WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 934 - Daveed Diggs / Bob Newhart

Episode Date: July 18, 2018

Before he was in Hamilton, Daveed Diggs was an aspiring actor, rapper and spoken word performer creating "a rap curriculum" for Bay Area schools. Marc talks with Daveed about how that was the perfect starting point for his eventual portrayal of Thomas Jefferson. They also talk about Oakland, Daveed's rap group Clipping, and his new movie Blindspotting, which he co-wrote as a kind of love letter to his always-changing hometown. Also, Marc gives Bob Newhart a call to talk about his new Audible series, Hi, Bob. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fucksters what the fuck tuckians how's it going i'm mark maron this is my podcast welcome to it it is called wtf thank you for joining how's everybody doing is everybody okay how are all my republican comrades

how are you doing comrade what is happening oh my god i don't what something's gonna give and it ain't gonna be good maybe it will be i don't know look i've got a great show. I do know that. Today on the show, David Diggs is here. David Diggs, a great actor. I like him a great deal. I saw him. He was the original Thomas Jefferson in Hamilton. And he's shown up on Black-ish.

He's done other stuff. But he's got this film out called Blindspotting, which is really a beautiful, very personal, very, yeah, it's a heavy film in some ways, but it's definitely an Oakland-based movie. It's a real love letter to Oakland, where he grew up. And it's interesting that Boots Riley, who was just here, also an Oakland cat. And there's a little crossover. David saw Boots give a talk at some point in his youth.

But I enjoyed the movie. It has some unique stuff in it, and it was great talking to him. And also, in just a couple minutes, I'm going to talk to Bob Newhart for just a phone call with Bob Newhart about his new thing. I'll tell you a little bit more about that in a minute. his new thing i'll tell you a little bit more about that in a minute uh thank you for all the feedback on my small but uh relatively focused rant or tirade or or reaction to the superhero movies you know there was a lot of reactions but but rest reassured i have seen a couple this idea that i'm operating in the dark that i've never seen a superhero movie i have i have i i still stand by what i say and if you're all worked up why y'all worked up you're the dominant paradigm it's the same with republicans what

are y'all worked up for you're the dominant paradigm enjoy it enjoy the upper hand thank you for the reaction now there was a lot of support from my point of view on the sort of inundation of superhero movies, the inundation of the culture, the sort of weird infantilization of the adult mind. And I know some of you are like, hey, man, I'm blown off steam or I just enjoy it. It's not taking up other stuff. It doesn't make that big a difference. I watch other stuff, too. not taking up other stuff. It doesn't make that big a difference.

I watch other stuff too. I think you're missing the point about the amount of money involved that goes into the movies, that then is made, and that goes into plowing it into our brains and our unconscious and leaving us either somewhat mentally paralyzed to make other choices.

And I do think it has an effect, but also pushing out the choices. That was my point, and a lot of people took it, and some people got worked up. But again, take it easy. Take it easy. It doesn't look like it's going to change. You're going to get all the little movies that you want to with the flying man. So that being said, I'm feeling a little under the weather.

And you know why I'm getting a little under the weather? Because my dad came in. It was yesterday. My dad came into town today. He's sitting in my house right now with his wife, my dad. And for some reason, when I get around my parents or I'm about to see my parents, my body just, I don't know. It's just like it breaks down a little. I don't think that's supposed to happen.

Does that happen to you? Do you get sick when your parents come? I think i talked about this when my mom came but uh i i think i did experience a little bit what it's like to have uh younger children because i did something that is not really i i don't know that i would have done it otherwise oh did i tell you about uh we jammed we did the goddamn comedy jam me and dino and uh i got to play with uh with tall wilkenfeld who is a genius bass player and uh and the regular band for the goddamn comedy jam but me and dean and tall uh we did down payment blues no we didn't sorry we did long way to the top if you want to rock and roll from acdc and they had a horn section there, which we used for the bagpipe parts.

And I got to tell you, man, that is real fun. I'm glad I know how to play guitar. I'm glad I'm okay at it. And I'm glad that I'm doing this now, playing out, because that is one of the few times I experience real fun. Like just exhausting fun playing live rock music. I get done and I get like a postpartum depression from the jam. Like I feel like bummed out when it's over. I love playing guitar loud in front of people.

It's too late to shift, but it is okay to do it as a hobby. So don't get panicky, folks. I'm not thinking about getting the band together. So what I was saying before is that my dad's in the house. I didn't, you know, I just wanted him to be comfortable and sit there while I'm doing this before we go out and look for some food or something. So they're both in there. And he's like, do you have a TV that works? I'm like, yes, I do. And I'm like, what do you want to watch? And he's like, I don't know. I'm like, do you want to watch Fox news? He's like, I like'm like do you want to watch Fox News he's like I like to and no one else seems to like to but I like to and I just had that moment where you must have that moment when you have a child and you're about to give them the iPad

with something that you find annoying if not just like completely tormenting but you know if it's going to keep the kid busy and distracted for a half hour, you suck it up. So that's what I did. That's what I did with my dad. I just set him up there in front of the TV with some Fox news, sucked it up and knew that, you know, he's not going to annoy me or cry for the next 40 minutes or so, but I'm copping to it. I'm copping to it. Okay? That's all I'm saying. All right. So this is exciting. Bob Newhart, who I love and respect a lot, has a new audio series exclusively on Audible.

It's called Hi, Bob. Bob Newhart in conversation with famous friends. I actually wrote and recorded the foreword for the show. And the show features talks with people like Will Ferrell, Lisa Kudrow, Sarah Silverman. So get that on the audible. Now start a free subscription if you don't have one already. And this is me,

you know, just a touch and base with Bob on the phone a little while back about the show and about, you know, him and, you know, we'll think we'll, we'll phone thing with Bob.

