What Now? with Trevor Noah - Roy Wood Jr. Gets Real About Fear, Fame, & Fatherhood

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Roy Wood Jr., Trevor, and Eugene delve into Roy’s journey from growing up with an absentee father to becoming a father himself, and how writing his memoir helped him understand what fatherhood really means. The three also discuss how life’s circumstances have shaped their world view and comedy. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Please put you in together for the very funny, Roy Wood Jr. Hey, what's up? I'm the black one. Let's start. The year that I was suspended from school, that's when I started doing stand-up. I was at a low, and I found something that was an outlet. Now, 25 years into his career, Wood is in his prime. He's a father to 6-year-old Henry. My next guest is a comedian and actor, a daily show correspondent. Senior campaign correspondent, Roy Wood Jr., everybody.

Where would you be trying? Well known for his daily show appearances. He will be hosting this year's White House Correspondents' dinner. CNN is set to premiere a new comedy quiz show called Have I Got News for You? It's going to be hosted by Emmy Award nominee, Roy Wood Jr. I think my father would be proud, but I think he'd be even prouder if I go up there and make sure that I'm talking about something real. Because when you have the microphone, you better have something to say. He may not get it again.

This is What Now with Trevor Noah. All right, well, let's do this, Roy. You ready to start your grind? Stop, see. I heard you. You like the women in my life. Even after I tell you what the truth is, you're just going to stay on the,

the fucking truth that you've conjured. Wow, we jump straight into it. Welcome to the podcast. Oh, wait, we're rolling. Now I'm going to get text from the women in my life. Is that what you think? Oh, man.

No. Whatever, Roy. How you been, man? It's been a minute, man. It's been too long. We text, but we don't get to this. You know, you know what I was thinking the other day is one of the things no one tells you about the relationships you'll form working in like an office

is that you get so used to people being in your life. You take for granted that they'll always just be there. Every morning I woke up and within a few hours of waking up I would see Roy Wood Jr. We would have conversations. We talk about Donald Trump. We talk about the news. We talk about life.

But you just assume that those people are going to be your village. Yes. And then you leave the village of work and then the people are just gone. Now, you know what's funny? I still see David Kabooka in my neighborhood. Yeah, but David's that guy. David is the most, he's the most employed homeless person I know.

I'll see, like, daily show employees just out and about now. And in a weird way, it's, oh, should I speak? That's my, yeah, I should speak. Yeah, we have a friendship that's deeper than the building where we work. But it's weird, though, right? Yeah. It is weird. It's like meeting your school friends on a weekend.

And a mom. No, no. No, but it's even weirder than that. It's you were, you're out of the school. You finish school. Yeah. I mean, finished is one way to think of it. You're just out.

You're just out of school. You're just out. No, it's weird because the people are still there. And then you see them and they see you. And you have like a moment of, I saw one of the writers from the show Matt, Matt Koff. I was in, I was in, I was in, I was in, the park in Brooklyn and that's cross territory

yeah and I was walking around and he saw me I didn't see him and he was like he went like hey Trevor as he walked by you are he is like hey Trevor and my brain I was busy doing something

I was on a call I think even and I carried on then like four steps later I was like I know that voice then I turned and he just carried on walking and then I was like yo Matt and he was like hey

I said, why did you keep walking? He's like, oh, I don't know. I figured maybe you're done with us. It's a lot of folks who treat folks like that, though. After the job is done? I think it's an American thing, to be honest with you. Really? Yeah, I think it's an American thing.

It's transactional because this is the job. And then at some point in your 20s, you just realize it's a revolving door of co-stars when it comes to professional relationships. so you don't know if you have a personal relationship until you leave work. And then it's truly light-shirt. Like, you know who oddly I'm probably the close, who I see the most. I won't say the closest, but who I see the most is Desi's husband.

Desi's husband, Gannon. Me and him, we in a group chat with two other dudes from the show. When I tell you, that's my dog. How? I don't know. But I know part of it is also our boys are the same. same age. So we swap birthday party invites every year. Okay. And then me and Gannon became kind of like the, at the adult gap, at the kid gathering, we in the cut, sipping something

and just talking shit. Looking kidnapped. Yeah. And call hang all the time. Yeah. I say Haasen a close second. I see, I've seen Haasen a lot. Yeah. Since I left the show. But, you know, I don't, I don't know. It's just, it's weird. It's weird when you leave and you you check in and I feel like you know I love you you know if you need me call me but like I'm not gonna like show up to any

of the functions. You know the way you described it right now? You sort of, you made it sound like prison and being out and being in. I know you didn't intend it that way but your tone and your vibe made it feel like when we're in prisons like I mean we were, I mean you know me I'm around

and I mean. It's the military. It's It's the same. We served. I served. You served. Yeah. And then you, you're retired. Your daily show retired.

And the people who are still enlisted, hey, Isaac, good to see you. And I'll check in on you when you need me to. But like the default of seeing you every day, that was pre-con-I-I-guided. I guess what I'm saying is that you have to, at some point, you have to try it, friendship. And maybe I'm just not a good trier. No, I don't think that's what is. It is circumstantial. Like, a lot of sincere moments happened because we were working together.

Okay, here's what I think it is. I think because Americans have to be so nice at work. Have to be. Have to be. I've worked in few places where people have to be as nice and fake as they are in America. Right. You get an HR complaint also I need something from you sooner or later. Yeah.

Whereas I find in South Africa and the little work I've done in like the UK and maybe like even offices I've seen in Australia and stuff, I think people are a lot more genuine. So they don't have to be nice You can just work together You know what I mean You don't have to be friends I need those reports Thank you

It's just keep it moving Do you know what I mean? You're not You don't have to be friends And you don't have to be nice You just have to get the job done Yeah But then in America

There's a fine line between Not being nice And not being perceived as professional And so then you'd foster these sort of fake relationships With a lot of people Because it's based on niceness And then when you're out

The people are like Oh okay I mean that's that's done Whereas in South Africa I find people aren't nice to everyone they work with I'm not saying disrespectful or anything Do you all have like cultural rules and faux pies

at company parties like an American party Like I was taught if you go to dinner with your bosses You don't you wait for the boss to order alcohol No The boss orders alcohol then you can drink Don't drink more than the boss If you're at a company party

Christmas party don't get too tipsy Don't get too wild Don't get too touchy Philly You're still at work Even though it's a party Even if it's a company Oh yeah No

With us, when this alcohol, there's alcohol. So you don't wait to see if the boss is going to happen? No, I've never seen that. No. It's a party. Crazy talk. Want to move? No, because you're going to use that against me when we get back to work.

No, you see, no, that's another thing. No, it happened at the party. No, Roy, what happens at the party stays at the party. No, no. Why are you going to bring those things up? You start getting flirty and making out what so. Like, you can't even like even like even. I've been to company parties where I'm conscious about who I'm talking to and for how long in the eyes of someone across the room clocking me talk to that one person, especially if it's a single woman.

Especially. Oh, we're talking five minutes. All right. Give me a move. If it's just, if it's one-on-one. You have to leave and come back. You don't have an internal. You don't have that countdown clock in your head.

When you're talking to another single person at a company. event? A co-worker? No. No. But again, we do... You're not going to make me feel crazy. No, you're not saying... I've kept good jobs for a very long time. You've had many jobs. That should have been the book you wrote, the man of many jobs. You write about many fathers. I was like, this man has had every... But you know what's funny? Just listening to you say this now makes me realize, like, you have a specific type of paranoia that has served you well in the world, but it's also part of what I think I

love about you as a human being. Yeah. You're not paranoid in the classic sense. Like people being like, they're watching us. No, but what you just said, I timed myself when I'm talking to a woman. A single woman. A single woman at a company function. Or somebody else could get to whispering.

Yeah. Every day at the daily show when I'd walk in in the mornings, we'd do our morning meeting. Everyone would hang out. And then Roy would go to his office. And I remember I'd go in, I'd walk past Roy's office and sometimes just like walk in and see what he was doing. I've never felt like somebody is hiding another life more than Roy.

You know when you look at a person's computer screen? It's work. No. One day it was coding. Like literally he had like a document up on like how to code, coding for beginners. I was like this man's coding. Then a few weeks later I come back,

he's doing deep research on like K-pop and like Korean music in general and K-dramas. And I come back a few weeks later, Roy's like, do it. I'll be like, who is this man? Video editing. Yeah. And I was like, who is this man? And what is he doing in his life?

Graphics. You're talking about the day when I was doing the graphics. I was trying to build a graphics package. I was learning Adobe after effects. And just watching videos and just how to, I want to know how to do this stuff. Because I also want to know when I'm getting screwed. And that's also far to paranoia. That's the paranoia.

This is the paranoia. The paranoia drives it towards it. You're not giving harder. I need to. Before I pay you, I must know exactly what I'm paying you for coding. I need to learn it. I need to learn some degree of it because then when you tell me that it's going to take two days turn to isolate an image and turn into a P&G and put a couple graphics behind

it. I know that's a three-hour job, bro. Because you've done it. I know enough about it. I'm not perfect. I didn't go to school for it, but I know enough of it. enough of it. So you're not going to fuck me. I'm not going to allow that. And so I also have worked too hard. So yeah, there's certain parameters. The interns, Daily Show interns, right? So

me and Ronnie Chang had an office in the furthest part of the building and was also the desk where some of the interns would be set or whatever. Won't come in and talk, whatever, but you're standing in that goddamn doorway. Don't you come in his office? Stay out, all the advice in the world you want, anything you want to chat about, but you stand up, you're standing that goddamn door. You're not coming in this office, and it needs to be two of you. You've been a dad for a long time, right? This guy was born in a man.

You had given you. You fix your pants, comb your hair. And it's not like some sort of, like, I know I'm sounding like Mike Pence right now, where it's on some, I can't be in the room with a woman. But the idea of maintaining some degree of professionalism in a corporate space has just always been just paramount to me. So I'm always thinking about those interactions that I have with people and stuff like that. Like even when we would be on location and doing daily show shoots and you've got the PA and it's the end of the day and you're wrapping up, we're not riding in an Uber. together. I will get you an Uber.

Absolutely. We'll get you an Uber. But we're not riding. Wait, so before the daily show, had you ever been in a corporate environment as an employee of someone? Sort of. I did morning radio for 12 years, but I was on the talent side. And so morning radio, you know, talent side is totally different from the sales side. Sales is the proper button down. But there's certain protocols within the building.

Like, that's the only job I ever had where we had harassment training. It was harassment training. It's America That's how Roy knows how to harass Have you seen him harassed It's one of the best harasses you've ever come across This man will harass you Roy

Harassment Boy is Roy Wood Yeah It would be so funny Because we always just to see these things Have you been for your harassment training He was like I sure have

Smack my ass Let me see how you do You got your training Yeah you do it real good Wait, wait, wait, right before. Wait. How long, because a certain friend of mine who I won't mention was telling me that they want to attend a course

to learn how to fall. Apparently, there's people who teach people how to fall. Okay, clown school and all at the time. I don't appreciate, you know what, Roy, you've been roped into roasting me without realizing it. So don't respond to anything this man says. Clown school is important. No, stop calling a clown school.

But it is. There's a school that teaches you pratfalls. Don't let this man has roped you in. Steve, built a career. He went to clown school. I'm not saying it. You're harassing me right now without knowing it. I'm not saying anything you're saying is wrong. Okay, stunt school.

He's a stunt person. Fine. Yeah, so that's how we start. We said, look, are you going to go to stunt school? He said, no, no, no. Then we said, okay, is it chichitsu? He said, no, sort of chichitsu taekwondo, but they can teach you how. But actually, there's people who teach you how to fall. The Brazilian grapple.

I just want to learn how to, look, it's, you need to know how to fall. You know this guy, too? You just need to know how we're talking about the one who's going to fall in school. Well, I guess with the wrist brace, you do need to learn how to fall. Your shit's fucked up. How long was your harassment training? And see, right there, I'd get a report.

A month from now, you made someone feel uncomfortable when you single... Yeah, that's what it is. But that was a classic case. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. When I did radio, we had harassment training. You got to remember, I did radio. I came in 2001. Two years later was the Janet Jackson Super Bowl press.

