going upside your head. Right. But Darkout, I re-recorded that on my comedy anniversary that year, 2020. Because 2020 would be, I started 20, I started in 07. So that was my 13th year, right? So now I was so sad that we didn't get to do the shit that we were supposed to do. Like that, I was pissed. I was, I was pissed, right? And then not performing, I don't know what that's like.
SPEAKER_06Right.
SPEAKER_05The longest I had ever been on stage before then, I had the flu once and I didn't do stand-up for a week. And I felt sicker not doing stand-up for a week. Now you have this like 90-day shit, barber's clothes, my hair is this big. Uh-huh. My beard can't connect, but the shit is like growing out sideways.
SPEAKER_02It's like a Fridge and Douglas.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Nigga, I don't like Trey Young minus the bald spot at the end of his Atlanta shit. So now I remember I saw a little Wayne thing. And Lil Wayne was in the studio by himself just doing his shit, right? And I was like, well, why I can't do that with comedy? So I reached out, I reached out to my friend Kyle, and he didn't get it, right? And I was like, oh, I know I got something. Because I reached out to somebody, he didn't get it. I reached out to um Mike Lavin, the homeless pimp, and he was down to do it, right? So I started all this to tell you the thing with the New York Times. So we do the special, and when you see dark out, this is why it's so cool to me. Right. Like I said, I'm not just patting myself on the back. This is why it's cool to me. When we got there, we shot it two different ways. I did maybe three hours, right? None of the hours are the same. For the life of me, I could not put pen to pad on the order that I wanted to do jokes in. I couldn't figure out which jokes I wanted to do. I didn't know how the fuck we were gonna do this. So the first two takes that we did, I'm actually holding a standard microphone, right? And I'm walking around the place where blah, and again, it's just no one there, right? There's no one there. But see, even that, that comes from a place. Back when I was doing Laugh Lounge, Laugh Lounge was a club that like didn't always have people in it, right? But I used to always practice my material just so I can get my timing down. Right. Donna Rollins had asked me one day, how much time can you do naked? And what he meant by that is, how much time can you do when the crowd isn't fucking with you? Right. For how many minutes can you be a professional comedian? Because like it's easy to do a lot of minutes when the crowd like you, right? But how much time can you do when they don't? What he didn't know is that I or I was training like that anyway. I remember when I was in the house, we had a little radio. I went and I bought a microphone, right? That I could plug into the radio. I just be in my room, just doing my shit. You know what I'm saying? Just so I can see how much time I had. Right. So I was always on that. That seed ended up becoming how I can even do something like Dark Out. You know what I'm saying? I don't know that I'm working on that when I'm and it's at the same time simultaneously. When they cancel the show and I'm like, well, shit, I done been here for so many hours. Let me get downstairs and you know, do that while y'all having drinks up here. You know what I mean? So now we get there and they set up the regular microphone. I do the first hour, do the second hour. They're not the same. Now they set up the Frank Sinatra style microphone, right? We put up a black backdrop and they set up the cameras. I take the deep breath. Start this flow and we got what we got. We shot dark out, like what you guys see as the final product. Right. That was one tape. It was one tape. And it's originally the original audio of that is like an hour 20 something, I think. And then we cut it down to like an hour and change. Like I said, that's my soul bleed of like I just let it go. You know what I'm saying? It's a lot of heart in that special. Now I felt so strongly about that product that I really tried to push it because the one thing I've never really gotten was um the publicity, right? That I feel like certain works deserve. Right. When I did introducing me, I was too young to really know how to promote it. Like if you go and you look on my Facebook, you look at my cover photos, you'll see I was making that shit on Microsoft Word. Right. You dig what I'm talking about? Right. I used to write my own business cards on index cards. You dig what I'm saying? So it's like for this, for Darkout, I remember I reached out, I found the guy that does reviews for specials for the New York Times, right? Now, keep in mind the context. It's 2020. Nothing's being filmed, nothing's really coming out.
SPEAKER_06Right.