It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p. 5pm in Rock City

at TorontoRock.com Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel

by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series, streaming February 27th, exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. New Heart. Hi, Bob. new heart hi bob hi mark so i haven't talked to you in a while bob how are you feeling about everything okay oh yeah oh yeah considering i'm 88 and a half i'm doing pretty good so are you going to

be recording these uh these episodes of hi for Audible up there at your house? Are you going to have people over to the house? No, they're recorded already. Where'd you record them? At the hotel, the Bel Air Hotel. Oh, that's fancy. So you just rented a room and got some mics out and sat there in a suite? No, in the bar, actually.

It was great. The sound was great. And then we did a couple, Sarah Silverman we did in one of the rooms, and it worked out great because it's very quiet, you know. And this all came from, I filled in for Johnny, you know, 79 times. Yeah. I was guest host for Johnny.

So part of that was interviewing, you know, the guests. And the night before, they'd hand you the notes, and you'd try to pick out the ones that you thought were going to lead somewhere or that you and the person had some kind of contact with. And so I always enjoyed it. So this came up through Audible. And you don't have to get on a plane. And you don't have to sleep in a strange hotel room anymore.

And it's interesting. It's just, it keeps the mind active, you know. Yeah, of course, of course. I've been lucky so far. And those interviews you did on Carson, those were shorter interviews, I imagine. And you didn't have a lot of time to get in depth with people. And I assume that these interviews are a little longer and more of a conversation. Yeah.

Yeah. You're exactly right. I tried to make them conversational as opposed to and then bring a unique kind of experience that I've had of almost 60 years of doing stand-up. Yeah. of almost 60 years of doing stand-up. Yeah. And talking to other stand-ups and how much different that world is.

Now, last night, we went to the, Jenny and I, my wife and I, went to the improv because it was Billy Crystal's 70th birthday. Uh-huh. Well, improv and comedy clubs, they weren't part of my life. So I always

found it interesting, like, talking to Sarah, what is that world like? It sounded terrible. I mean, it sounded like a cattle call, and you just all wait, and maybe you get five

minutes at the very end, if you're lucky. And it's totally foreign to me. Right. The system is different because, as I recall from our conversation, you would put together your act. And I think your story is unique to you, that you had put together your act in a vacuum, and very quickly were able to perform it in a nightclub. And it just proved to be that all the stars aligned and everything worked out for that first record. And I guess that the process of becoming a comic was different. Entirely different. guess that the the process of of becoming a comic was different uh even entirely different yeah the thing that people that i've talked to like young comics they'll say when you recorded that that

comedy album that you know the button down mind of bob newhart you had never worked at nightclub before and i said no no i hadn't so yeah that's that's kind of different but as you learned from the get-go yeah you got to pretend like you know what you're doing because if you don't it makes the audience nervous and uh so you gotta summon all the bravado you have yeah yeah are you gonna bomb thing i had going. I mean, I think if that didn't work, it would have been back to accounting or something. That's right. Or back to advertising, right? Whatever.

Yeah. But I mean, but I think that that experience, it seems to me, is a common experience. I think that, you know, half of our job, or if not more than half of our job, is pretending like we're not scared. Yeah, if not 90%. And then I was playing these big places. I was playing the Hungry Eye and the Crescendo in Los Angeles and the Crescendo especially in L.A.

I mean, I was a major star with the audience. They'd be sure to introduce Groucho Marx be sure to introduce and I'm trying to learn the business you know from from the top down

not from the bottom up but from the top down and trying to act like I know what the hell I'm doing yeah and you pulled it off. You did it. But, you know, there was one time. I forget where I was. I think I was in Texas. And I came off.

I had 18 minutes, and I came off. And the maitre d' and they were applauding. And the maitre d' said, go back out. And I said, well, that's all I have. And they said, well, they're applauding, go back out. So not knowing that much about the business, I went back and I said, which one do you want to hear again? That's all I have. Did you actually do one again?

I did one again. I forget which one it was. So I guess on the series here, you talked to Will Ferrell and Judd Apatow and Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman. And some of them have done, you know, they're professional hosts. And one's a professional comic actor. One's a comedy producer. One's a stand-up comedy comedian by trade. So what did you find was the commonalities

that you had with them or that they had together what did you learn in talking to all these people the odd thing i'll tell you what happened with judd yeah judd apatow yeah um we're talking and then he was asking me questions and we're talking and i said judd i'm trying to interview you and he said uh no no your life is more interesting than mine is you know so you have to get it back on track yeah i believe me i know well you know you know how you know how it is i mean you've done it yeah. You've done stand-up and now the podcast. Yeah. Well, yeah, Judd is a very humble guy, but clearly he's got a lot of experience.

He probably just feels like he doesn't have as much life experience. Did you end up getting him to talk about himself? Yeah, eventually. Yeah. At that point, I think he was going back into stand-up. Oh, yeah, he did a good stand-up show. I liked his stand-up. I haven't seen it yet, yeah.

It's on cable, right? Yeah. It's on Netflix. I mentioned last night we went to Billy Crystal's 70th birthday. And Billy and I, I was playing golf with Tom Poston. Yeah. And Billy was Tom's guest. So we're playing along.

We're enjoying ourselves, having laughs. And I said to Billy, I said, Billy, do you still do stand-up? And he said, yeah, I'm working on a project. I'm going to get back into it. I said, you know, Billy, I think people who can make people laugh have an obligation

to make people laugh. There aren't that many. I think that's true. I think that's true i think that's true you have to it's a it's a it's a calling it's a calling a yeah i hate to call it a gift you're right it's a calling and it's just great i mean it's i still do you know i'll do this year maybe five stand-ups yeah it feels good it's it's just a wonderful thing to be able to do to make people laugh yeah you look and you laughter is one of the great sounds of the world you know to me it is i think i think you're absolutely right and when you interviewed will ferrell like will ferrell is

one of the funniest people who ever lived but a lot of times when you interview him, he doesn't act funny at all. Was he funny with you? Yeah, yeah, he was. Oh, good. He was, but, you know, we had the experience of Elf. Oh, that's right, yeah. Which was a great experience, because when I was offered Elf, I read it, and I said to my wife, I said, this is going to be a perennial.

