No I.D.
Comedian Jerome Davis hosts No I.D. Podcast — the show where real conversations meet raw comedy. Each episode dives deep with comedians, creators, and culture shifters, exploring everything from life and career to art, mental health, and surviving the grind — all with sharp humor and zero filter.
If you’re looking for real stories, unfiltered interviews, and laughs that hit different, this is your podcast. No scripts. No fluff. No I.D. required.
🎙️ New episodes weekly
📧 Booking: info@romedavis.co
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📱 Instagram: @comedianrome | @noidpodcast
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No I.D.
Jay Davis: From Sketches to Screens and Beyond
Turning personal setbacks into creative gold is the hallmark of true entrepreneurs, and Jay Davis exemplifies this transformation. After a divorce fifteen years ago, he began writing short stories about dating experiences, eventually filming them as sketches when "nobody was doing sketches on the internet back then." That initial spark ignited a creative empire spanning four feature films, multiple series, children's books, and the acclaimed show "The Creative Hustle" on Tubi.
Davis pulls back the curtain on his creative process and business acumen during this candid conversation. When COVID halted traditional production, he pivoted to animation and, drawing inspiration from Robert Townsend's "Partners in Crime," assembled talented comedians to create "The Creative Hustle" – a fresh blend of sketch comedy, improv, and stand-up complemented by a live band. The show tackles contemporary issues like cancel culture with intelligent humor while showcasing established comedians including Leon Rogers, Damon Williams, and Rodney Perry.
Beyond his own creative pursuits, Davis's commitment to community-building shines through his establishment of the Bernie Mac Lifetime Achievement Award and creation of IndieCon, a film festival designed to support genuine independent filmmakers without the gatekeeping common in the industry. He debunks the myth of mysterious investors funding creative projects, instead emphasizing self-reliance: "Everything comes out of pocket... whatever revenue we make from a project, we use it towards the next project." His parting advice to aspiring creators is refreshingly straightforward: "Do your research... stop being lazy. You got a fucking computer in your hand... do your research and grind." Follow Jay's journey on social media @jdavistp and catch "The Creative Hustle" on Tubi, with an expanded second season featuring 8 episodes, 16 comedians, and 25 sketches coming soon.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the no ID podcast. I have here Arthur, producer, writer, actor. This man, let me say this he got one of my favorite. I watched, like all six episodes of this show on TubB called the Creative Hustle, where it's sketch, improv stand-up comedy with a live band. Executive producer of the show. But not only does he produce this show, he embodies the title Creative Hustle. The one and only Jay Davis, how you doing today, boss.
Speaker 2:I'm good man. How's everything?
Speaker 1:Everything great brother, I appreciate you coming on.
Speaker 2:Thanks again. Forgive me for my lack of knowledge on time zones. I definitely appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 1:Man, let me just say it's good to see a creative such as yourself doing so many things Merchandise, like I said, children's books, television Specials. This is fire and you got some legends that you're working with and it was so good to see four producers black producers in the credits of the show.
Speaker 2:No, yeah how did you?
Speaker 1:how did this all come about like, from the children's books to writing, producing, acting and so on? How did all this start?
Speaker 2:all this started, uh, I want to say 15 years ago. I was in the house before first off a divorce from my first wife and I was like man, I need to do something with my life. So I just started writing short stories and all I meant like based on dating experiences, and I'm like and what if I film these? Like nobody was doing like sketches and shit on the internet back then. So I just started like I found somebody on like craigslist and then that's before craig. That got creepy too and so I found somebody. Uh, he started filming them. He, he really didn't have any experience, but you know I was able to film him and get him out there and then from there I took the characters and and that and shot my first movie.
Speaker 1:Damn. You was like, yeah, she gone, now Let me go ahead and show you.
Speaker 2:Let me move on with my life and make it better.
Speaker 1:Look at me now Upgrade it.
Speaker 2:All right. So yeah, from there, I shot four feature films and like six, seven series, so stay busy.
Speaker 1:I understand we got a little similar experience because after I broke up with my ex, I got into stand-up comedy and podcasts. Look at me now bitch, I'm just kidding Empire Caps. Look at me now bitch, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you gotta let some shit go.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you do. It's an adult children's book series.