Oh, wow. So decency. You see how you said press? Yes. I said boop out. Yeah, you said boop out. Yeah, you didn't do the course. Yeah, you didn't take class.

You've never had a job. He's been in training. And so we took all of these classes on how to talk about the boob. And then, well, FCC laws changed after the Janet Jackson thing. So we had to learn formal new ways to talk on the radio. And then on top of that, they added, like, harassment, training and, like, proper workplace, whatever, whatever. I mean, we're talking like a decade before me, too. So that was just constantly drilled in.

And as a jock, I'm on the side of the building where, you know, everybody's, like, having sex with each other, it's drugs. Like, it's chaos. But also, it happened outside the building. So you could still do in the building, you could be completely appropriate, but outside the building. is where everybody let loose. I mean, you know, you're talking the radio days of payola and people having sex with listeners and you bring in rappers into the studio at 2 in the morning.

I used to be at the radio station at 3 in the morning doing prep for the morning show. Yeah. And then we would just walk over to the control room. It was all automate. We were just going to air. No, Roy. Do live radio at 3 in the morning.

Fuck it. My boss's sweet. And if he's up, it's because he's cheating. Because he's fucking listeners. So I know you're not going to call. Oh, man. I know you're not going to check me right now, not when you're supposed to be in bed, married person.

So what would the 3 a.m. radio show be about? We would just take calls. We stopped playing music. And we would have people, I got to give a shout out to my man, Young Deal, because Young Deal was the one that was, he was supposed to work to midnight. And he would stay. And then we would just take calls from people leaving the club.

Yeah. Or people hit it to a booty call. And just, you know. That was it. That was it. Yeah, that's at 3 a.m. I did 3 to 6. Yeah.

And it was the same thing. How was the club? Well, you know, how was the, whatever. Just what happened in the club tonight? Or tell me about the person you about to go fuck. And that was it. Or you'd be coming back from a booty call. How was the booty call?

And then there was the occasional person who's working the early shift. Yeah. There's always some going truck. Yeah. Some beverage delivery. food person. Seafood. Yeah.

One serious person, five drunk. Yeah. That was like the ratio. One serious five drunk. No way. Yeah, that's what it is on radio. At that time or the morning. Yeah, yeah.

It's, you might get a trucker passing through town, some long call guy. But for the most part, it's chaos and it was beautiful. But at 9 a.m., when the building woke up, you understood the corporate and how to speak. And you wouldn't go flirting with no sales rep or anything like that. And like, I don't know how radio is now, but black radio in the South, at that time, you wanted your sales reps to be gorgeous or like a manly man. Because they out in the street, they're selling a person. You need a man to sell the men, and then you need women to kind of sell and be on the sensitive side.

And that's how you get a couple extra ad buys from people and stuff like that. So that side of the building was a sexy side. So they needed a video to watch to go, hey. When you're out there? Don't say nice titties. You say appropriate breasts. These are appropriate breasts. Thank you for having your breast out today.

You know when I was thinking about you coming in today, I was going through your life and I was like, man, this guy, there's few people I've, I've met who I feel like have lived a life that is more parallel than, you. yours and mine. Like everything about you. You know, you know when you know someone, you know them by how they've interacted with you. Very seldom do we know people by what they've done in life or what shaped them. Like, I don't know about you, but I very seldom ask friends of mine random questions. Yeah, like how did you get here? Or what influence did your father have in your life?

Like, these are not things I think most people ask the people. And it's only when you sit down and you look through someone's life, do you go, I was like, damn, I worked with you at the Daily Show for Seven. years. I didn't know that you and I both shoplifted. I didn't know that you and I were both raised by basically like a version of the same mom. I didn't know that you and I were both like children of the streets, you know. Just freedom. Just I didn't know that you and I. Like it was just this crazy world to go like, oh man, this is. Yeah, this guy lived a parallel life to mine just in Birmingham. We're both south. South, South, you know, South Africa, south of the United States. You

You don't know what I mean? Yeah. Once I knew you did radio and then the relationship with your dad was weird. Like mine, I was like, oh, yeah. Okay. We're going to get along. You know what's about K-pop and programming? You know what's funny about dads, though? It's like, and I mean, we'll talk a little bit about your book because, man, I love what you wrote.

I love what you wrote because it feels less like a book about your life and more like a user manual. on how to become a father, become a person, and even how to be a child. I don't, I know it's interesting. We'll get into it as we dig into it, but I'm just thinking back to what you spoke about, just a few minutes ago, the paranoia.

The first thing I thought was like, oh, that's your dad. Like, you studying the coding, you going, I'm going to learn how to code so that if somebody's coding for me, they can't bullshit me, I'm going to learn how to do this so that they can't scam me.

You're dead with the coupons would go like you your dad would check every single price of every single item in every single store before he left the house before he left the house and he would only buy the item from the cheapest whichever store offered that item the cheapest so matter how far they were the matter how far anywhere in jefferson county so we would drive grocery shopping would take three hours and you could just go to two stores and be done with it like a conventional person you get a couple of And you just save money on these three items. But if there's coupons that are being offered somewhere else, because in those days, they did price matching.

Yeah. So if I could bring the coupon and improve to you that across town got it for cheap, they'll give it to you. So my pops would play that game everywhere in the city. We would go to one store for produce, one store for meat, another store for dairy, and then another store for, like, just dry goods. And, like, that was the thing. And he came home just smiling. Like you beat the system? Well, because in a way he did, but he didn't.

Because on the black side of town, fruit was more expensive than on the white side of town. For whatever reason you want to choose racism. But if an apple costs a dollar on our side of town and that same apple costs 85 cent on the white side of town, my pops is going to go buy the 85 cent apple from the white side of town and then bring coupons that are for the for this other store and make the white store to the white store no to the white store to the white store yeah to basically go ha ha ha now you got to give me all this shit for cheap because you're all charging because these other stores charging more so it's like on

one hand he saved money but you spent money outside of the black neighborhood so did you really help did you hurt you know what I mean yeah yeah yeah So it's like one of those things. Also, you spent way too much gas. And, you know, my dad also bought a lot of, like my dad would do shit like a gallon of milk versus half a gallon versus a quart. And we would stand there and I would have to figure out what is the cost per ounce average between these three volumes of milk to decide which one was the best buy.

There were times where it was cheaper to go to the white side of town and buy four quarts of milk than it was to buy a gallon. And I would come home with four just cartons of milk. Or we'll go get two half gallons over here, but they got a deal where if you get two gallons, you get a third gallon free. So if you get three gallons for free, the per ounce average is lower than if you get the two half gallons. So this week, we're going to get our dairy from over here, but we're going to get too much milk. More milk than you could ever fucking drink. But we save money.

But did you, though, if you got more milk than you can consume before you. It expires. Have you saved money? Yeah. But that's how my pops operated. And he also bought a lot of things secondhand. So, you know, my dad came up as a haggler. So he stayed in the pawn shops. He stayed reading the Warnats every Saturday and Sunday for like use camera.

My dad collected cameras. Yeah. So. Like vintage cameras. Yeah. Vintage old school cameras. And Lincoln, any Lincoln you could name, my pops owned it. He bought.

use. He'd get the engine read down a little bit, drive it for a year, then flip it when the blue book went up on that particular car. My favorite story was in the book you talk about how your dad was so notorious for loving these cars. He would get calls from dealerships when someone would drive in with a car because they wanted to trade in their car. They were thinking of trading in the car and then your dad would be there already like signing papers for a car that hasn't even been sold by the other person yet. He didn't been inspected. Yeah, somebody is coming in to trade it, like, let's say you got a Lincoln Continental, like an 89 Continental.

That was his favorite one. Suicide does? No, no. He would keep it factory. He would just add leather seats or whatever. He would like trick out the inside. So my pop was, it would be a, it was midfield Dodge, was one of the places. Midfield Dodge would call my dad.

Hey, Mr. Wood, we got, uh, we got somebody down here bringing in an 89 Continental. You're more than welcome to come down here and take a look at it. before we added to the inventory if it's something that suits you fancy. And then my pops was like, keep them there. And he puts down four quarts of milk. And when I was old enough to start driving my pops everywhere,

when I had like a learners permit when I was 15, say, boy, take me down to midfield Dodge. And we get to midfield Dodge, and the owner of the Lincoln is inside doing their trade-in paperwork for whatever they're about to leave with. And my dad is outside looking at this person. This shit is still in the car. Kids and anything.

Yeah. Belongings. Excuse me. Yeah. And my pops. But they would start haggling on the prices and playing around with that stuff. So anytime my dad could save a dollar, he was with it. Because he was for sure somebody was getting over on him somehow.

Right. And you can't blame him because all he did. was the first black radio, whatever, everywhere he worked for like a decade and a half. Yeah. So he used to be in a lot of distrust of just America, you know, and capitalism as a whole. So anytime he could cut a corner and save a dollar,

why buy it new when I know they're charging this, this, and this forward, and this is a perfectly good canon or Nikon right here, and I could buy it from this person who I know is taking good care of it. I know the track record. My pops would go over people's houses The newspaper was a wild time Because you would just pull it It's like Craigslist

Yeah You just It's just a stranger You're just going to get Come to my house I have items And then you just show up And then you're just in a person's house

And my pops could tell By the way Your living room Was set up No way Whether or not he was going to buy The camera From you or whatever

How you take care of that space Says a lot about How you take care of your items For him, the red flag was liquor. If you kept your liquor in a nice little, if you had a spot for your liquor, then that means you take care of nice things. And so it was that and it was always the television. Like if the TV looked good and it was cleaned and like, you know, in those days, the TV would get all the dust on it, you know, the box TVs. So if your electronics were dusted and your liquor was in a nice place in the house.

We're making a deal. we won't make a deal. But if I come in a house and your shit's dusty, you don't even wipe your table. I know you don't take care of that camera. So I know that camera's full of bullshit inside too. So I'm just, no, no deal. Do you remember the conversations in the car

going to make deals and the conversations coming back from making a deal? I think that he and I talked about everything, but me in my life. Like, I don't know, I just had one of the pops. He's just, like, I felt like I just merged in the trap. Like, I said in the book, like, I never really spent time with my dad as much as I was just hanging along with him while his life was in progress. Damn.

Come with me doing the thing with grocery shopping. And it was like, he never came to a baseball game. He never came to kick it at the science fair or to see the thing. Like, my pops couldn't name a single teacher. He showed up to no parent teacher conferences. So, like, that wasn't his. Now, to be fair, he was also spending three, four days a week across town with the other. the family. So he was busy. But there was also this degree of like what I appreciated about the

time I spent with my pops was that I always felt like a man. He always treated me like a man. When everybody else is you can and you ought to be careful. Hey, come on with me. We're driving to the thing. I've never driven on the freeway before. Ah, yeah, come on. And that was it. We're on the freeway to Montgomery and I'm driving him down to Alabama State so he can do a radio show that morning. So he was always talking about the news, the world, society. He was quick to talk about politicians, local politicians, state reps. He didn't like most of them. He didn't care for most local politicians. So there was a guy. So there was a barbershop I used to go to in Birmingham called a Pete Stone Style Shop and Pete Stone and my dad had a relationship from his time

when my pops was embedded in Pete's platoon during the Vietnam War and so they were just still tight you know I don't know what they saw you know it's it's war yeah and you both made it back you got a bond yeah so Pete's Pete's stone style shop is in the heart of the civil rights district It's a block and a half from the 16th Street Baptist Church. So it's like it's ground zero for black thought and like epicenter. So there would be on any random day on a Saturday in a style shop by Pops, the radio news, DJ, the mayor would be there. There would be a black state rep. Any black mayors from any surrounding suburbs would be there.

You would have community leaders and football coaches and half of them weren't getting a haircut. They were just in there It was like a meeting of the minds Like that's where the meetings happened That was the room Was Pete Stone Style Shop So there was a There was a mayor

At the time of a suburb of Birmingham named Larry Langford And so Larry Langford was the mayor of Fairfield's predominantly black suburb It's not It wasn't he had gotten it They were doing decent enough

As a suburb and Langford was getting ready to run for city council and all this other stuff and my pops in them are basically telling them why it could or couldn't work and all of that shit and Langford had an idea at the time to build an amusement park he had done a traffic study because Fairfield's Fairfield is between Birmingham and Mississippi Langford had done it had conducted a traffic study of showing how much traffic was passing through Birmingham to get to Atlanta and Atlanta was where you went, if you want to live a life and do, you know, have some nightlife or go see a game or, you know, whatever.