Yeah. And it did. It became a perennial. Yeah, it's funny. I could just see it every Christmas being played, and that's what happened to it. It was just such a wonderful story. And I complimented him on his role because very dangerous kind of role because it was very easy for him just to come off as a large guy who isn't very bright and doesn't realize that he's an elf. Right.

But he was able, you were pulling for him so much, he pulled that off. He was able, you were pulling for him so much, he pulled that off. And that wasn't easy because it was very dangerous. And the whole movie could have fallen apart if you didn't believe him. That's right. He's a very talented guy. He's a good actor, a very funny guy, too. Yeah, yeah. Well, listen, Bob, I wish you nothing but success with this thing.

And it's a pleasure to talk to you again. And I'm excited for everybody to hear these conversations you had. Well, Mark, I'm embarrassed. I mean, we're talking on the phone. I mean, you had the president come to your place. But I came. I went to your house. We had a nice conversation.

I know you went to my house, but you had the president. Yeah. Even though, I mean, he had a motorcade. I mean, there's a big advantage. Sure, sure. When you have a motorcade, you know, it really knocks the hell out of the time. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, next time you and I talk, I'll have the motorcade pick you up and bring you over here.

Okay? Okay. Thanks, Bob. Thank you, Mark. That was nice, right? Talking to Bob? The show is called Hi Bob, Bob Newhart in Conversation with Famous Friends. You can get that at Audible. You can start a free subscription right now if you don't already have one.

So, as some of you might remember, I went to see Hamilton in New York, and I had a great experience. I enjoyed the show, but at the end of the show, when they were walking off after their curtain call, Lin-Manuel knew exactly where I was sitting, and he looked at me and he said, Boomer lives. Very exciting. And I think it was towards the end of my next guest's run with that show. Daveed Diggs was one of the original cast members of Hamilton, which we talk about a bit. And his new movie, Blindspotting, which he stars in and co-wrote, opens in select cities tomorrow, July 20th.

And it's a really, it's an intense but great movie. And I enjoyed it. It's a very personal movie. It's a small movie about real people. There's some great stuff in here about what it's like to grow up in Oakland, but also in approaching conversations about race a bit in a way that I hadn't really seen on screen. And it just happens naturally. And it's sort of a quick beat, but it's an interesting twist. But it's also a beautiful, sort of sad, bittersweet love letter to the city of Oakland. And it's also about class problems. It's about gentrification.

But at the core of it, it's about a guy sort of coming into his own and about a friendship. And I was happy to talk to David about it. So this is me and David Diggs. I saw you in Hamilton. Yeah, yeah. Did I meet you that night? I think you ran out. I might have, but you know when we met was five years ago at the Sub Pop 25.

You were headlining their comedy thing. Oh, with Eugene and everybody. Yeah, and so my band Clipping is on Sub Pop and we had just signed with them then and we played that show but we came to the comedy night beforehand

and we all hung out and got drunk. Did we? I wasn't drinking. I know that. But I remember there was like, was that the outdoor stuff?

Like, is it big? No, that was like a big, some big indoor space in Seattle. But yeah, the concert was outdoors. Outside. You went down and wandered around. that was like a big, some big indoor space in Seattle. But yeah, the concert was outdoors. Outside.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You went down and wandered around. There was like three or four stages. Yeah, yeah. And we're playing the 30 this year. That's the reason I remember this, is because we just- How many records have you put out with Sub Pop? Four now.

Really? Three or four, yeah. There's a 30? They didn't ask me to do the 30. I guess I didn't do it both. I could have done. But yeah, I remember there was an outdoor area, I saw Mudhoney and I met Jay Maskis. Yeah, yeah.

And yeah, that was kind of fun. Yeah. Yeah, man. Okay, so you met me there. Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry I didn't remember. That's all right. I don't remember people I met two weeks ago.

I have the same problem. So you came to that show. There was like five of us on there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Inside of me, Eugene. Yeah, you and Eugene and John Benjamin. Kristen Schaal. Yes, I think so. So, okay, so did you originally let's go back because I love

the movie. I thought it was really good and there's a really great twist in a way that like, or things were approached in a way that I'd never seen them approached before which I'm sure people are saying yeah yeah um and but what was the other guy's name the Rafael Casal and you grew up with that guy yeah we went to high school together um we started working together really after I got back from college but so you went to you've known him

because there's something about you Oakland guys yeah Yeah, yeah. That's a true statement. It's true, right? Yeah, absolutely. I had Boots Riley in here the other day. Yeah, man. And like him and Kamau go back. There's definitely a thing that holds you guys together. Yeah.

Did you grow up the whole time there? Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, I was born in Oakland. We met at Berkeleykeley high school and and rafael grew up in berkeley and i've sort of always bounced between my my father has always lived in oakland and my mom was in albany el cerrito richmond sort of albany california yeah yeah little little tiny town between um and what how'd you get the how how do you get the name david uh it's hebrew in my case yeah yeah my i've never seen it spelled like that that's just my parents not wanting people to fuck it up

but they do anyway so yeah it did it didn't help but yeah they had uh they had seven dogs all with hebrew names by the time i came along so i was just the next oh so you there was there my mother used to call animals before she'd get to me. She didn't know what name she was calling. There was no real differentiation. Yeah, yeah. No, it was like Maziza, Delilah, Hamantasha, Shlomo, Kasha. Who's the Jew?

David, my mom. She must be really Jew-y. Not even, but I don't know. Maybe more so at the time. I don't know. I think- Culturally Jewish, because those are all- Culturally, you know how that goes. Commentatious.

Yeah, yeah. But where's she from? Is she from the East Coast? Yeah, Jersey. She's from Jersey. I'm from Jersey. Oh, yeah. She's from Haskell.

Get the fuck out of here. Stop it. Yeah. No. Real. Dude. That is a little fucking town. Yeah, bro.

And my grandfather owned an appliance store there. Oh, no way. And a hardware store. Oh, damn. My mom's from Palmton Lakes, which is like down the street. Yeah, yeah. That's crazy. I mean, I've been to Haskell.