Speaker 2:No, this is for kids, 100% kids, really. Yeah, that was the funny part about it when I told my friend I I wrote a kid's book. And they're like, come on, man, I can't be Quit playing. If I sold my kid's book, they ain't going to be messed up. I'm like, no, it's for 6 to 11-year-olds. Like no bad stuff happens to these kids.
Speaker 1:I went deep in the trenches on your instagram page the other day, dating a comedian booger sugar booger.
Speaker 2:So that's a cartoon series I like reposted. So I did the cart all right. So the creative hustle and the cartoon series were products of COVID, because I couldn't film during COVID. So I started doing the cartoon series Towards the end of COVID. I reached out to my partner Omar. I'm like, hey, man, do you remember Robert Townsend's Partners in Crime? He's like, yeah, I'm like I went on like a YouTube rabbit hole. And I'm like, man, I remember this. I'm like I think we can pull this off Because I know a lot of dope comedians and dope artists. And he's like all right, let's do it. So I reached out to Rodney Perry and then Will Gates, and then we all came up with a plan. We found a venue, we're going to do this. I got a bunch of comedians that have been rocking with me since I started. I'm like, hey, man, we're going to film, we're going to do this. We picked two days to film the live taping and then we shot the sketches on separate days.
Speaker 1:It was a sketch where the mass killer was going around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the cancel culture, cancel culture. He's like no, I'm black, no, I'm gay. He said fuck it, I'm black, no, I'm gay he said fuck it, I'm killing everybody no lives matter.
Speaker 2:how about that and that came about? Do you remember that was Halloween ends? Okay, it was one. I think it was Halloween ends or Halloween kills, one of those Halloween. It was controversy. I think it was Halloween Ends or Halloween Kills One of those Halloween. It was controversy in that movie Because they said Michael Myers killed a gay couple. I'm like this nigga killed everybody, but they really got people really upset that he killed a gay couple. I'm like wait a minute, man, this is going too far.
Speaker 1:They did all too far. They did, I mean I enjoyed it because like it seems like you can't, like I don't know, just like comedy has like saturated and I get some jokes ain't acceptable, but it's like it seems like the cancel culture, the internet, looks to cancel anybody for any reason, like I don't know. If you saw, we got, we just had a comedian, I forgot his name but he got eight years and in prison for telling jokes in brazil.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, that, that didn't like. What jokes did he tell?
Speaker 1:I can't find them. I can't find them eight years. Imagine being in prison with somebody. What you ain't here for murder, what about you? Oh, extortion, kidnapping, selling drugs. What about you? Uh man, I shot a comedy special you're right.
Speaker 2:like what that that? Hey, I gotta, I gotta find the backstory on that. What joke was so bad? Did he talk about somebody in there, like in their Congress or whatever? To to piss somebody off Like I don't know? I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know, and it was good to see it was. I mean I saw it. I was like, yeah, I ain know, and it was good to see it was. I mean I saw it. I was like, yeah, I ain't never gonna do a special over there, but yeah, I do like the fact that you, when you say you had the comedians that you've been rocking with and grinding like, you had leon rogers up there, damon williams, who is a fucking killer, oh yeah, I seen him two times. I'm talking about like back to back. Like I saw him at a friday show and I went to the saturday show and seeing him and I was like, oh, yeah, damon's the godfather.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, he's godfather. I just got I just talked to him recently, um, so also last was it last year um, I got permission from the, uh, bernie mac foundation to create. So I wanted to give damon an award for always like being cool, and whenever I called him he answered the call. He was in like my first feature, uh, third feature film, not another black movie and uh, I want to give damon some kind of award just to recognize him as being dope. I'm like what if we named the award the bernie mack lifetime achievement award? And so I reached out to his daughter, his daughter's, like I love the idea. You got to reach out to my mom. She's over the foundation. So I reached out to the foundation, they reached out to Rhonda and they gave us permission to create the Bernie Mac Lifetime Achievement Award. So last June pretty much like I want to say the 9th June, 9th of last year we presented Damon with that award. So this year we're planning the second award.
Speaker 1:Damn, that's dope. That's dope. That's dope, that's dope because when you see like a lot of comedians out there, they only really push so many of them. And damon williams is godfather, king, well, I'm gonna say kingpin. But kingpin goat rodney perry. I've been following rodney since the what's the show would, I think was bill bellamy got jokes. It used to come on tv one, yeah, he got jokes.
Speaker 2:Who got jokes?