And Langford's thing was, we're losing all this money to Atlanta. We could build some shit here. So if we're losing money because of Six Flags and Whitewater, we can build an amusement park here in Jefferson County. And we can get the money. And so he's trying to explain that. And then motherfuckers laughed at him. They're like, you're not going to build anything. that can compete.

Atlanta. It's just not going to happen. And every Saturday for the next year and a half, Larry Langford came in at barbershop and argued with my pops about why it's going to work. And Langford had to grind. This motherfucker had to go to every suburb. A lot of them predominantly white because Birmingham is, it's the city of Burmonds. The way government works, you have a county commission that basically is all the suburbs together

as a conglomerate. And then you have the city of Birmingham. But you really can't do shit unless the county is on board with it. So to work the county, you have to work each individual commissioner and mayor and each individual suburb, see what their needs are, figure out a way to get them all to come together to agree that this thing that's going to be in your neighborhood, well, if it's so good, why has it got to be in your neighborhood? Why can't it be in my neighborhood? Why is it in your—so Lankford is playing all of these angles, and that motherfucker got it done.

He got an amusement park built and I say all of that to say I just remember one day riding with my dad like two years later we're coming down I-20 through Bessemer and we passed a sign for the amusement park and it was the name of the amusement park. Yes, Vision land.

Vision land? Listen, this is black men in the 90s. I mean still, vision land. Yeah. Hey kids, do you want to go to Vision land? Yeah, I had a vision. What are we doing at Vision Land? I had a vision for a land.

I called it VisionLand. But you got to understand what Larry Langford did at that time. It was the equivalent. To me, it was the equivalent of Steve Jobs unifying the record labels under iTunes. Oh, so this was impossible. It's impossible. Okay, yeah. So you're driving down, you see the billboard for Vision Land.

Yeah, we're riding in the 89 Continental, and we passed by the Vision Land sign, and my dad is driving and he looks at, and he looks of it, motherfucker did it. Which then starts a conversation about your dreams and your goals and what you're going to have to do. And so most conversations I had when my pops was about the battle that's going to be out there for you at some point. It's never how was your day.

My dad could name him favorite foods, but you knew, like, hey, Jesse Jackson's coming. in the town. We're going to go backstage. Right, right, right. Democratic private. I mean, I think 88, he came to town. It's backstage. My father's back there doing interviews and there was Al Sharpton, everybody back there. We're just chilling. And so then on the ride home, now see, that man, what you have to understand is and blah, blah, blah, and the black man and the issues. And so he was just very talked to me like a regular-ass party. Also, for context, my pops was old. My dad was 63 when I was born.

63 when you were born? Yeah, when I was born. He was born. He was, he was born. He was, he was Mortimer suave. I look 45. I lotion myself every day. No, but still, 63? 63. Yeah. I think my mom's was like 30, 31. Somewhere in there. So his ideology, I don't even, knowing what I know now as a man, you're at 63. And at that point, you're over 70. You can't flip on your mind to have a conversation with no nine-year-old about nine-year-old things. All you know is struggle and save it. money on milk and that's what the values i'm i give you you know it's it's funny you say that because your book to me feels like like i i know few people who do things in in a more methodical way than roy wood junior like you every day when i'll see you at the daily show it felt like you were an undercover cop but the cool ones the ones who actually you know what i mean i'm working the case Yeah, yeah, yeah, no.

And what I mean by that is like, I've never seen Roy write a joke for no reason. And not that there's a good way or bad way to write a joke, but I've literally, I've never seen Roy write a joke for no reason. I would say to Roy, and you know how we are with comedy? Like you and I, I would just say, I have a bit, I'd be like, man, this joke, there's this thing that's making me laugh right now and I'm, you know what I mean? Then I'll say to Roy, in the same joking tone, I'd be like, anything you're working on? And then Roy would turn to me, and I feel like my world would go black and white, and

Roy would be like, man, I've noticed how there's an insidious presence in the city that has changed public transportation. And so I'm thinking of doing a deep dive into why the cost of the subway and the bus has gone up over the past few years, more than 175%. I'm trying to figure out what that means to society and why nobody's saying anything about it. Then I was like, oh, is this a joke? this is a joke that you're talking about

this is Roy is like yeah I'm gonna find the funny I'm gonna find the parts of it that make it funny yo but I remember because you remember I just remember I just met you as a human being like you just popped into my life out of nowhere you know what I mean? To set the stage for you properly you got to understand how Roy Wood Jr. comes into my

life as a person tell me how it starts I'm starting on the daily show they've done the craziest thing ever they've gone we are getting a South African person. Just say African because the South doesn't really help anyone. Doesn't matter. We're getting an African to replace

John Stewart. The John Stewart. Okay. Now we have to assemble a cost because everyone that was with John Stewart left. The only person who stayed basically was. Yeah, Jordan Klepper and I guess Hassan technically, right? But of the legacy people, everyone was like, oh yeah, we're gone. It's finished. Okay.

Now they're like, you have to build a team around you. But we don't even know who you are. So who compliment you? So I'm getting tapes. I'm getting record. I'm getting everything. People are like, try this person, look at this person, try this person. And then it was Neil Brennan who sent, he was like, if you are

looking for somebody, there are a few human beings who are funnier and deserve it more than Roy Wood Jr. Wow. I was like, I don't know who Roy Wood Jr. is. Wow. And then somebody told me Roy was performing at the comedy seller. So I got down to the comedy seller. I watch Roy perform. One of the funniest bits I've

ever seen. I still remember until this day. It was a bit about how gangs, do they have like middle management in a gang. Yeah, supervisors. Did they have supervisors? Because a gang is an establishment and he had this bit about like

if you have an establishment you got to have middle management you got to have a supervisor so is there someone who goes to each of the gang members and critiques their swag but it's an amazing but it's phenomenal

phenomenal joke right? Like a performance review and it was one of the funniest premises I've ever seen and I was like this is hilarious so I go immediately to the daily show people I'm like I found a guy they're like okay we're going to audition him

I was like no no I found he's the guy forget the audition he's the guy they're like well that's not how this works because you're African I'm like whatever we just do the thing they're like no we have procedures here

has he done sexual harassment yes I have so they bring so they bring Roy does the audition where I mean he's Roy it's one of the funniest people immediately everyone's on board but now we are jumping into a show that's starting in how long three weeks three weeks after we meet

so now we already have to jump in as comedic friends office mates partners there's no onboarding there's no There's no long getting to know you process. It's merging on the freeway from the left line. That's exactly what it is. It's merging instantly. And the thing that got me about this guy was,

I work with comedians all the time. Comedians are never serious. Comedians are... Everything is a joke. Roy is like the antitheses of that. It's like Roy starts from serious and then turns into the funniest human being you've ever come across in your life.

But every day, every day. Consistently. Let's put it this way. in the first five weeks that we worked together if you had asked me who do you think here is going to shoot someone I would have picked Roy in the first six weeks

but that's because I didn't there's a reason for my intensity though but keep going okay I'm glad you acknowledge you have a gun no no no but I here's what it is about Roy here's what it is first of all I also didn't know who shoots people like this is before I like live in America this was still some good work for shooting

You know what I mean is like You know in time Who shoots people in America You know like the vibe He didn't know the dead eyes He didn't know how to find American dead eyes No I just went this person

From the movies I've watched This guy's gonna shoot people One day he's gonna come in He's gonna say screw all of this No but he'll shoot specific people Roy had that vibe Yeah Roy didn't seem like a shoot everyone kind of guy

He had a Okay, all right Like he wrote numbers on the bullets And then he would just tell you your number But he wouldn't tell you what it means All right four I got you that's what Roy seemed like and every day I would meet this man

and I'd go how does he transform because leading up to rehearsal everything was serious we would get out there I remember the first show we did the first jokes it was about the Pope and Roy came on

and you know people were really like the daily show is not going to work our saving grace the home run that everyone agreed on the Pope gag was Roy Wood Jr. People were like, man, I don't know about this new daily show,

but that Roy Wood Jr. guy, they were like, man, this guy is. And I remember telling this to her, I was like, that was so funny. I was laughing. I was like, that was amazing. That was funny. And Roy was like, we got to do it again tomorrow.

I was like, before. So let me explain the intensity. So for context, 2014, I had a sitcom end. and Sullivan and son on TBS. It ran three seasons at the end of every season. Myself, the star Steve Byrne, Vince Vaughn. We would sit with Steve Coonan, who at the time was the hit of TBS.

And we'd have a little celebratory dinner. And yay, see you guys next year, season two. We do season two, see you season three. We do season three. See you guys, season four. A week later, Steve Coonan leaves TBS, and the new person comes in, Michael Wright, and he cancels everything but Conan O'Brien. And in my head, I'd already, season four has happened.

You planned your life around it. And then it snatched away from you. Then I'm adrift for a year and I'm doing ESPN. I got a buddy from FAMU who I graduated journalism school with. He was a producer. He goes, hey, I don't know if you didn't know this woman, Jamil Hill, but she has a show that comes on at 2 o'clock with Michael Smith, what you want to do.

So I'm doing all of these free spots on ESPN for about a year. I book a pilot with Jermaine Fowler for ABC. It's Jermaine Fowler and Whoopi Goldberg. Network loves it. It's looking like we're going to go to series. But it fall in this story is as it was told to me. I don't go back to Whoopi Goldberg and say I said, as it was told to me.

At the time, the view was going through a co-host change and Whoopi was going through contract negotiations. The contract for our sitcom was also with ABC. ABC, as it was told to me, go to Whoopie and like, hey, what's up with the sitcom? We're doing the sitcom? And Whoopi's like, well, what's up with the co-host? Because the sitcom is the thing to do in addition to the view.

The view is the main thing. So we've got to get that straight. And ABC was like, well, that's going to take a little longer. All right, well, I guess when you're doing the sitcom? Take it away. Two weeks later, Neil Brennan calls me and says that you want to see me. No way. And that he thinks if I can get to New York and do a set,

and if you can see me do this set then it might be an opportunity to audition for the Daily Show Meanwhile So I get on the plane I go to fucking I go to New York I've just had

Two short things get snatched away for me And the only reason I booked Sullivan and son Was because I was friends with Steve Byrne I'd have been in LA seven years I hadn't done shit bro Couldn't book nothing I just couldn't

The city didn't work out for me So I was getting ready to move to New York anyway. Then my girl at the time called me and tell me she's pregnant. So now I got this set that I can do in New York, and I got

a kid on the way, and I'm doing fine on the road. I did the road for 15 years, so, but you don't want to keep doing that. I don't want to do 45 weekends. So, yeah, every fucking joke I'm not going to fuck up.

If this doesn't work, It won't be because I did not execute. I ain't coming in here chuckling with nobody. I ain't coming in here to Kiki. Nobody's an enemy. But I'm here to do the job. I'm here to fucking demolish. My audition, I was so proud of this.

My audition for the Daily Show, there was a story about a black kid in West Virginia. This is 2015 Peak Confederate Flag, Bree Newsom, climbed the pole, snatch it down. There was a kid, there was a black kid. kid in West Virginia who had a Confederate flag tattoo. And it was basically, oh, I'm black and I ain't triven on Confederate flag. And I pitch a chat between me and Trevor where I defend the black kid on the grounds that he's black in West Virginia. He has to get a tattoo so he can survive the walk home. It's camouflage. Matter of fact, I'm going to go to West Virginia and rescue this kid, and I roll up my sleeve and reveal a temporary Confederate tattoo that I

put on myself that morning at a FedEx office. I'm at a FedEx office at 7 o'clock in the morning, the morning of my daily show audition, printing Confederate flags onto stickers and fitting them. Yes, but this one's too big. I need to print another. This was too small. I need to print a knuck. And using my graphic design skills, bitch.