SPEAKER_05Right? The rules exist, but they also don't. So when I reach out to the guy, I'm like, hey man, I just and I dropped it already. It dropped in December. Right. Right. But if you could review this, it could really mean a lot for me, right? I remember the man said back to me, um, yeah, I don't review things that have come out already. I only review stuff, I only review stuff that is going to release, right? And I rem bro, I was like, you gotta be kidding me. Okay. One of the parts that hurt, he ended up reviewing a special that was a deluxe version of a special that had already come out. Chris Rock Tambourine. The deluxe version.
SPEAKER_03That was a lot of stand-ups.
SPEAKER_05I'm not gonna go there because that's one of my goals. Right? And stand-up was that would have been this one. You can say you can say what you want. You can say what you want. I gotta see that man. You ain't you ain't gonna give me slaps. You ain't gonna get me slapped by one of my heroes. That's Will Smith, though. Hey, big dog, I get my I answer none of my opinions to that. That was that heavy nigga, okay? I just said nothing. I said nothing. But imagine the pain that I felt when I'm like, so wait, you don't review specials that have come out already. Boy. But you reviewing a deluxe version of some shit that came out a year ago. Now, you know, of course we know the big dog gets the bone. We know that. Of course. But to this day, to this day, I don't like that. Uh-huh. To this day, that one still hurt. That's messed up. Like that, that guy, like family, and like I said, I'm not telling that story with no malice. Like, it is what it is. Right. But I would love to sit down and have a drink with you to tell you to your face how much I dislike that, even though I understand. I understand the metaphors. I know why it happened. Nobody's above the process, especially me. But especially during that time. Cause it's like it would have meant the world to me. Matter of fact, if you ever hear this, you can even go back now and um review it. I'd appreciate that. Right. All right. I mean, it would it would literally mean the world. It's like certain shit ain't even just for me. Like I'm I'd send that to my mom's and shit, bro. Right. I don't give a fuck about that. Speaking of which, give me one second. Hello, I'm on the pod right now. I got you. You alright though? All right. I got you. Later now. So it's what it's one of those things where it's like, it really would have just meant a lot. And it could have helped me. Not saying that it didn't help the big dog, but you really, really, really could have helped the talent that's emerging. Right.
SPEAKER_07You know, it's a way bigger effect on you.
Creating Darkout Without An Audience
SPEAKER_05But now I say that, right? Because you you you always talk about things that somebody didn't do. Gotta shout out some people that did do something. There's a publication called the Interro Bang, right? It's uh in comparison to the New York Times, it's very small. But shout out to them because they did list me in their top whatever of comics that changed comedy that year. You know what I'm saying? And again, that meant a lot. Right. Do I think it changed comedy? I don't know, but I do know that if you wanted something that's actually different, and not the weird different. Right. Not the weird different because there's a lot of weird different. And don't compare my special that don't got no audience to no other special that don't got no audience. It's not that. But of like, I think we made a good difference. You know what I'm saying? That's good. And something that if you watch it, you can sick your teeth in. You can you'll feel it. You know what I'm saying? You'll feel it. So I'm still really proud of that special. You know what I mean? And so far, so far, anyway, I think that was the most creative thing I've ever done. Right. So shout out to everybody involved with that.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening to part one. Stay tuned next week for part two.
SPEAKER_05I told you we'd be here for yeah, he did the full episode. So we're gonna break the trick up two episodes. He tried to tell me, oh yeah, man, I'm gonna set it up for our Amir. I'm gonna talk more than that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's why we're here till five.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, okay, bet. Okay, gotcha. And keep that part in so people can know. Yeah, we're here till five.
SPEAKER_00So thank you for watching. Thank you for listening to this week's part one. We have part two next week. Um, if you like what you hear, if you like what you see, please subscribe. Please subscribe. Five stars. Or one because Mike gets upset. One or five.
SPEAKER_07Don't give us no three stars. It's not big. Do some mother. Make up your mind. Do some shit. Make up your mind.
SPEAKER_05Please, man. Yeah. And if you like me, follow me on everything at Nico White93 that's at N E K O W H I T E Nine Free. Go watch the um things that I mentioned today.
SPEAKER_00Go watch um also put it in the show notes. Okay, bad. Description and stuff like that.