I went to my mom's 35-year high school reunion. I was in college or something at the time. Come on. No one comes from Haskell. Yeah, I told you. It's like hill people land. Yeah. I mean, you know, they were the Jewish family in Haskell.

Well, that is crazy. Jack's Hardware and Jack's Appliances. Jack's Hardware. I'm going to tell my mom about it today. You've got to tell me. That is so crazy. That part of the, I didn't, like, because there's that little triangle there. There's Haskell, Butler, and Pompton Lakes.

But Haskell, that's, I mean, I used to go there when I was a kid. It's rare what's happening. Yeah, yeah. I don't know what it means for us. I don't either, but there's something. There's something happening in this basement right now. She's a Jew from Haskell. Yeah.

And she comes out to Berkeley for what? You know, the thing? The 60s. Yeah, right? Yeah, yeah. She hitchhiked across the country with her dog Beowulf. So how old is she? Like, how old was she at?

She was in her late teens when she came out there? Yeah, like 18, I think. So she did that thing. I'm going to where the people are doing things. I think so. That's my understanding of it, yeah. That's crazy. And she met your dad when she was young?

A while later. She might have been, I don't know, late 20s by then. She was, you know, she went to Europe for a spell. She was one of the first lighting designers of Berkeley Rep Theater in Berkeley, actually. Wow. Which is like way before they even moved into their space there. Now they were up on on college avenue and in a thing that's now a little tiny movie theater was that something she studied

or just learned no i don't yeah she just you know fell into it like yeah in the hippie way yeah exactly but she's always she's always loved theater and then she went to went to europe and was like hanging lights for the for the first european tour of fiddler on the roof with zero mustel and shit like that really yeah she's got crazy stories from that let's get her in here you should that would be a much more interesting interview i think either my parents but yeah they met um my mom after after that was a dj it was like a club dj and uh in the 70s yeah yeah and yeah. And she used to have the basement of this bar called The Graduate that's still there on college. And apparently, from what I understand, she played the best black music in town.

So black folks used to line up down the block to come see my mom spin. And that's where her and my dad met. In the basement of The Graduate? In the basement of the graduate. And what did your dad do? Is he still around? He's still around? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, my dad at the time sold drugs. Yeah? Yeah, yeah. Both of them, that was like kind of their... He knew the DJ and he could sell drugs in the club. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And did he move on to other businesses? Yes.

Yeah. After I came along, they both got out of the game. Oh, that's good. It became clear that that was not a particularly dangerous way to raise a kid in the 80s, I think. Right. Right. So they got out of it.

When did they split up? When I was young. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. I don't remember them ever together, really. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah.

And you have other siblings? Yeah, I have a little brother who's, I guess, technically a half-brother. Different father, but my dad raised him, too. So that's the backdrop. But you didn't grow up with any Jewishness other than... I mean, I went to Hebrew school. I was this close to a bar mitzvah, you know? and then i dropped out you pulled out i pulled out i pulled out i was i was going to bar mitzvahs and i was like i don't have any rich family i don't know what i'm in this for

i gotta learn lines in another language it was like a whole yeah like this is really a whole thing that i don't need so when did you start performing i mean what was the what was the sort of like the process of you you know getting involved with theater i mean i don't know was your mother always involved with theater throughout your life i mean was something you grew up with not really um but i you know she always loved it and and but i was it was mostly music that i was around yeah um but they, I don't know. I have this memory of being in fourth grade and, like, our teacher making us memorize poems and shit like that. Yeah. And I.

What'd you pick? I don't remember. But I remember everybody was memorizing essentially the same poem. And I decided one day that I was going to, like, act my poem out. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I was a very, very shy kid.

So I don't know what possessed me to do this, but, um, I just remember everybody laughed when I wanted them to laugh and it was like, it was the only, all of a sudden I was like, Oh, this gives me a reason to be around people. Yeah. I'm a very, I was very shy. I still am. But I, that, that was laughs. Yeah.

And just being in a room and having a thing to say yeah yeah so I could be around people but not have to like deal with being myself yeah oh yeah yeah hell yeah I mean if you're if you're like the entertainer you know that it's a it's a good position to be in yeah yeah because you just get some laughs you get out exactly exactly and then eventually you get a girl who sees through you and then everything starts to go bad. Yeah. It's all downhill from there. In Oakland, like in the Oakland that you capture in the, I think the film is really sort of like, it's kind of a love letter to Oakland in a way. Yeah, definitely.

And, you know, of a passing time. You know, I don't know, like it like if if it is autobiographical to some degree that the oakland you grew up in is much different than the oakland that's happening now yeah and that uh but like what was the what was the um the sort of community factor and slash danger factor of the world you grew up in yeah well i i think um a bunch of us who are from there sort of remember this moment, maybe, I don't know, it must've been eight, maybe nine, 10 years ago at this point, but like the New York Times published this article and Oakland was like number two or three on a list of top five places to visit in the country. And we were like, what are you possibly talking about? And you read further into the article

and everything they mentioned was something that had popped up in the last year that none of us really knew anything about. That was sort of this kind of moment where we were like, oh shit, something's about to go down. But, you know, this is the same. There's a kind of rebranding that happens in all cities, right? Sure.

Happened in my old neighborhood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so the earliest thing I remember is changing. The East 14th Street has been changed to International Avenue. That happened more than a decade ago. Uh-huh. And that was this very intentional. East 14th Street had this connotation.