You know exactly how long it takes and I'm like to cut. And I made a Confederate flag and I stuck that shit on my arm and I brought the cuff on my sleeve down. I was like this, the whole audition and then reveal that shit. And so that's where the intensity came from because I'm like, I can't lose this job. This has to work. And I got to feed this boy when he show up.

So just every day became this intense, not only be funny, but what is the interesting thing about blackness? Because that was the thing I was appreciative about was that, dude, the first three stories, it was police reform. And then the second piece, and this is why I didn't think he was going to prove. So it's the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March We've been on the air two weeks And you know, you're trying to figure out how black You can be in a space And I'm like, fuck it, man

Ronnie Chang was the one that gave me the courage to pitch it I go into the pitch meeting And I feel meeting I go, yeah, it's the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March I think there's some comedy there We should go they go, you sure?

Yeah, not only we should go, we should talk to somebody in the nation of Islam. See if you can book that. And they're like, like the field producers like, okay, well, what's the angle? I give them the angle on it.

And they're like, okay, because no matter what you pitch, it's got to go to Trevor and the producers, and then they go yes or no. So we get into the pitch meeting with Trevor, the producers. We're like, yeah, there's this thing happening in D.C. with a lot of black people

and it's scaring the whites who are in D.C. And I just want to go talk to the white people and see why they're scared. If you're not racist, why are you bothered with black people? I'm just fellowshiping.

And Trevor's like... Like fellowshiping? And Trevor goes, yeah, do it. And it was one of the best pieces we did. And it's one of those things so I'm like, okay, I get to really dive

into how I see the world and what the comedy of that could be. and like the Confederate thing in the audition and then when they send me a Klepper on that ride alone to start the season and then when the Million Man March piece got approved that's my second piece out the door

I was like okay this is a good I call my girl you can move here now we're good I think it's gonna be all right man it's so funny how we don't we don't necessarily know other people's intentions perspectives and experiences while we're in the same space as them you know there's there's always that i don't know i don't even know where i read it first

but it's a really beautiful passage that said next time you see somebody in the traffic or walking in the street and they have a you know a scowl on their face and they look at you and you feel like they hate everyone ask yourself what is happening in their lives that's making them feel like that because they're just you on another day do you know what i mean and it's hard to think like that all the time because we think the world is about us as people and what's fascinating to me about this story is in my head

I was the one fighting for my life with the Daily Show and you were just killing it like you you're one of the most effortless comedians I've ever seen so every day I was I was going I don't know what I'm going to do I don't know if this is going to work but thank God I've got Roy Wood Jr.

Little did I know he was in an office panicking looking through the classifieds checking for other jobs like all right let's see you graphic design. Just by the way, you know what I always wonder about like the butterfly effect

in life? Do you ever think to yourself that there's somebody out there who worked in that wherever you were whatever you were, whatever you were, yeah, wherever you were. And they're telling people

they're like, hey man, you know that guy Roy Wood Jr.? He used to work on the, you know that dude's a secret confederate Yeah, yeah. No, the FedEx where he was printed. If you saw Roy Wood Jr., printing out tattoos

and putting them on himself, then pulling it in his sleeve, And then you saw him on the daily show. This one is good. You'd be like, nah, you'd be like, deep down, I know who he is. You go deep down, I know exactly who he is. Bro, that shit was a struggle. And I mean, shit, even just getting to New York once I got the job.

Only reason I was able to move to New York is because I had Wendy Williams. Wendy Williams, I audition for the show. And the germane foul of Whoopi Goldberg thing dies. About a week later, I get a call from Wendy Williams. She was doing like a storytelling tour and wanted to open her. So I'm on the road with Wendy and then I get the call for the audition. And then I have to ask Wendy Williams, can I have a day off? Would you not?

Yeah, you're not supposed to, you get fired. You're like, we just replace you. You go do the audition, but you will be replaced. You get all the days off. Yeah. Yeah. But Wendy goes, tell Trevor I said hello and I'll see you tomorrow. No way.

So the next 10 days that I worked with Wendy Williams, that was. was the fucking money to even get to New York to start the job. Like, you just get blessed along the way, but you just start looking at like, I can't mess this up. So I'm not joking around with y'all. I didn't do no sets at the, I didn't do any comedy in the city. You came to work in. For those first three, four months until I felt like I had a grasp on what I was doing,

that's part of why I lived close. I lived when I first moved I lived four blocks from the building because I didn't even want to commute I don't want to think about shit I'm staying till 9.30 every night and I'm going to watch this I learned from you

was one day a week try to have lunch with a different cluster of people within the building learn the building, learn the people learn all the jobs because then you can learn what jokes are possible

and then how fast a joke could be flipped. Because now I know I'm not pitching something that graphics can, you're pitching a joke at 2.30 in the afternoon, it's too late. Yeah. We're doing, ideas are locked, so you got until noon. So if you got an idea for today, you need to serve that when you hit the building

at 7.30 in the morning. Like that, so understanding the logistics of the building and all of that, like, that became the only thing that I wanted to, like, just get right. and then I just figured everything else that take care of itself. We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break.

This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Did you know that Apple Card is designed to help you pay off your balance faster with smart payment suggestions and because fees don't help you, Apple Card doesn't have any. That's right. No fees. So if your credit card isn't Apple Card,

maybe it should be. Subject to credit approval, Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Variable APRs range from 17.99% to 28.24% based on credit worthiness. Rates as of October 1, 2025. Turned and more at Applecard.com. You know, I feel like, when I look through your life, I feel like, you've always been focused on hustling and surviving and getting something right and doing the right job

and doing the job the right way and being in the right place and surviving and you know and then something flips when Henry comes into your life, your son. Because your book, and you correct me if I'm wrong, but like when I look at your book, you know, the man of many fathers, the intention behind the book and the message behind it almost feels like your only goal,

goal now in life is to be a good father. That's, and I mean, I even noticed this when I was with you at the daily show. It's like there's, there's a thing in you that, that has become focused. You know, there's, there's something in you that's just become about this thing now is everything in service of. And I actually wanted to know, like, why, why the book? Like, why the book and why the book about fatherhood and being a father and what being, you know what your father meant to you and didn't mean to you etc like why why that and why now

because i didn't know my dad i don't think i truly knew him he also died when i was 16 and then on top of that we never talked a lot about his being and who he was ground zero for it was covid when i did finding your roots like i had an inkling about like all right am i going to be my going to be present enough as a father, but COVID 20 to 21 was kind of like the turning point because it's, I do finding your roots, and then Henry and I, his mother and I, we break up. And so now I'm out of the house, and it's joint custody. Okay, fine. But in your head, you're like, fuck, I'm losing time. I'm losing moment. You lose half the tuck-ins. You lose half the tuck-ins. You lose half to chit-chats and, you know, fuck, he's going to not know something about it.

He's missing time to observe me. All right, fuck, he's got to, and he needs to know me. What if I died before he's 16? He's not going to know me. And then you realize how compartmentalize your friendships are. Yeah. You know, I got partners I've been tight with since eighth grade, not a lot. but they only know so much of me because they're not in New York.

Yeah. And then I got partners here who I work with, but they can't tell you nothing about my personal life. They can't tell you about the nuances of me. My son would have to go around to all these different folks and start piecing together, and I didn't want that for him. So I'm like, well, what if I just put something together? He needs values.

If I'm gone tomorrow, what would I want him to know about me? Okay. Well, what do you know about your dad? Huh. Shit, I don't know a lot. Okay, well, then where did I learn all that stuff? And then you start realizing that there's all these beautiful people that you got put in your life,

either for one day or for, you know, flashing a pan or for a lifetime that influenced you. And so then I do finding your roots around the same time. Finding your roots, I find out that my dad lost his father when he was four. I did not know that. I was never told to me. I don't have much of a relationship with my father's side of the family. I'm the ninth of 11 kids. I'm my mother's only child.

I got a gang of half siblings. We talk about dad a little bit, but I don't know folklore. I don't know cousins and any of that shit. I got taken around my dad's side of the family twice before he died. I don't know. I ain't ever seen you. Don't know. I'm sure you're a good person, but I just don't fucking know you.

So sitting on finding your roots, finding that out. Then in that same episode, my dad walked with a limp. He had a hip implant. He had a prosthetic hip from when he was a teenager because he was trying to, a woman, he was in high school, and a woman had just broken up with him. And so he was trying to, like, he's trying to get her back.

You're trying to get your girl back. You know, somebody pulled your girl. Now you're trying to get her back. And running behind her, like literally running behind her, got hit by a car. And so what would have lent the rest of his life? What were the prosthetic that had to be extended for the rest of his life?

You're 13 when that happens. What does that do to your psyche? What does that do to you as a human? And how does it change a relationship with women for the rest of your life? How does it change how you see women? How does it change how you see love? With a daily reminder. Yeah.

And you start treating people like they are disposable in that part of your life because you were disposed of by a woman. And granted, it's teenage love, But still, that's the most scarring, them the most scarring years for love, man. So it gave me a different perspective. So a lot of things that I was really upset about with him when my son was born, I'd already kind of started a process of letting him go. But then once he was, once I did, finding your roots,

and then I was out of the house and not in a regular 24-hour status with him, there became this heightened sense of now, now, because I don't know what's going to happen. He knows his mom's side. He knows all of them. He sees those relatives on a regular basis. I'm closer with my two younger half-siblings and I am my oldest. I keep in touch with the oldest,

but not on some every year get together and eat ribs type shit. We don't do it. So, you know, when I go home to visit my mom, Some of my half siblings may stop out of the house, say hey, to him. So you're aware, but there is nobody in my son's life. There's nobody in my life who in my absence could accurately submit the man that I am to my son. So I'll write a book. Yeah, but you didn't just write a book, though.

you revealed yourself. Because I think we have two options when we write a book, maybe even three. You know, like one is to write a story of how we wish to be perceived. Another story we can write is how we are perceived. And then the third option is to write about who we really are and how we think. And what I found, like, most interesting about your story and how you wrote it was you're grappling the whole time I don't feel like you figured out anything

in a good way by the way you know what I mean I don't I don't read this and it's neatly tied up in a bow I have the ending yeah I don't I don't read about your relationship with your dad and go like and then it all worked out you know it's like no no there's none of that like it feels like this this gradual

unraveling and this stripping I don't think you can separate it from where the book starts Like you've got this great story where you talk about being in the airport and you you bump into a fellow comedian he's buying a father's day card. Yeah.

And he basically asks you, are you getting a father's day card? And you realize you've never bought a father's day card. Never. But what I found funny in that moment is like you start talking about how limited Father's Day cards are. You know, it's like, best dad ever

to the man who taught me out of face. fish, you know, to my favorite camping buddy. And then Roy's like, where's the one where it's like, I didn't really know you, but if I did, I guess it might have been great. Like, where's it? We're the genuine ones. Yeah, yeah. Like, from that moment, I was just like, man, we're in for a journey on this.

And so if this was the daily show, I'd be like, I'd like to talk to the greeting card industry to understand why. Who writes the greeting cards and who sets up the narrative? that fatherhood is always perfect and not stressful. Because even with Mother's Day, there's always, we had our ups and downs, but mom, you're still the best. It's sentimental. But I think, look, if I was to guess,

I would say the reason for that is because of what you've still written about is because most fathers don't have sentimental. And I say most, and people would be like, where do you get your numbers? I'm guessing. Probably the times we've lived through, the times we're in. But I don't know many people where they can truly say that their fathers have been.

been sentimental with them. So when you're buying your dad a Father's Day card, you're buying a Father's Day card because they've told you it's Father's Day for the most part, right? And you're a small minority as well. Exactly. But when you look at like moms and women, they've generally lived in a world of like actually expressing the sentimentality, the feeling, how they, you know, like, I'll give you a simple example.