Speaker 1:something like that yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was like that was better than last comic standing because they was putting them in different scenarios where, like, what would you do if the mic didn't work? Would you still talk, or whatever I learned? I went on a rabbit hole of uh youtube prior to my journey and then I came across Petey Green.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I was like Petey was raw. Yeah, you make films as well too. I remember I thought about this. You posted up a meme a couple of months ago. It said I know what my cousin did last summer when it was like Kanye, and then that would be so dope if he shot something like that.
Speaker 2:But you know, I saw somebody post it. This was hilarious. They said Kanye was sucking dick of choice. This was hilarious. They said Kanye was sucking dick of choice.
Speaker 1:I was like, oh, Like Kanye, he dies for like two months. You don't hear nothing from him for like two, three months, Then randomly he comes, like yeah. I was with my cousin since 14.
Speaker 2:I'm like what I'm like, bro, you don't have to tell you. Like, why would you say that? Like, do you need to sell albums? That bad? Like I don't know man, I don't know, the medication ain't strong enough. You need a friend. I don't know what it is, and he's from chicago, and people all the way like man, what's up with? Yay, I don't know this nigga like I never, never, ran across him. I don't even know if he's from chicago.
Speaker 1:He might be from a suburb in illinois I don't know he might be, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know the medication, but it was dope. And you do films as well, too, right, so you've done a lot of films, yeah. Um, now you see, like the success of more black, uh directors coming along, more black filmmakers coming along. Will they be on the main screen, like ryan coogler, who is, in my opinion, the I wouldn't say comparing, but he is this generation spike lee with the film and the cinematography. And you see, like 2b has opened up a lot of doors now for a lot of black filmmakers. Has there been more motivation for you? Is it getting easier for you to get more exposure through 2b or are you looking to also get more on the mainstream, or um, 2b is pretty much for any indie filmmaker mainly black though but, um, like they pay the bills.
Speaker 2:Like you know, people make fun of Tubi. They call them Tubi movies. But Tubi don't produce shit. They produce their own content. But 98% of the movies you see on Tubi are made from somebody else. And they got mainstream movies too. But like Tub be pays the most.
Speaker 2:It used to be amazon prime. Amazon prime used to pay filmmakers, indie filmmakers, like 16 cent per minute of your movie. When you stream it, like, so anybody watch it, your whole movie, say, your movie's an hour and a half, you'll get paid 16 cent per minute. So, whatever that is.
Speaker 2:Um, a lot of indie filmmakers caught on. They started putting their movies on amazon. Amazon, I was like fuck that. Um, we put it down to two cent a minute and then after that they were like you know what? No, we're gonna make it a rental. It's not gonna be free for prime members, we're gonna make it a rental. And now we get half to be free for Prime members. We're going to make it a rental, and now we get half of the rental too. So if your movie's on sale for $2.99 in rent, they want half of that. So then Tubi came along and like, yeah, we'll stream the content, we'll put the content on there. And Tubi has, in my opinion, the best model as far as streaming services one it's free and you get paid by them advertising during your move. So they get. They're getting money from their sponsors. Wanna, you know, play commercial and ass throughout their movies, and and that's how families, filmmakers, do um to be, yeah, cool.
Speaker 1:People don't realize about tubi is they do have those films, those big main film, mainstream film, like you said. But when hbo said they wasn't gonna pay um union actors, half of hbo max's catalog went over to tubi.
Speaker 2:So that's when you saw country and all that yeah and um, yeah to be I mean to be, and it's like to be gets a bad rap because, yeah, it's like some people, their quality control is not the best. I can say that. And so you see crazy shit going viral on there like what? Like come on, man, man. But again, the indie filmmakers, tooby, don't have shit to do with the making of the movie. It's indie filmmakers doing the best that they can with their budget. That's just what it is and it's just like yes, it's funny, it's hilarious, but it's like people think every movie is like that and it's not.
Speaker 1:Tooby has some original movies. I watched some with Damon Williams no, damon Wayne, excuse me and Pam. You're called cinnamon. I love the hell out that movie.
Speaker 2:I think I did see that. Yeah, it was dope.
Speaker 1:It was like it came out like a year ago.
Speaker 2:I remember that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's fine. People don't realize this too, Tubi went from one year having a commercial on the Super Bowl to actually streaming the Super Bowl.
Speaker 2:The following year. Tubi got money. Tubi has more viewership than BET+. That's the reality of it and that's Googleable.