It was a very dangerous street. Oh oh really yeah it was mythic a lot of yeah a lot of shit went down on the street and so they so they replaced all the street signs international avenue and that was very intentional thing to sort of draw businesses to this to this street and like you know it's it's kind of like a major they just erase the name erase the history erase the name erase everything in that and you see that happening all over the place and you see new neighborhoods popping up like temescal was not a neighborhood when i was growing up that was called north oakland yeah now there's a part of downtown that's called uptown things like that that start to be like well what what are you saying when you when you when you erase a history that has existed in

this place for that long and that we all grew up with and what are you placing the value on because we loved this place yeah and it certainly had problems and there's certainly things that are worth fixing but but in in an attempt to draw new people here instead of um helping to to sort of uplift and fix and and work with the communities that are there instead we pave over them right and pretend they never existed yeah and re and claim a new name for a thing that's what gentrification is and that's it's happening in every city but it's yeah it feels particularly i think you know when you leave the place that you're from and then you start coming back periodically. So you don't feel the gradual change.

You just see these gaping holes in your history. Yeah, where you're driving around going, wasn't it right here? It was right here. I know it was right here. Yeah, exactly. It's the worst. It's a terrible feeling. But I mean, there's that strange confrontation of old and new where the new people think they're improving something.

And then the people that have been there forever are like, no, you're plowing over. We can't afford to live here anymore is usually what happens. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then where do people go? Are your folks still there? No, no. Both of them live in Richmond now, which is, you know, a little further north. But yeah.

Do you remember being dangerous when you grew up? I guess. I mean, I was back and forth between. So my mom was living in Albany, California at the time. And my dad was always in Oakland. When I was young, we were in North Oakland. I'm 44th in MLK. And I remember not being able to hang out outside when the lights came on and stuff like that but it never felt particularly dangerous you heard gunshots sometimes it was like

you know i didn't that's just california that's just california i didn't feel like i was particularly in danger and also i think having having parents who were sort of in the game like that they just you know. Right. We're always very open with me about like, this is a part of the city you don't go to without me. Like this is in here. And like, you know, you have family on C Street. Don't go there without us.

Right. Right. It's not a, you know. Well, that's weird because like to have family who are street wise is that it's almost a safer situation. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You just don't do dumb shit.

So how did you get out to, you know, you didn't stay there for college. No, no. I went to Brown University. To study what? What was the? Theater. I ended up being a very reluctant theater major. But you didn't do theater in high school.

I did. I did theater all through high school. And that was it? It was your focus? I was not very focused. I did plays every fall. I ran track. That was kind of the thing I loved.

You still run? I do. Not like I used to. Were you like a long distance guy? No, no. Hurdler. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah.

Wow. Yeah, I can't sprint like that can't that's a very sprint like that anymore specific skill it was it was yeah i i actually just so funny i just talked to my old track coach he's gonna come to the premiere of the movie yeah yeah oh that's nice coaches are coming both from from high school and college or no these are my my like pre-high school when i started running when i was like nine so these are my like early-high school. I started running when I was like nine. So these are my like early, early. I ran for the police athletic league in Oakland. And so my like first track coaches are both coming to this premiere. Oh, that's sweet. So these guys are life changer guys. I'm curious to see what they think of the film, you know, because it's a film that that deals with sort of community relationships to police. And these are police officers who grew up being who I grew up as having as my track coaches who like when I was going to college, literally went door to door to raise money to help me go and stuff.

Like, you know, sent me off to college with like four or five thousand dollars that they had like got like hand to hand gone to collect. Like, I mean, a really just incredible people who I grew up with. They looked out for you, and they probably taught you some life lessons? Oh, man, yeah. I mean, running for them was the best. And it was the only way I got to travel. I ran in the Junior Olympics every year, so as a kid I got to go all over the country.

I went to New Orleans for the first time when I was like 12 or something you know yeah this thing sort of with the team yeah yeah and like seattle and buffalo new york you know like like places that i would never have gotten to see the only the only reason i ever got to to travel we didn't have money so it was just you know was this team with these guys so who are these guys? They're both cops? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They both claim they're retired, but they still coach track all the damn time. Right, right. But one was a San Francisco sheriff, Maurice Valentine, and then Margaret Dixon was Oakland police. So you started running when you were like 10? Yeah, yeah, nine years old, I think.

And were you sort of a natural? Like was it a- No, actually, so I think just for a thing to do, my mom used to take me and my little brother to, Hershey's used to sponsor these track meets every year that you weren't allowed to wear track spikes for. They were just for like community kids. They called it tennis shoe track meets.

Tennis shoe track meets? Yeah, yeah, yeah and so you she would take us to run in those and i think coach dixon saw my brother run who was much more naturally gifted your little brother yeah yeah and and she was trying to put together a relay team of young kids for kids in his age group so she approached my mom and was was like hey would you like your son to come run with with our team and she said sure but you have to take my other one i'm not gonna this is child care you're not gonna leave me with one kid what's the point yeah so yeah so that's that's why i started and they must have tried me at everything until i was old enough to run hurdles, which was like 11 or 12. You can start running hurdles at shorter distances.

And that was sort of a cerebral enough race for me. I was a very good technician, so even though I wasn't as fast as some other kids. It's not a straight line. I got to do those things. I would win over the hurdle. And then I was able to get faster as i got older but it was so that that's that's sort of a beautiful story you know in terms of like uh you know having you know the these adult influences in your life that are completely outside of the family operation yeah so you know

because i imagine it gives you a certain amount of self-confidence and a certain amount of uh support it's everything man i mean having you know i've i um some i think to do to be in in the industry that we're in yeah you have that has to happen for you somewhere from somebody right i mean it's such a weird thing to sort of decide i'm gonna do this but i think it's i also yeah And I think some of it in my case is compelled by some other need that wasn't met, you know, parentally somehow, like, you know, to want to. Yeah. Right. You know, to be. And I don't admit it much, but it's sort of like you guys like me or what? Yeah. I mean, it was it was the opposite for me, I think. Like, my parents were always very much like, go, and we support you, and we love you. You know, I lived a very blessed childhood.

I'd say all the time, like, I grew up poor but not sad. I was never, I don't remember ever being sad or ever being bored in my life. Well, that's good. Well, I mean, I meant like my parents were not, they were supportive of what I did, but they were detached from it. They were like, he'll be all right. No, no, yeah, I get it.