When I was flying from South Africa back to New York, my mom said to me, I always go say goodbye to her, you know, before I travel. and then my mom said to me something that I was like this is too beautiful for a human she said to me please send me a picture of the first flower you see

when you get to New York I was like damn it was such a like she said please send me a flower of the first picture you see in New York now I didn't realize how few flowers they are when she said that

no I genuinely did it was like land at Newark drive-in drive there's no flowers but besides the point. It was such a sentimental, soft. You know, it wasn't like, all right, kid, you go out then, you work hard. You do your best. You're here. You know. I struggle with that with my son and making sure that that's not my default, you know, and just, you know, be a man. You're like, oh, no, he needs a hug in this instance. So give him a hug. It's also made me more vulnerable

with him in the day-to-day. Yeah. And then I had to, there was someone that works for me that no longer works for me. And in making that decision to sever that relationship, he was the first person I talked about it with. Oh, wow. He's nine.

But, you know, hey, man, how you doing? Not good. I had to be this person not viving. And that's no different than you're not getting along with somebody at the park, and it gave him agency to ask questions if he wanted to ask questions about the thing. And so that helps to bring us closer. But, you know, I try to put some humor in the book, and I feel like it's funny, but I just

also felt like it was the right time to write about these stories and these people, because I think other folks could get something out of it, just some of the values that I learned from certain folks and, you know, but it's not like, that's why I struggle with calling it like a memoir, because it's like, I don't know if it's full life and times and I dabble in some entertainment stories, but I don't, I kind of dabble in personal life a little bit, but it's all early stories in my personal life. Everything else is just people I've met along the way and just odd jobs and stuff like that. Well, you know when you start off the book, it reminded me of something I learned in therapy. I always used to think, and I think most of us think that we are

most affected by the people who are in our lives. We often take for granted that we can be affected most by the people who are not in our lives. And I think there's a lot of men in the world and women as well, but I know a lot of men who will draw a lot of their issues and things in life to their mom. Oh, my mom was like this and my mom did this and my mom did them. And you'd be like, What about your dad? Well, my dad wasn't really around. So it wasn't, you know, he didn't really. And only in therapy did I learn.

It was like, oh, no, no, no. That's, you know what I mean? That, that, that, that, that gaping hole there. Yeah, taught you this. Tort you this. Yeah, you grew a limb because of that. Exactly. Yes.

You, this missing made you compensates in this way. This not being there made you feel this way. Do you know what I mean? And it's interesting because it's actually good, yeah. Because you do rights in the book and you're very quick to say it in the beginning. And in a beautiful way, you go, look, my mom was my everything. My mom built this world.

She's my rock, my son. You know, the women in my life. And you're like, that's a story for another book. But you're like, but right now, I want to write this book about fathers. And you explain it through the lens of your son. But even in that moment, I felt like, I was like, damn, we take for granted how many people grow up and live in a world where their moms have to bear the burden of being both parents. And so in a way, don't get the joy of being the full version of who they are. Do you know what I'm saying?

Of being one role. They get robbed. And also just being one person. Yeah. You're robbed. That to the gap in the whole thing, like that was part of it. And it's weird because a lot of that I didn't even discover until I started writing. Like, I don't even think some of that stuff came out in therapy.

So like the idea of hustle, hustle, hustle and do it myself to a detriment. as you've often told me, and like the idea of doing, like Trevor is saying to me sometimes, like Trevor will just see me like post some random event that I'm done or some shit and he'll just come in my office. You don't have to say yes to everything.

You can say no sometimes and just go home. It's okay. But my brain is still in. TBS, Whoopi Goldberg. Like there's a trauma with that, right? But even predating that, when I look at there were times where my parents

they didn't necessarily argue about money but my pops could use money to manipulate the house, right? So if there was a weak stretch or a two-week stretch where he just ain't going to pay a bill. This is a man that is highly respected and his resume is bulletproof when it comes to what he's done for black Americans and what he dedicated himself to

and what he destroyed his psyche to do for us. But also this nigga might not pay the gas bill tonight. So you're going to freeze or you're going to go walk the neighborhood and rake leaves so you can make the money so your mom can go to law school or finish law school at that point. I don't need her dropping out to get another job.

I'll go get it. I'll work. I'll figure it out. So at minimum, How can I not be a burden to my mom? Okay, well, money is always a burden in this house. And once we move to Birmingham, I kind of talk a little bit in the book. You become more sentient of your parents' stresses. Yeah, definitely.

Somewhere in middle school, late elementary in middle school, you can look at them and go, oh, I don't know if I'm having a bad day today. You're less selfishly involved in your own want. So this idea of, damn, I know, I know she'd be stressing about money because I see her body language when I ask for $10 for a field trip. I bet. I'm going to put my Nintendo tapes in the paper. I've been watching my pops long enough.

I know how to secondhand some shit. I'm going to put a garage sale in the paper. It costs $10. Birmingham News just have something called bargain bananas, anything under $100 that were put in the paper for free. So I would put my entire bedroom in the paper for free. Saturday pick up only nine to noon. And I put a table out that bitch, and I sit in the front yard with some Boston baked beans

and just sell old toys and sell old Nintendo tapes or whatever. And so this idea of becoming self-sufficient, that shit felt good. So, you know, I was working, you know, they don't care about it. They don't enforce child labor laws like that. And what I peep is that if I had a job that would only give me 20 hours, I could just go work temp service. As soon as I lead this job, I'm going to go down a labor ready or labor finders. They don't get me outside in the construction for 75 at a time when minimum wage was four and a quarter. So that's good money.

You had a crazy list of jobs. I mean, this man worked. You were sweeping the parking lot outside. Church's chicken. Church's chicken. And West End at the time. one day you went at work at a what was it like a concrete factory

Quick Creek Quick Creek in Columbia South Carolina I will say that story is funny because Roy every story Roy is like I went in and I worked hard and I did my best and I stayed there and then Quick Creek he's like nah man I'm out

the hardest I've ever worked is the Quick Creek factory in Columbia South Carolina bro I've never understood heat and so you know what Quick Creed is

it's the concrete the wet you add water Yeah there's a machine that's got all the Quick Creek powder

and it comes down into a funnel into a bag No but wait wait you got to set this up from the beginning because you have to

understand how this man got there this is what makes it better for me because if you went to Quick Creek to get a job I'll go like

oh well this is part for the course no the day starts with Roy and a room of growth own men.

5 a.m. 5 a.m. How old are you at this time, bro? Early 20s, 21, 22. Yeah. But this is while I'm on the road doing stand-up. So I'm doing stand-up. In those days, you had comedy clubs that would be six-day run.

So on Columbia, there used to be a club, comedy house theater. They would book the MC for a two-week run. So you're in town for 14 days. They're there. May as well get a part-time job? Get a fucking job. But what are you doing all day? Think of what comedy?

Oh, Roy, you're special, man. Roy, you're special. Go get a job. So I would just go, you drive down to labor ready. You sign in, and if you got work boots, they put you on, you get staff faster if you got who have boots? Yeah, if you got work boots. And a dude would just go, all right, wood, Jenkins Turner, y'all work in the Quick Creek,

van outside. You go get on a van, they drop you off at a fucking factory at 8 o'clock in the morning. it's already 90 degrees and it's a big aluminum shed that's baking hot and and inside just for and mind you

all I work is food service I work air condition but to work to make quick money the money's outside you got to sweep leaves you got to do you are so I'm outside in the heat

and there's a big ass machine that's just pumping quick creet into a bag and then the bag falls off that nozzle and just goes down a conveyor belt and at the end of the conveyor belt you just lift this 10 pound bag of concrete and you put it on a on a forklift palette you stack that bitch eight high somebody come in with the cellophane wrap that bitch forklift man come in pick it up take it to the truck they put down a new pallet wash rinse repeat for eight hours and I'm the bag man and I'm just

loading the palette and you think that this isn't a lot but this for eight hours from shoulder height, 10 pounds from up high to down low. One direction. One direction. This is called eccentric loading. That's what that is. And you're 20 and this is a grown man and they're yelling at you because you're not moving fast enough and the powders in the air and it mixes with your sweat.

So now you have concrete naps in your hair. And you got a show tonight. You still have a show to do. So you get back to the room at 5.30, and you're just like washing concrete out of your hair. And then at 7 o'clock tonight, you got to be on the state. Man, the Confederate flag, crazy. 14. I did that job two days. And then they moved me to a church.

They were building a mega church. And we were just scraping spackle off the concrete foundation. But that was so hard, so hot, like, I've never worked like that in my life. But it gave me such an appreciation and understanding for construction and just blue-collar work in this country as a whole, man. You meet some people, man. You meet some really interesting people doing construction. I think everybody in this country, either food service or work outdoors for one year.

They should have to. Everybody, every single person in this country, just on some mandatory. you ain't going to get them to go to the military but I think everybody should do food service or work outside It's so funny you say that we had an episode with Tressie Macmillan Cottom and she was saying

like if she ruled the world she would make it that everyone had to work in the service industry or everyone it's almost exactly what you're saying because she drew a line between how we perceive other people in these jobs and whether or not we know what it's like to be in them

like when you told me you or I mean you told me I read it in the book but like how you worked in fast food because you have I mean what would the right word be a disturbingly intimate relationship with fast food let me let me say something

Roy Wood Jr. I would pitch food segments every single week and he's offshore there every single week they would go viral Roy would say to me, Yo, so I've noticed that Popeye's is launching a new chicken sandwich.

I think what we should do is we do it. Then I go, wait, wait, wait, what's Popeye's? Oh, it's a chicken joint. It's a chicken joint. Then I'm like, oh, is it everything. And Roy's the most detailed person I know. So Roy won't just say to you, it's a chicken joint. He'd be like, it's a chicken joint that started in the 50s, 60s.

And now down south it wasn't the biggest. You got bow jangles and a few other chains that have really been blowing up over that section. And, you know, it's not that big on the West Coast. but over here you got you got Popeyes and Papas is pretty big and Papa's normally known for their for their pieces they're not really know they're not like KFC and chick and then and he take me down this deep rabbit hole is for sandwiches Popeyes is for this guy yo KFC is for a full meal

yo with a mash this man knows life through the lens of fast food I don't I don't know how I don't you have the most intimate relationship with fast food we would do segments on the show like and I would just mention the McRib and passing, and then McDonald's would just send me like 20 McRib coupons. Were you there? You were there when Mountain Dew sent the Baja Blas. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Tobasco sauce. Yeah, we were talking about Baja blasts. Do you remember when you made the, you had like a, it was like a mafia style thing on your, on your social media? Oh, the coalition. The co-it was the chicken wars or something because, I think it was because Popeye made the burgers, right? Because Popeye's made the burger.

Roy did this whole thing. Let me tell you something. If someone should win a Pulitzer Prize for that for fast food analysis and like their writings and they're thinking I've always wondered like what not what is it about fast food but you have this

it's almost It connects us Yeah but it's something deeper than that right There's something you I don't know It's all an analogy for life So I The Coalition was basically

A drama involving chicken sandwich Is plotting against Popeyes because Popeyes was fucking up the supply game. Because the Popeyes chicken sandwich at the time was essentially a new drug. And imagine how would all the old drug dealers still? Established with their clientele. And this guy's getting all the clients.

We got to kill them. We got to kill them. How do we take out Popeyes? And so I sat during COVID and just did stop motion animation with real sandwiches that I collected from all over the city and shot a drama and put it on YouTube. and it connected with people in the way

because I feel like each fast food there's they have a personality. Yeah. There's a relatability. This fast food company exudes this type of person or you're this type of person if you eat this type of stuff.

So it's all very regional. It's almost like college football in a way too. Everybody's got a team. Everybody's got somebody they love. They got somebody they hate. Yeah, but Roy, you know it's way, too intimately. What I mean by this is like, you can ask someone, if you said someone like, oh, who goes

to KFC, who goes to, you know, in and out, who goes, they'll give you an answer. Let me tell you, Roy, if any of these companies need a consultant, they should come to this man. I think you know things about the supply chain, the quality of the food, where the food has been sourced, how it's been sourced, what it's all about. Like, in the most serious way you can. They change suppliers, and then that affects the recipe. like even down to the water that they use to make biscuits it can change so biscuits tastes from different reasons but it's the same shit with bagels

because nobody thinks that it might also apply to the biscuits but it does that's why fast food chains taste different in different regions sometimes I wonder when when you think like this right and then I think back to your dad it's interesting that you say I didn't know him And yet, from my reading of you, so much of you seems like a deep knowing of him. Because I'm him. Hmm.