Speaker 1:That's what it is, man. So who was like some of your inspirations as far as like filmmaking?
Speaker 2:Yeah like. Robert Townsend, spike Lee, john Singleton, people like that. Okay, yeah, robert Townsend is like underrated as hell um people like that.
Speaker 1:Okay yeah, robert Townsend is like underrated as hell cause Carlos Miller. That's when I first saw Carlos Miller was on Robert Townsend's um stuff. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, he was one of the ones putting the comedians on. He was, uh, hollywood Shuffle was Hollywood Shuffle.
Speaker 2:Yep Hollywood Shuffle. He had some dope friends. He had some dope friends around him.
Speaker 1:I saw this interview. They was talking. He's like it took him for them to do Hollywood Shuffle was $40,000 in credit card debt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he used credit card.
Speaker 1:That's a bet on yourself, man. So just a question when you have these ideas for these films and these projects that you're working on, do you do the credit card debt thing too, or do you?
Speaker 2:Oh, everything's out of pocket. Does the studio give you a budget? Nah, I'm the studio. Me and my partner have the studio. Everything comes out of pocket and that's what it is, you know. And then whatever revenue we make from project, we use it towards the next project. So, and they know, oh, we got people got this magical idea that these investors are waiting around with two million dollars to give you to shoot something, that shit ain't going to happen. But you can keep waiting and see what happens. Best of luck to you. But if you want to get some shit done in a reasonable amount of time, you don't have to bet on yourself. You got to save up. You don't need all the Jordans. Put some money aside. If you really want to do it, you'll figure it out Big facts, big facts, big facts.
Speaker 1:I used to think like they had like hedge funds and some I was like, yeah, I got a hedge fund, I want to put 30 million dollars into. I guess it's not the case.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, bro, I cut you off no, people do like indiegogos and stuff like that. And then something I've seen people raise money but that's not like. That doesn't happen for everybody for sure.
Speaker 1:Is it like a main goal that you have as far as like the film, the book, the, the special? Are you like trying to get more into, like, uh, what's the american black film festival? Are you trying to get an ifc festival to sundance, anything like that? Or you just like, you know, I like being an underground king and I like to, you know, get my flowers that way instead of being so mainstream so film festivals are, uh, in my opinion, uh, some of my uh a piece of shit.
Speaker 2:Uh, because I've seen the bullshit on some of these film festivals, I'll give you one example that I've seen like you know they'll film festivals.
Speaker 2:A lot of them charge you an entry fee. Say an entry fee is like $75. And say you have like at least say like 500 filmmakers paying $75 to enter their movie Just enter, not guaranteed to win. I was on a particular film and say we wrapped on November 15th and we went to the wrap party, it was wrapped, the movie's not done. We finished wrap party, the movie's not done, we finished filming, the movie's not done. Two days later they announced that that film that we just wrapped on is not edited yet made a film festival. I'm like, how the fuck did that happen? And so, and it was like it was called the Pan African American Film Festival in LA, which is a big film festival and it was one of the film festivals at the time that I had reached out to to put another movie in there and they declined me. This film, this rap, somehow got accepted and it's not complete yet. I'm like, okay, that's the bullshit.
Speaker 1:You think it's more like a money grab, like they charge you the production fee and shit like that it's definitely a money grab, like they charge you the production fee and shit like that.
Speaker 2:It's definitely a money grab. So I just like said, fuck that. And I created a film festival in 2024 called IndieCon for indie filmmakers for real. Yeah, we had this. We had two years. We did one in 2024 and 2025, so we had, you know, a lot of Chicago based indie filmmakers, but we accept films from all over. We screened films for two days shorts and feature films. People came out and had a good time.
Speaker 1:Damn, damn, I'm going to check that out. Yeah, don't prevent. I'm going to check that out. The support, support, because I've been to the black film festival in DC, but I need to. It's like yeah, issa Rae is going to be here. I didn't see her. I must have missed that day. I must have missed that day. You know what I mean? I don't know, I don't know. Then they'll tell Like for, like For me, like we got Podcast festivals and then we got Comedy festivals and it's. It's pretty much Just like Somebody told me One time they was gonna put me In front of a, a big booker and stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you gotta do it, man. I paid Cause we'll get like the same thing. Uh, entry fee it was a hundred, bullet, hundred dollars. I will say bullets. I'm in norfolk, so I got you got to forgive me, so it was a hundred dollars to submit. And I submit. They said send the video in. I sent five minutes in and I just waited and probably like four months later I get an email. Unfortunately we're not able to accept. I'm like, why, damn, give me my hundred dollars back? Uh, we don't read four months later and that that's the great thing.