You know, and I don't know. I think I wished my parents were more detached sometimes. So they were very attentive. Moms, for sure, you know. Because, you know, my mom, after my brother was born, she'd never finished college. She did like half a year of college my mom, after my brother was born, she she'd never finished. She did like half a year of college and then hitchhiked across the country. Right.

So then after my brother was born in her in her mid to late 30s, went back to school and went straight through and got her Ph.D. So the whole time I was growing up, she was in school. Oh, yeah. What'd she get her Ph.D. in? Social welfare. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And ended up running an organization called the Child Welfare Research Center out

of UC Berkeley. Still around? It is still around, yeah. It's still housed there. She's retired and traveling lots. Oh, yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's living it?

She's living it. That's great. My dad just retired, too. Oh, really? He was a bus driver. Oh, yeah? That's where he ended up? Muni, yeah, in San Francisco.

Well, they get a good pension it's it's fine um yeah they were trying to get him to stay longer and i i was basically like get out it's killing you like get out oh yeah he'd had enough it was horrible i mean you know it's just that driving a bus wreaks havoc on your body and sure man it's and emotionally it wasn't good that's a it's a horrible. He should have burned it down. Yeah. You know what's better he spends his last years out of prison. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

No burning down the municipality. You're right. You're right. Yeah. So, like, well, that's sweet that these two coaches are coming. They must be thrilled. I hope so, yeah. But were they like, is it the sort of thing where it's like, we always knew you were going to do good?

Or did they think that you were going to be an athlete? I don't know. I'm not sure what they thought. I think they, you know, what's I think so amazing about folks who really dedicate their lives to working with kids that young. Yeah. Is it's not really about that. You give them the tools to be an athlete. And I was good eventually.

I was good. Eventually I was good. I was, you know, by the time I finished, I even ran a little bit after college. Like I thought maybe I could make the trial, the only big trials and stuff like I was. Oh, really? So you ran in college? I ran all the way through college and I, and then after college for a little bit. And then once I started having to balance like working a job and training, I was like, Oh, this is not sustainable for me. But, um, what about those people that work with kids? It's not about that. It's about giving them the tools to be successful humans.

I think they knew that I would be successful in whatever I tried to do. If that was going to be athletics, cool. I had the tools. It was mostly about, we can get you into college with this. These're all kinds of, you know, these are all poor kids from Oakland, like this whole team. So, you know, it was about really trying to give us as many sort of avenues for success as possible. Thank God for those people. Oh, my God. So, did you go to college on an athletic scholarship?

Ivy League schools don't give any merit-based scholarships. So, no, but I was recruited by the track team. Which college? It was Brown University. Oh, Rhode Island? Where is it? Yeah, Providence. Yeah, like that's an arty school. It's an arty school.

It's an arty school. Who were some of the famous celebrity children that you went to Brown with? That's so real. Lucy DeVito. Shout out to Lucy DeVito, who's actually an incredible actor. Oh, there you go. Ella Windsor of the Windsor family. Oh, wow.

The British Windsors? Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's big. Yeah, we lived down the hall from each other. But it is an artsy school. But, you know, I'm coming there from berkeley high school so it felt incredibly uh like right wing to me you know what i'm saying like old old timey yeah yeah it's like oh so conservative yeah but no that's out of the ivy leagues that's the groovy one yeah yeah that's what they tell me but uh so what did

you just lock in? Was it uncomfortable for a couple of years? I mean, did you? It was uncomfortable the whole time. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think as as ready as I always I knew I was going to go to college. Right. Yeah.

I was sort of in the car. I didn't know I would end up out there. But it was culturally uncomfortable. Even just even when you remove the money from the situation. It was just West Coast, East Coast thing. Biorhythmically, I was so different from everybody else. Who was throwing the bill? Well, the secret that they don't really tell you about Ivy League schools is it ended up being cheaper for me to go there than to go to a state school really yeah they they're need blind so they

they admit you and then they look at your parents finances and that my mom had just declared bankruptcy at that time i think so like we had no nothing yeah and so they made it you know i came out of there need blind yeah yeah so they they admit you without looking at your finances and then they come back to you with a financial package they do a sliding scale at ivy weeks yeah yeah yeah and so um and so my i came out of there with like twenty thousand dollars worth of loans like nothing you know what i'm saying for oh wow for that and and pay him off yeah yeah actually my dad did that oh Oh, he did? He was like,

I want to do this for you and he took on the loan payments and yeah, my parents are the shit. But yeah, and it ended up being less of a burden on my parents than if I had gone to UCLA

or UC Berkeley or any of those places I was also applying. So it was, my parents did it. My parents foot, um, so it was my parents, my parents did it. My parents foot the bill, but it was, it was manageable. It wasn't easy. And there was obviously my brother was still. Yeah. I had no idea. What's your brother end up? What'd he end up doing? He's a software engineer. My brother figured it out, man. He, he, um, he,

he just bounced. He had, he, he, he was very different from me growing up like a lot sort of angrier than i was but after sort of getting beyond that in his in his mid-20s um taught him you know he he ended up getting a degree from ucla after after doing community college and stuff and um uh in political science and then came out of that and was like, this is useless and I'm going to teach myself how to code and just taught himself how to code out of books. And he's a genius. Him and my mom are both brilliant like that.

That's great. He's doing good. He became a software engineer. He got this great job working for a company in New York. This is while I was out there doing Hamilton, actually. He moved to New York and this is while I was out there doing Hamilton actually he like moved to New York and was there and then he he he worked there for a year and he was up for review they just knew he was gonna ask for a whole bunch more money he came and was like you can pay me exactly what you pay me right now I just never want to have to come in here and they were like okay and he left

and he's been living all over the damn world for the last like year and a half just bouncing from country to country waking up coding in the morning, doing whatever they need, and just traveling the world. That's the way to do it. Unbelievable. I haven't seen him in a year and a half, but every time. I think he's living in Paris at the moment. Oh, wow. Come on, bro.