And that's also a mind, a mind fuck, is looking at yourself and going, oh. Let's see, I care about people, check. Okay. I figured out a way to use my gift to enrich and educate people, okay. Check. Healthy distrust of close relationships. Check.

Damn, I'm just doing what he'd do. I'm just a little funnier than him. You know, I still have, I was looking at my phone earlier because I was trying to find this. But it's like I will have like a random premise and then it's something that, gets to a deeper thing, but I don't know how to make it, like, funny to me.

And, like, there's, there was a movie called The Assignment with Michelle Rodriguez, where a male hitman is turned into, to get revenge on a hitman, a male hitman is turned into a woman. Sounds familiar. When was this movie made? The woman hit man is looking for the surgeon that turned her into a woman. To reverse the surgery. Or get revenge. Correct.

And so how the, this movie was 2018, 2019, okay. So a bigger conversation about transphobia. Like that movie in its core is to me. Now, how I get to the joke, I don't know. But the challenge of that, like that, that, that's, the stuff that's the material that excites me but that's what i mean but this is this is what i mean about being your father's son right and and what your book goes through in so many ways is your dad was living this life like i love that you do the checking of the boxes and the natural

question that it brings me to is how do you then choose you talk a little bit about auditing one of the most beautiful lines in the book and i'll paraphrase it in case i get it wrong but You basically say, nothing makes you ordered your relationship with your parents, like having a child of your own. Because when you have a child of your own, you then have to ask yourself what you want them to take of you. But then you then have to ask yourself who you really are. And in asking yourself who you really are, you have to ask yourself who made you that way. What are the worst parts of you? Exactly.

And how do you not accidentally infuse those things? into the child unknowingly, which means you have to be conscious of the fact that something as simple as saying, I love you. Pop's ain't do that from the old school, so he'd just

buy you some food. Like, it's like one of them old school black jokes where your mama come in, you hungry after she didn't gave you a whooping or some shit. Like, that's what my dad was. My dad was... Educates a provider. I'll tell you,

I'll tell you something that scares me to that point where I don't know if I'm doing what he did. So my parents were separated to third grade. That's when my parents got back together. So my mother and I lived in Memphis before we moved in with him in Birmingham. My pops would come to Memphis once a month, and he'd stay for a day and a half, maybe two days. But he would sleep half of that. And knowing what I know now, you're older, you're older dude, you want to nap.

I'm 46, I want to nap. This month, it was knocking 70. So, yeah, you want a nap. And you drove three and a half hours. And you work mornings. And he did morning radio for five hours. And then he did an evening jazz. And he'd do a talk show in the afternoon.

And that would roll into a jazz show. Yeah, it's tired. So, yeah, just tired. But he would always bring me a truck. They bring me like a little toy truck from some truck stop or some shit or whatever. And, you know, play with the truck, but they were all forgettable toys, nothing that stood out. And then fast forward, I'd say maybe two years ago, let's just say second grade when my son was in second grade. He's in fourth grade now.

Let's just say second grade. first grade it became sentient about me being gone yeah you know because i because i'm i'm out of the house so it's kind of a you know dad where are you type thing and we're explaining to him the the dynamics of what co-parenting would be and then i think that second grade i felt my relationship with him becoming a little bit more sentient in him missing me like man where you been man i want to Throw, you know, he wants to do the things. You just wants to be with his pops. And that would have held true even if I were under the same roof.

Yeah. But that shit hurt. Ooh. They never been missed by nobody. You know. Oh, no one's told you they've missed you. Okay. And so this idea of, all right, well, when I'm gone, he needs to know why I'm gone.

So the relationship becomes a little bit more communicative when I'm gone. Yeah. Here's a video or the thing. I'll send that to his tablet. We'll FaceTime here and there, but I more so enjoy sending him. Perfect example. He loves trains, transportation planes, all that. So if it's a city he's never been to, I'm first person POV camera from the time I get out of the plane,

show him the whole airport, shoot that nice seven-minute vision. video, break that bitch down in a two-minute chunks so I can send quicker. And then I'll get on the train that morning. We did 20 cities and 30 days through Canada last year. And every day I rode mass transit in the morning to go get a paper. And we just ride the train all day. Here's the train. So I looked like a tourist, which really used to scare me because now I look robbable.

You know what I'm saying? Man, like my, you know, my spidey sense is, it's just... Yeah, your paranoia is off the charts right now. I'm from the, at the time, the most murderous zip code in Birmingham. Like, facts. So my paranoia is justified. That PTSD, that comes with you in a nice little knapset. So I'll send videos, and sometimes I'll bring a little toy or a little souvenir.

And now I rack my brain on when he's older. Or does he equate that to me trying to be connected Or does he look at it the way I look at the trucks? It's just a fickle lazy. Huh, my fuck, I don't. It's an interesting one. But you don't know for another 30 years. He ain't going to know until he has this kid probably.

You know, the thing yesterday was when we're discussing this episode, if you'd allowed me, was I knew I was not going to read the book and I didn't want to because I wanted to experience the book through you. but I experienced a bit of view from him. Then I remember saying, I don't think from this conversation, Roy has ever been a child. Yeah, you remember? I said, he's never been a child.

But what we find is what you've explained about kids and parenting is that kids, if there's more than one sibling in a household, they'll experience parents differently because children allow you a chance to reinvent yourself. So you become whoever you want them to be. I mean, you want them to see as it goes. Having one child is the ultimate gift and curse because they experience you transforming in front of them. So you can never have that one idea that you think they will have of you.

But what happened was, I think your dad, his practicality showed up in real life when you were growing up and in your life right now as a grown up. Because when he was older, obviously, and you were younger, he understood that he didn't have time. He wasn't going to see you as a 25 year old man if you take the age gap. So he knew that he had to be practical with you So what he had to do was He had to make you a father And your child made you a son Because you are out here now

You are playing, you are taking videos You're taking pictures of things You're looking like a tourist You want to be a child You want to hug him You want to show him that you love him So those are your gifts Those are the things that he left you with

He made you a father Your son made you a child And that's what you must take with you but often it happens that we want to live vicariously sometimes and we get fixated in the mistakes of others and in life there comes that time where you equalize now you understand why your dad had to take that nap at first you might have thought he's avoiding me

he doesn't want to be it now you understand exactly why he had to think that after working at a quick street you understand and and and and that's what I find whenever Trevor and I have conversation we get to that point where we like how do we reconcile our pasts and make peace with it and I think with this conversation right here from the little that I know of you

and I'm sure there's a lot to find out is you are reconciling, balancing the books you took the good, you discarded the bad and you're infusing it now in your life and your dad lives through you and your son lives through you so I think that gap and that distance between what your dad could have been in your life

and what you want to be in your son's life is visible in how you show up in your son's life. That's beautiful. Thank you for that. Yeah. I try now with him to just be very verbal about feelings, sharing feelings. To me, to me, the main thing is love and how does that manifest?

How do you receive it? Yeah. Teach him how to receive it. Teach him how to show it. I can do that. I'm good. Does you know how funny you are? Funny, no.

but he knows, he knows, he is aware of what I do. No, no, no, no, no. Does he know how funny you are? I make him laugh. Oh, that's what I mean. Does he laugh at the jokes that I do on seeing it? No, forget that. I'm saying, does he know how funny you are?

How funny, no, but I can make him laugh at time to time. Okay. Yeah. No, because I- He's got a sense of humor, too. Yeah, but that's what I mean. That's one of the things that I think we take for granted is, this is what I felt when I was reading the book, right? And I was thinking of your dad, and I was going,

I think one of the greatest gifts of one of the greatest acts of love that you've committed in this book is you've processed your father through the most generous lens possible which is love you've got a man who had another family in the same town as you and it wasn't a secret but it still holds a bit of shame

and you and your mom are fighting against this thing you've got this world where you're trying to cement yourself and have the things that you could have, but you don't have, and your dad's withholding them from you. You know, he's not paying the gas bill because he's fighting with your mom, or he feels like you and your mom are up against him, so he's going to make you both

pay and not pay the gas bill or not pay the electric bill. He's going to teach you both a lesson. And you're like, no, but I'm on your side. And he's like, no, you're not, boy. You're not on my team. You know what I mean? Despite all of that, I read the book and I went, damn, I felt for your dad. I saw him as a human being. I didn't see him as a as a villain.

I didn't see him as a, you spend so much time trying to give him the benefit of the doubt in a beautiful way, by the way. And I was like, damn, what a, like, what an act of love. And I think what it got me thinking about because I think so many people go through this is when your parents or when you are forced to focus on survival, we take for granted how many elements of living we put aside.

you know love intimacy fun fiction joy fiction imagination vision just random things we focus so much think about how many people have grown up and are growing up in worlds where the only thing they're allowed to think about is surviving so your dad goes Roy

I need you to be educated and I need you to know how to navigate the world and watch out for these white people exactly but I can't teach you joy and don't pay your taxes because they're taking the black man's right to vote away

in 2040. I'm just telling you, this is the same of a shit we're talking about. But I'm talking about in the car. Yeah, but if you think about it though, if you think about it though, he has to tell you that because

he can't tell you how to have fun because he didn't come from fun. He didn't have fun. He didn't, you get what I'm saying? So he's like, I need to teach you how to survive. And I was thinking, man, it's so crazy how that becomes the thing that sort of we lose out on it. The way I was thinking of it was I was going,

we always have to be careful, especially if we're the next generation. If you have the luxury of being the next generation that can move forward, I think it's very crucial to remember in life that you are trying to survive, but on the other side of survival, you need to remember all the luxuries

you couldn't include in survival because those are the things. that makes surviving worthwhile. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. You want to win the war, but you want to win it so that you come back to your friends and family and laugh. If you can't come back and laugh and enjoy it,

that's exactly it. Because otherwise, what was it for? Like, what were you actually fighting for as an idea or as like, do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, it's like the whole point of it was for my son to be able to be relaxed and not have to think about a million different things. but how do you prepare someone for the world while also giving them agency to still be a child

and making sure that there's a balance in that, which is why I try to let them laugh with me. Crack a joke. You have the one thing, and this is more from my mom, he always has freedom of opinion. You can share it respectfully, but like all of that, be quiet and stand and shop. You think this up?

Tell me why. Break it down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give me the logic of it. I still might not agree with you, but we can have, don't ever be afraid to bring something to me or to share something with me or talk to me about stuff. And I think that those were the things where I think as parents, we are either the parent we wish we had or we're a carbon copy. Of the parent we wish we didn't have. Yeah.

And just the right balance is somewhere in the middle. But I mean, man, we laugh. But you know what I mean? My son laugh at it's a lot of inside joke stuff. Yeah, no, no. That's all comedy. That's all comedy, if we're honest. We watch Interstellar a couple times.

And Matthew McConaughey's character's got that robot Tars that he's always telling to do stuff. So if we're telling the other one to do something, Tars, I need you to go in there and get the thing. Tars, I need you to take a shower and get ready for bed. Does not compute. And he'll say does not compute. Like, no. I just told you.

So that was a man. Something as silly as that I talked to you as if you're an AI robot. Yeah, but that's what I mean. So funny, yeah. I think that the only piece of rage I really felt like if it's about anger, because the other thing with finding your roots was that, I also found out when my dad lost his dad at age four, per census data, there was no other male head of household in his life ever again. So as far as I know, it was just him and his mom.

Wow. And if there was a man, they weren't on the papers. Yeah, he was not official. It wasn't official. So that means at best you and some fleeting stepdaddy, Mr. Johnny, come over from time to time and give you a nickel, but not like a solid. No advice, no quality time. Yeah. So my pops grew up, you know, when his pops died when it was 40,

they left Atlanta and went to Chicago. So you growing up, you know, you're growing up in Chicago during the boom. And then civil rights, you know, and then you off to cover in Vietnam and every riot and every race war you can name as a journalist. So this idea of, yeah, you can be mad. But this all has to be looked at strictly through the lens of what did I learn and what do I hope for the boy to learn and how did that thing affect me? So you can leave out a lot of stories, but it wasn't, my daddy was mean or no.