Speaker 2:How many, how many people you think submitted? Is that the guess?
Speaker 1:it's got to be hundreds, probably, probably thousands.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of money. It's in somebody's account, like you know, the Book of Venue. There's still a few thousand unaccounted for, so it's like that's a lot of money that you are. You know, come on, now, that's robbery. They should scream at people and be like hey look, all right, all right, we're gonna accept you here, here's the fee to get in. But instead you submit they look at you, look at the tape.
Speaker 1:They probably don't even look at half the tapes, to be honest with you so I had a big comedian do one, uh, actually, from I ain't gonna say their name because I want to work with them in the future, but he has a talk show. I submitted and I promise you I submitted like at 7 o'clock pm and 7.30 pm I got a rejection and I was like, oh, I'm sorry, god damn, god damn.
Speaker 2:They probably go off name recognition like I know this nigga how many followers you get, nah he out. They probably even look at that. They couldn't have looked at your tape they couldn't looked at it.
Speaker 1:What got me is I went on the page. I was like I was being petty, I was mad as hell. I. I was mad bro. I was like I'm going to look.
Speaker 2:There's no way possible the odds that they're doing absolutely nothing from 7 to 7.30. The day like, I'm going to look at this tape and then watch it and be like nope, open and get the email in real time, watch the tape, type another email and send it in 30 minutes like now they pissed me off.
Speaker 1:So bad, bro, because I looked at who was up, they had people from wild and out up there.
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh yeah, it was name recognition and that's a lot of what they go on. They go off a name recognition and instagram following. That's it that's it.
Speaker 1:That's it, man. Look, jay, I got one more question for you, brother, before you go off. What advice do you give was to people that's actually trying to live what you do. The creative hustle hustle from the books to the movies, to everything. How, what? What advice do you have for somebody that's looking to do what you're doing?
Speaker 2:do your research. You, anything is, um, you can fact check anything. You can look on youtube, google, um, now, ai. But do your research. Whatever you want to get into, whether it's writing, writing a book or writing a script, anything do your research because a lot of people jump in head first and spend unnecessary money and waste unnecessary time and you can figure a lot of stuff out on yourself. You don't have to ask everybody for something. You don't have to pay for information a lot of times. Dude, stop being lazy. You got a fucking computer in your hand. Yeah, the phone in your hand is equivalent to the library any library you got in your area, so you can look up anything you want to know. Do your research and grind. That's pretty much it.
Speaker 1:My man. And if anybody wants to see your content or follow you and support you, what can they reach you out at?
Speaker 2:uh, it's, you know, j davis, jay davis, tp. On everything instagram, facebook uh, what's that tiktok? And then look up creative hustle on um on tubi or edyH on Tubi and jdavisfilmscom all my movies and everything is listed on there my guy and if you guys want to follow me, it's at Comedian Rome on all social media platforms.
Speaker 1:The podcast is no ID Podcast, jay, I appreciate you, brother oh man, I appreciate you bro, I'm going to say this too, because my mom, she's a comedian too. We watched the creative hustle with each other and we got locked in to the point where it was like, alright, this shit is good wait till you see.
Speaker 2:Season 2, season 2. Yeah, season 2. We got 8 episodes, 16 comedians, like 25 sketches. So season 2 is gonna be huge. We got eight episodes, 16 comedians, like 25 sketches. So, yeah, season two is going to be huge. We got on season two. We got Sean Morgan, wildcat Damon's back, calvin Evans. Who else we got I'm going to get in trouble Marlon Mitchell, fabian Rowe we got a lot of comedians. I'm sorry, anybody wild, I'm sorry, we got a lot of comedians. I'm sorry, anybody. I'm sorry, we got a lot of comedians. Uh, velmo. Uh, comedian Roy Mo. Good, we got a shit load of comedians on season two. So get ready, it'll be out soon my god amen.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you once again, god bless and everything, wishing them but the best success. Likewise, brother, appreciate you once again. God bless and everything. Wish you nothing but the best success likewise brother.
Speaker 2:Appreciate you, thank you, thank you.