Yeah, man. That's great. He figured it out. He figured it out. So in high school, you did a little bit of theater, but a lot of athletics. And then at Brown, you decided, did you, do they not declare a major for the first year? Did you just kind of like feel it out? I just looked around and it finished the theater major.

Well, concentration, what they call it at Brown. They don't trust us to major in anything. And did you find anything, like, did you lock in with a teacher? Did you, like, I mean, or the coach? Or, like, what was going on there that grabbed your focus? Because, I mean, you know, you're great on stage, and you can do a lot of different things up there. So, like, what did you learn at Brown?

Yeah, well, I think, I mean, a lot of things. The theater program there is actually interesting. It's good because every teacher sort of champions a different theory. Oh, yeah. And all theory is garbage. But like you learn a bunch of different ways of doing. Looking at things. Of looking at things and then.

And then you make your own craft. Yeah, exactly. But I really, I did a lot of shows there with with um a theater called rights and reason theater that's uh also it's within the africana studies department there it's one of the oldest black theaters in the country at brown at brown uh-huh um and it's yeah and so elmo terry morgan who's the artistic director there sort of i wandered in off the street into an audition and he cast me in a thing when i was you know this is a month after being there oh really and uh and so that sort of became my home there in a lot of ways and they let me you know my senior year i wrote this i wrote this like rap musical based on gene tumors cane that they produced for me there gave me like rehearsal

space with a band and all this you know college, kind of just full of resources that are wasted on 19 year olds. Right. I didn't understand how rare this shit was that they were giving me. And it would be years and years again before anybody would give me those kinds of opportunities. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Right. Sure.

But at the time, like as one of the oldest black theater companies, I mean, what was the type of shows you were doing? What was the sort of manifesto of the company? I mean, it's all, so they work, they do this thing called research to performance method. So a lot of the shows that go up there are sort of graduate student thesis project. They do some area of research and create a piece of theater out of that. Oh, that's interesting. So there was a lot of that kind of stuff going on there. But then they also bring in guest artists to develop work there.

So I got to work with Ensozaki Shange doing an adaptation of Lillian that she was adapting for the stage that just, you know, to get to work with an artist like that. I don't know her. She wrote for Color Girls. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know. Mind-blowing? Mind-blowing.

Yeah. Just to get to spend time around that. And some of the directors that they had working with them, this one, Marsha Z. West, who passed away a few years ago, but who I got to work with quite a bit there. Just incredible artists who it's weird that this thing is like sort of hidden away at Brown University and in Providence,

but it's kind of, I don't know, the experiences I got through that were amazing. Does it have an audience when you do shows? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, folks come. I mean, that is a good thing about colleges too is there's kind of a built-in audience for things, right? Right, right.

And there's also, and I, you know, Oscar Eustace, who's the, he's the artistic director of the public theater now but at that time he was teaching at brown and i took his modern american drama class there that also sort of changed my life because i didn't i didn't care about any sort of like standard plays that wasn't my thing um but he taught them in a way that all of a sudden i was like oh shit's interesting everything about him was it was um about historical context why was this what does it mean that this play is written oh so you were able to put it into perspective yeah and so all of a sudden i started thinking about things differently he also like helped

you know he was tony kushner's dramaturg for Angels in America. Like, you know, the Oscars, the real deal. And then we reconnected years later at the public. Actually, one of my mentors, an incredible artist named Mark Bamutsi Joseph, had put me in a show of his called Word Becomes Flesh. It was touring around and it did a little stint at the public. I reconnected with Oscar then. And then, of course, Hamilton ended up being developed there, too. Wow. So it was crazy to sort of come back around and be, you know, working with this guy who was this sort of pivotal professor for me. Well, it's interesting to me that, like, there is, like, this very, you know, an intense sort of community of brilliant people in black theater. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. And that you were sort of involved with that. And it operates in a world like, well, not that I know much about theater in general, but, you know, I don't know all the names that you said. And I'm sure you're mentioning here and some people are like, of course. Or not. I mean, that's the funny thing. Well, that's the thing about theater in general, right?

If we're not talking about Hamilton, like nobody knows shit about any of it. So I mean, I had to learn, you know, like, you you know like you know you gotta go i mean it's a life you gotta go but it's like anything right i mean that we all sort of even even hollywood right like it's actually kind of a niche thing like who i mean those movies have have this kind of output that that allow like a lot of people see see them. Sure. In reality, it's a relatively small community. And stand-up, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, it's bigger than it used to be because of the number of outlets

that are available to put content out or perform in. So it's not as intimate as it was, but there are communities within the communities now is sort of what happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when you say communities now is sort of what happened. Yeah. But like when you say somebody was your mentor, what was the name of that person? Mark Bamutsi Joseph, who is, he founded this organization called Youth Speaks that Rafael and I both came up through when we were kids in high school that teaches like spoken word to-

The guy you wrote with? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That teaches spoken word to- To high school age kids, teenagers. And so that was really what got me started writing was through this kind of spoken word community. So you were doing spoken word poetry and rap? Yeah, yeah.

I started rapping and writing stuff like that around when I was 14 or something. But clipping came along many years later, even though one of the band members, William Hudson, who I think was standing next to you when we were watching Mudhoney at that, because he remembers that very well at Sub Pop 25. But him and I, he's been one of my best friends since we were in third grade. We met in third grade. Now we're in this band together, which is a trip. But yeah in third grade. Oh, man. Now we're in this band together. Yeah. Which is a trip. Yeah. Yeah, this weirdo rap music band.

But was that the original dream? Yeah, I mean, look. They just grow alongside of each other. Yeah. I've always been doing all of those things. But for me, when I started rapping, I'm better at that than I am at writing anything else. So I've been doing that for a long time, and that's sort of the... And it's integrated into the film.