No, you did the thing. And here's how that day on that choice affected me. You didn't pay the bill. You didn't pay the power bill. so I chose to work 30 hours a week in high school so that there would always be money in our back pocket because I'm never going to be cold again, ever. I don't give a fuck what I have to do.

I'll never be as cold as I was that night. And that's part of why I hate winter. It's from that. Like, it's the idea of, I remember, I remember I was on my way to a gig, and the gig canceled on the way. and I didn't have gas money to get back because the gig was the gas money

to get back to Birmingham and I had a quarter tank of gas and I go, I'm gonna let the engine run and keep the car on and off every hour, get it down to an eighth and on that eighth of a tank driving the town, drive to the next nearest city, get a day job, work that day,

get the check, and then make that money to drive back home. But I got to survive the night and it's two degrees. And so you just got to sleep on a cold car. But there's a weird, oh, I've been here before. That kind of kicks in.

You don't like it, but you know what you've been through so you know what you can push through. And there's not a lot of people that I know that story. I would even tell that story too. So how about my son even know what he's capable of? He needs to know what's in him. I think all our kids do.

I think we owe it to our kids. to share with them our pains, our struggles, our fears, our failures, but we present us perfect. And then a lot of us haven't even reconciled with any of that stuff. So your kid come to you dealing with something similar. You don't even know how to help them unpack it. Because you ain't looked at it yet. You hadn't looked at that idea of how to move when you aren't confident. or what to do, hey, I had to quit working with, I had to fire an employee, bro, and it hurt

my heart, but I had to do it, and I'm here to tell you about it, so you can understand the fragility of friendship. That's what you hope the long run is from a conversation like that. So, you know, you just, you don't know how it's going to all connect in the long run, but, you know, I just share everything. I just share as much as I can. And, yeah, a lot of it does come back to being a good dad. But I think it's just also about having this story of, you know, I also don't want to get too obsessed with changing my behavior solely to influence his growth.

Because then I'm not being me. You know, I took him. So when I left Daily Show, I took him with me to clean out my office. Yeah, yeah, you wrote about that. Because he needs to understand. None of these jobs are forever. None of this stuff is forever. Do you think he understood that?

Not yet. Yeah. But I've taken him by seeing him in, and he's come there and understood that. Yeah. He's old enough now to understand the idea of this show and this show. I don't know connects. He's Googled me once. So, you know, like this.

he's aware of what I do but trying to take that trying to take that veneer off of what fame and stardom and all of that because he has no perspective on that of course.

He's don't care. Yeah, they really don't. But one day he'll figure out who Kassanat is. He'd be like, Daddy, you ain't famous for shit. KSI or somebody. Like, he'll see real fame and then it'll give him perspective. But, yeah, I you need to know who I am.

And I'm thankful that my pops used to take me to the barbershop and he's boring-ass speaking engagements. And I would sit on the floor with him in the radio station while he did call-in shows. I would just sit at his feet and he would take two hours of calls from the community. No music, just talking to people. Yeah.

Brother Wood, this would need to happen with the referendum. and you need a new city tax. And at that I pay for the education. And my dad, you know, whether he was right or wrong, whether they were right or wrong, my pops would just be patient with people and hear them out and have conversations with them. And so you learn pieces of who your parents are

when you see them doing the thing they love to do. And so that's important that my son at least sees and sentient. about it. Don't go anywhere because we got more what now after this?

It's funny when you talk about breaking the curses I often think about how impossible there can be sometimes you know

and what I mean by it is this like we'll all talk about especially in the age that we're in now. Everyone will go, you know, my family did this, and I'm going to be the one who doesn't do it, and my dad was like this, and I'm not going to be that, and my mom was like this, and I'm not going to be that, and I will be the one, and I will be the one.

And the great irony of it is you'll end up being the one just from a different place. Do you know what I mean? And reading through your book, I kept finding myself thinking, maybe the great relief and release in life is not only thinking we're successful when we break the curse,

but it's realizing that there's a whole lot of power in just naming the cage do you know what I'm saying this is what it is like I feel like you may get because there's no real scale that'll tell us how far

or how close you get to being the perfect dad but just knowing what the cage is that you're in because of your dad and being able to name it change it like it's not the exact same thing but I mean like for me like ADHD knowing that I had ADHD changed my life, genuinely.

I didn't have to change everything about my life. But now I could tell you, I'd be like, oh, that's the ADHD. Like I just know, I just know, I know how my brain works. I know at 1 a.m. when I'm craving a chocolate, I know what's happening. Before I would just go, I'm craving a chocolate. Now at 1 a.m., I'm like, oh, hello, old friend. Do you get what I'm saying? And that's what I mean is like, I feel like that's where you're doing the work.

And that's where you and your son will benefit. because you're naming the cage. Yeah, I think it all, I think it all helps. I don't think it's a book he'll read or appreciate for another 15 years. I think he's going to be 20 somewhere in there. Yeah, but I think he'll appreciate the results of the book because you might think the book is for him, but you might find you writing the book is what's been for him.

Yeah. I don't know anybody who can write. I don't know anybody who can write their story honestly and not be forced to reckon with things that have happened in their life. Correct. Like, I tell everyone all the time, I go, write a book about your life.

And they're like, who's going to read it? I go, you shouldn't actually think about that. Go and write a book about your life. And when you're writing it, you start to realize how much you don't even know about your own life. You realize you don't even know your parents. At all.

At all. At all. We know what our parents did. Yeah, you only know them through them being in service to you. Yeah, but you don't like know, like, and I mean like know your parents. Ask them like a real deep question.

That isn't, isn't, and what I mean about a real deep one is they're actually the ones that seem like they're on the surface. My mama told me a story one time about in college how she faked being pregnant on the dude. And we laughed for a fucking hour. Because this is an esteemed black, college educator three degrees and I work in administration and I make sure these kids get

their degrees. I was the first nine black people at Delta State. We protested at the president's office and we fought and I'm the child of a sharecropper and also, I'm pregnant. Sike. And it was the 70s. You could really scare a dude back then. The technology wasn't what it was now to prove you're a liar.

I don't like, Mama, why you did that? Piss me off. Just love it at that. So you start, you forget that your parents are just humans. Exactly. So yeah, put that in the book. Yes, son, yes. I stole a credit card and tried to buy some shit and got caught.

Let me tell you about that world. Let me tell you about like all of these weird times. And so that. I don't know man I just don't know if I would ever talk about any of this on stage so I don't know when else I would ever have had a platform for it

but I think that's that's the beauty of different art forms right I never used to understand why musicians would paint sometimes you know you'd read these random stories they go they go like da-da has a painting they paint I'm like why

what are you doing just you make music music already. And then over time, you start realizing, and I think this applies to everybody, whether you're an artist or not, because I think everyone is an artist, genuinely, not like in like, oh, everyone's an artist. I mean it. Everyone has something creative in them that they, that they'll benefit from getting out. And I think we take for granted that sometimes we think all of our stories will be told in the places that we think they can be told, but they won't be. Some of your stories will only come out because of your friends. Some of your stories will only come out

because you go to church. Some of your stories only come out because of therapy. Some of your stories will only come out because you're in a relationship. Some of your stories

will only come out if they are given the right avenue and stage to come out in. And so in a way, I go like, because of the book, the book is a different stage.

Yeah. I was laughing. I was laughing about you working at QuickCrete with the concrete in your hair. I was laughing at you with the credit,

like Roy's credit card fraud. Man, let me tell you something. Good times. Ooh, do some good times. We ate good for two years. Do you know what I mean? It was just to get food. Like, that's how I started.

There's the relationship. No, but it's true. That's true. I'm saying with food. Yeah. You know what it was? We just wanted Pizza Hut, bro. That's all.

We wanted Pizza Hut. It was 96 and it was the beginning of pay at the pump. And in those days in the States, your gas station receipt had your full name, full credit card number, and expiration date. Ah, what a wonderful time. Insane. Insane. What a dream.

And I go to a gas station and I get paid at the pump and whoever was there before me hadn't pulled their receipt. So my receipt was attached to theirs and I saw that full credit card number and I was like, we having Pizza Hut tonight. And I went back to the dorm. I told my boys and said, boys, whatever you want,

meat lovers, we're getting breadsticks, all that. And we ordered like $40 worth of pizza on somebody else's credit card. And in those days, when they would deliver the pizzas, right? This is where racism can help you.

In those days, when they delivered pizzas to black colleges, Yes. Most black colleges are on a, or adjacent to a bad side of town in a lot of instances. So sometimes a pizza man get robbed. So the pizza man's already paranoid because he's already on 10 about being robbed. But we will walk up to pick up 50, $60 in pizzas with a $10 cash tip in hand. White driver literally trembling as we're walking up and we're dressed as hood.

as we, like, in black hoodie, black Nike. Like, we want, psychologically, we're trying to psych you out. You're trying to invoke racism. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Because I need you to not ask me for this card because you think we're going to stomp you out. Oh, would you think I ain't got the card?

Oh, you're right. I didn't have the card. All I had was the receipt. Yeah, but I like the $10 tip, though. That's psychological. That's brilliant. Because no one's tipping. And so we will walk up and we would go, hey, man, can I write the tip in?

Do y'all take cash? me yeah you man there you go oh here you go and there's parmesan and there's some red flakes for you and we'd walk off and he'd never ask for the card so you come back to the dorm celebrating and you're eating like we've ordered $80 worth of pizza we can't eat all this pizza oh the dorm is just them motherfuckers is floating you guys are a ninja turtles Raphael Donatello coming out to woodwork. You know how they smell them pies and them cartoons. And the motherfucker you get the float.

So we're in the dorm during Monday night football, which is like premiere packed TV room. And we're in the back like some fucking bosses. And motherfuckers will come up and. Take their respect. And they come up. And one dude from the football team, he'd come up and go eight. I get you $10 for that pizza right now,

fat-haired ass, nigga. And it's like a $15 meat lover. He's offered me $10. That you haven't paid for. Yeah. Nice doing business with you. That's how I started. We just wanted to eat pizza one night.

Somebody bought one of the pizzas wholesale. And then a flashlight went off of my head. And so I just started selling food. I was the food, dude. and then about a year or two later I got a work study at the post office on campus and mind you, the only reason I got the work study at the post office was because I was late

signing up to be an RA in the dorm. I just forgot to sign up. I've been an RA for two years. Just forgot. And they were like, well, you can go work in the post office. Cool. Mail sorter. Now you have access to the actual tangible cards.

Hmm. at a college campus where everybody is applying for credit cards. Oh, goodness. And in those days, credit cards came already activated in the envelope. There was no sticker. There was no call this number and put in your pen and your matching zip code. I mean, we could argue that they basically made you a fraudster if we're honest. I mean, let's be honest, Roy.

You had no other choice. I mean, really. This seems logical at this point. I'm like, this is God. God wants me. So now, now when we order the pizza, I can show the card. Hey, there's no more tip. Oh, man.

Yeah, I'll write in, you're still going to get tip. But so... The confidence is gone up. And that's where you get sloppy. Mm-hmm. Because you get too arrogant. And so now with these tangible cards, you can sell clothing because you can just go buy clothes. Oof.

And whole thing. Tell me what you need. You get half price. It goes deeper, man. So you become, you become the dude. like pizza's one thing, but now PlayStation, whatever you need. Just have price. Just come

tell me what you need. I'm just, I'm, I'm Amazon for that part of the campus. Look at me. Look at me. I am Jeff Bezos. And so we take a card in the Dillards and we knew one of the

girls that worked the cash register and she was doing us a favor and this is where so to do us a favor to leave more credit space on the card she undercharged us for the merch so that the car would have more space which i didn't need you to do because i'll just go steal another card when it's time to do this again and she undercharges us for everything and this is she's working in like i don't know polo or Tommy whatever one of those mall stores Correct. One of the designer departments where there are no $7 sweaters.

Yep. She's ringing up shit for like $6, bro. Like, this is too low. And so she got caught and then the dominoes fell and we're at the house waiting on a pizza. And the police, Tallahassee police came in. They kicked that door. And this is at a time where Tallahassee only had like four or five murders a year. So this was some good action.

A whole task force coming to the house and take us down. Yeah, it was like, I don't know, seven, eight cops. We got them. We got them. And then...

He blew the whistle on you. Here's the fucked up part, though. We got arrested. They started searching the house. And then fucking Pizza Hut showed up with that goddamn pizza. And couldn't eat. eat it.

Couldn't eat it. And the cop ain't have enough sense to ask the pizza man if that was like stolen gas. And that's all I remember about the night I got arrested was that fucking pizza huts smelled so good and I couldn't fucking touch it. It was sitting right there in the living room, bro. Couldn't fucking touch it. And so got suspended from school. and then during the suspension

is when I started doing stand-up. Because I was like, oh, I'm probably going to go to prison. Well, that makes me sad. Well, let me just try stand-up. Because now you realize your common, the common bond you share with people is your ability to give them things.

In the moment I lost that superpower, Yeah. Nobody wanted to talk to me. I had like one or two friends. And around the same time, I started working at Golden Corral. And Golden Corral was like the first place I ever worked. It's the first place I ever experienced true forgiveness and benevolence from strangers, co-workers who you don't know me.

And then you find out, after a month or two, you find out, I get, I get probation. Yeah. Don't know how. I get probation. I don't go to, I don't go to jail. And I'm doing stand-up. I'm working at Golden Corral.

I'm riding out my suspension from school. And then my coworkers at Golden Corral found out that I was on probation. And I just remember just expecting to be fired. Like, oh, I, okay. And then you discover that half the stores on probation because we had an owner who hired, who hired convicted felons and returning citizens, the tax breaks, but also he legitimately believed in second chances. And so that place at that time of my life was exactly where I needed to be because the legal

system is set up to make you feel like you're going to fuck up again. And they psychologically tell you. Like, you're coming back. It's only a matter of time. I'll see you soon, sir. Mm-hmm. And so, yeah, like, that's the type of stuff where I feel like, my son, my son should know that. And then it's also interesting in how that helped shape why I try to be as kind as I can to people and try to give chances to people.

Yeah. Because there was like an 18-month stretch in my life where I could have been discarded. Florida A&M could have thrown me out. Golden Corral could have thrown me out. The school let me back in so I could graduate. Then I go get a job in Birmingham, you know, working at the radio station after I graduate. I was still in probation when I started 95-7. So that only happens because there are so many people that saw me for what I could become.

So it changed how I saw myself. So I didn't feel like who I was. I could only see what I was destined to be. And like, that's all I still, to this day. That's still how I carry myself. Yeah. Oh, well, yeah, I'm doing this now, but I know what's going to happen over there. Are you scared?

Did you? No, no. Let's leave Daily Show, because I know over here. It must be something. I know how to, and I know how to get there because I've been at Rock Bottom before. So this is easy. I can get from here. All right, career's still going.

Like, that's how all of that thought process started was doing, was doing that first year of probation. just in terms of like figuring out the self-reliance and that's where everything from my pops and my moms and being a latchkey kid and then selling my own stuff and not asking my mama for no help. I needed that shit when I was on probation because I didn't have nobody. Ain't nobody trying to help you make the dream happen.

And you in school, You back in college, talking about you going to be a comedian. Nobody buying that. Not in a building full of scholars and not fam used journalism. I had a classmate, man. I ain't ever felt more than nothing in my life. And I'm still enrolled. And I'm back in college at this point.

I'm in Jacksonville doing an open mic and some shit. And we backstage, they got the TV on. And I see one of my classmates, anchoring the weekend news with the same age. And he's the weekend anchor. And I'm sitting here on TV. On TV. Like, he's on his way.

And I'm like, in that moment I saw him, I was like, fuck, this got to work. This has got to work. Because I don't, I'm never going to get to that. I'm not doing journalism properly, you know, and I ended up doing my own version of it, and, you know, I got lucky as well because I worked in morning radio at a time where black radio, morning terrestrial radio, was disgustingly competitive in certain markets. And we were one of the few markets, I think it was about 10 cities at the time, that had four different black. morning shows. So we were the local show, but then you would have Tom Joyner syndicated in. I think Steve Harvey was just starting. There was also Doug Banks. There was also Tony Scott. There was also Russ Parr. So any of those five or six entities, four could be in any

market. And so when you're the local black show, you have to creatively be way out in left field creatively to compete. So, yeah, I can do a lot of crazy, weird ideas. I don't have to just do prank phone calls. I can come up with weird calling characters. I can come up with parody songs, the Leo Debbling character that we did on Daily Show. That was an old radio character. I wouldn't have even had the gumption to pitch it at Daily Show, had I not been given that creative freedom to just play in the sandbox and figure it out.

And if it sucks, who cares? Nobody's going to remember because tomorrow's a new day on radio. If they don't like it, it's Birmingham. They're going to call and tell you you trash, but they're going to give you another chance. Like, that's the one thing about black audiences is that you can get booed, but you can always come again. You can always come back again. Try again. If it's good this time, we'll cheer.

And if it's bad again, we'll boo. And each boo with its own individual. Yeah, it doesn't count towards the next thing. Yeah. It doesn't. a cumulative thing. An individual connection. You don't take it, don't take it personally.

We just don't think you suck. Keep moving. Are you still mad? Come on, man. At the boo? Come on, man. Come on. How are you driven?

They're going to act like you didn't suck. You know you suck. Yeah. You know what? It was a different time, though, man. I'm very grateful for that time because I needed forgiveness at a time where I did not deserve it. Hmm.

And I got an abundance of it. And so that's part of what. keeps me gracious and trying to give, you know, chances to people. I just, I haven't been able to get anything greenlit in a place where I can do effectively for other people, what was done for me, especially, you know, people coming off probation, coming out of prison, stuff like that, doing some staff and shit with that. Like, that's going to be, that's the Birmingham plan, you know. You say that, but I feel like in the same way you sometimes put an outsized amount of pressure on yourself to be the perfect father that you never had, if there's one thing, everyone in this industry, and I mean everyone will agree on, and people don't agree on anything in life, is Roy Wood Jr. has helped them in some way, shape, or form. I'll tell you now you will be hard pressed

to find a comedian or anyone who's like tangentially related to comedy who doesn't have a story about how you've helped them in some way shape and I mean everyone here's Eugene

this is a random African think about it in the thick of COVID think about it when you didn't have to yeah like me you name it

the Neil Brennan's of the world I mean every random comedians nobody knows comedians everybody does know Big comedians, small comedians, you name it. Because people were kind to me, bro. No, no, no.

You say that, but like, I think, you see, in you saying, like, I've never had the chance. I go, man, you take for granted how. And this is something that I've always loved about you as a friend, but I've always, like, wanted to strangle you on as I go, you'll focus on the mountains, but you'll take for granted how many pebbles you've piled up. Yeah. Do you know what I'm saying? You'll always be like, man, when I get that mountain going,

And I'm like, Roy, look how many pebbles you've put here, man. That is a, that's literally a mountain that you've built. There's more. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, there is more. But I'm saying that that's like my wish for you as a friend and as a person. I always go like, oh, man, just look back at some of those. Yeah, you've always wanted me to stop and just like, you did all right.

Pause, not even stop, pause. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard because I always feel like that light in the tunnel. It's not the end of the journey. It's the train trying to run me over. Damn. So I just had to keep moving. Imagine playing with trains as his kid.

What a crazy journey that must be. We're going to play trains, Daddy Choochoo! Man, that's the end of my line. Oh, kids used to die in Birmingham back in the 80s. They used to try to hop freight trains to class. Oh, yeah, that's like us when we would. Yeah, same thing as South Africa. That's why I say it's like we lived...

We lived a parallel life. Yeah. You know, can I tell you one of the biggest things your book did for me that I appreciate is it brought something top of mind that I think is... really important to think about now. And it's, you talk about your journey with your father, partially knowing a man, and I argue we only partially know everyone in our lives,

you know, but partially knowing this man for 16 years of your life, him dying, and then you talking about the many fathers and the men in your life that raised you in some way, shape or form, even in the smallest conversation, even in the smallest instruction, the smallest act of kindness,

But what I found myself thinking of when I closed the last page of the book is I went, damn, that's probably the biggest blow that masculinity has taken in society today is that we have fewer and fewer fathers because we have a smaller and smaller village. Do you get what I'm saying? Like the way we used to live. Yeah, the way we used to live, like even having a father was like a, it's like they were all fathers. And I mean, like, this is like, this is where the language of, you know, African languages, especially South African languages, tie you to that concept.

Everyone was Bob. You know what I mean? So if I was talking to Eugene's dad, I'd say Bob Kosa. You know, father cause. But it's like father. And, and you know what I mean? Mom Kosa. Like, you know what I mean?

Mama Gajin. Like, it's like mom. So there's all the moms and there's all the dads. So your and all the brothers and all the sisters. So yours directly might not be there. But we always grew up being like, man, there's fathers everywhere. Moms everywhere and yours might not be there. But there are many of them around to give instruction, to give a beating, to give correction, to give guidance, to give whatever it might be.

And all I thought to myself was like, imagine growing up now as a young man whose father isn't present, physically or emotionally. And then like where are your father? Is isolated. Yeah, where are your fathers? It's like just what, the internet? Do you know what I mean? In a lot of cases, yeah. Yeah, but the problem with the internet that I have is it's a bunch of men telling you how to act.

But unlike a real father, you don't get to see how they really act. Yeah. Do you get what I'm saying? You get to perform. You get the ceremony. Yeah, they get to tell you all these things. Let me tell you what a real man does. Let me tell you all. They're a relationship.

Let me tell you what a real man. Let me tell you what a real man. Click thing goes off. And then it's like, well, who's that person? Because kids see through the, like, you wrote a whole book where you're seeing through the facade of your father. You know what I mean? Yeah. Your father's telling you who he is.

but then you're seeing who he really is. Yeah, I think that men are a lot less, I don't know, inclined to help too. I don't think everybody wants the help. I remember, like, I'm the guy now. The best I do with young people is stick and move. Like, if we're in line, like, bodegas and stuff, and it's like three, four, 14-year-olds in front of me in line.

And then I'll say, I'll stay out of trouble. You know? And you're out. Yeah, because these kids don't want their advice. Oh, man, Roy, that's so funny. I'll stay out of trouble now. Yeah. Or I'll ask them an easy thing,

an easy thing with adolescents. I'm like, which teacher you hate. Oh, that's a nice one. Okay. They'll start going off about the teacher. Yeah. Yeah, but you still got to learn something from him. Like, just stay in it.

Man, Roy, you're not wrong. Roy's been an old man his whole life. You're not what we need to do. After this podcast, we need a book. We're going to go trampolining. We're going to go, like, we're going to go throw slime at each other. We got to... Bull cut.

Just, I want to do, like, the dumbest, silliest things with you. Disneyland? Or Visionland. Vision land. It's Alabama Adventure now at Foreclosed NewsBaker. Okay, okay, okay. It didn't work for a... I think we're going to go around wearing little...

I have a dream hat. It's Vision land. Vision land. Have you been on the million-man march ride? Oh, it's so long. Yes, a million more steps. 99,000 more steps. It changed ownership a number of times, but it's still standing.

One of the largest wooden roller coasters in the world. It's called the Civil Rights Movement. Fuck you. Stop roasting my city. Oh, man. Roy, man. Thanks for coming through. Man, I appreciate you, man.

Like, and can I tell you, man, thanks for sharing you. And like, I appreciated it selfishly just as a human being who knows you. Man, your book was because, like, I got to have conversations with you that we've never got to have. And I think anyone who reads it, if you are a mom who is a single. mom if you are a dad who's not in touch with your kids if you are a expecting dad if you are a son who doesn't know their dad if you if you are a human being fundamentally i feel like you've like you've written the book for them man it's it's it's it's beautiful it's forgiving it's insightful it's It's light, it's funny, it's, yeah, man, it's, it's phenomenal.

I appreciate it, man. Yeah, man, thank you. Well, until I have another child and then write another book, I bet you it'd do. Oh, man. What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero Productions in partnership with Sirius XM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaziamin, and Jess Hackle. is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu. Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random Other Stuff by Ryan Parduth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week

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