Yeah, and that kind of language, heightened language, was one of the reasons we wrote the film. So you're doing the theater at Brown, then like what gets you to New York I mean I mean it sounds like some of the stuff you were working on was you know working with uh big directors who were working through stuff experimental stuff yeah doing all kinds of stuff I I didn't move to New York until right before Hamilton I that's not really true I tried you stayed in Providence no no I came back home to okay but after yeah right after college I moved back home but there was one there was like a nine month period I tried to move to New York and I was just you know sleeping on friends couches and then riding the subway all night and you know right but you thing but then um but so you go back and you hang out with Raphael and you hang around with the band guys

and we're you know is Raphael in uh clipping no no, no. This is sort of pre-clipping. We have a project called The Get Back way back then. You and Raphael. Yeah, yeah. So we start making rap songs together and sort of become collaborators in all things. But are you recording them? Are you like on the street handing out CDs for $3? No, no, no.

We're recording. This is like sort of early. Our first sort of mixtape our first pride our first sort of mixtape we put out is still kind of pre i don't think band camp existed or anything at that time so we're you know it was like a a digital download you had to have the link for so we just sent it to friends or there's nowhere to host that shit yeah yeah um so there are a few projects that are like floating around the internet from those early days. Uh, and, um, and we would like, we, you know, we did everything ourselves. We shot music videos ourselves.

We, and we would play concerts, you know, we could in the Bay, we could, we could play pretty consistently for 500 people, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Did you know boots up there? I, you know, what's, I, I grew up loving the coup and, and,, and I went to tons of coup concerts and a whole bunch of parties that Pam, the functuous, rest in peace, DJed. They're DJ. But Boots, I actually one time sat in, and Boots used to teach these poetry workshops at La Pena at a sort of famous cultural center in Berkeley.

And I one time sort of sat in the back and didn't say anything. I was way too shy and nervous. But like Wally was teaching one of these workshops. When you were in high school? Yeah. And yeah, so it was crazy to be at Sundance together and to get to sort of tell him that story when we both have movies premiering at Sundance, you know. Oh, that's nice.

It was a trip. But it's so weird the more you talk about like the things that you did as you were growing up. There was a real tight functioning community. Yeah, it is. It's wild. It is, yeah. Because so much of the movie is sort of about what happens to that.

Yeah. Okay, so you come back, you hang out, and then what gets you to New York? Raphael and I moved to Los Angeles, actually, in 2012. But before that, when I was still in the Bay, I was substitute teaching. That was one of my things. And through what subjects? Anything? Whatever.

Yeah, sub, you just say whatever. And then I was also developing sort of rap curriculum for like middle school kids i got what does that mean i uh i got this grant this place called the marsh youth theater wrote like got grants to sort of pay me to go into san francisco and oakland middle schools yeah and i would work with their english and and social studies teachers and sort of figure out what they were teaching and then come in once a week or every other week and just do sort of rap workshops with the kids, but that were sort of focused on the kinds of books they were reading. Oh, wow. The kinds of periods of history. So I'd bring in poets that had something to do with them.

We'd sort of study those. Then I'd get them to write and perform their own shit. So you were like, by some strange mystical coincidence, you were the only guy that could have done Thomas Jefferson in Hamilton. Here's the crazy shit. So the reason that happened is I'm substitute teaching, and due to a clerical error, I am called to substitute teach the same class with another sub, which is not supposed to happen. This was like some clerical accident. This is in LA? This is in the Bay.

This is in Marin City, actually. And we sort of team teach this class. And as part, you know, I think these were fourth graders or something. When you're doing a fourth, you just come up with anything to keep them entertained for 10 minutes. So we're like, we start freestyling with them at some point. We both had this weird skill set for a substitute teacher to have and i ended up giving him a ride home he's like we're talking we were like he's another he's an actor in the bear his name is

anthony veneziali and i'm giving him a ride home to san francisco we're talking he says oh you gotta i'm i'm part of this group freestyle love supreme with this cat lin-manuel miranda and all this stuff you got to meet all these people. They're in New York, but we'll introduce you at some point. And then he ended up starting this group that was sort of a sister group to Freestyle Love Supreme called The Freeze out on the West Coast. And then Tommy Kail and Lin would sort of call me in, because this is while In the Heights is going on on Broadway. The Heights had transferred. This is while In the Heights is going on on Broadway.

Right. In the Heights had transferred. Now, Freestyle Love was doing monthly shows at the time, but a lot of their members were working on Broadway, so they needed to bring in new people. So, when they couldn't fill shows, they would fly me over from California and have me do these freestyle shows with them. So, that's how I met Lynn, was due to this cleric working with a friend of his. So, freestyle shows. So, there's a freestyle community.

What is a freestyle show for me, the guy? So Freestyle Love Supreme is this thing, is sort of like, it's an improv show, but everything's in verse, right? So a lot of games, structured games that are based on audience suggestion and storytelling, but everything,

there's either a beatbox or on the West Coast, we did it with a full band. And you sort of play these games that are just like improv games and you try to tell story but always got it first um so you're doing these in new york when they need to fill doing those in new york and that's how i meet lynn and tommy who are the the you know and all the all the squad who ended up creating hamilton uh and and. And so that's really what brought me out to New York. I was still, I was living in LA. I had moved to LA and they- To be an actor. Yeah, to be an actor and then realized that that was not going to work out. So I was just a

musician. That's when we started clipping. Oh, okay. So it got grim down here and you're like, we got to do something. Ooh, yeah. Didn't have a way in. I didn't have a way in. I landed a commercial agent and did one like McDonald's commercial one time. It's just sort of like the pinnacle of my career. The heartbreak begins. Yeah. But I was also, you know, I was never the type to sort of wait around for things. Right. And there's so much waiting in this town. So I was like, all right, this isn't the thing. Yeah, because you're busy. You do stuff. putting those hours in, right? Yeah, yeah, for sure. So you were there at the beginning of him creating Hamilton. Yeah, pretty early on. I mean, he had done sort of a performance of a couple songs at Lincoln Center

before they approached me. And then we were all doing a show in New Orleans on ESPN, rapping about, like, freestyling about sports celebrities for the Super Bowl when it was in New Orleans. They would, like, they would invite oh yeah you know the anchors jerry rice up and then we do a weird so like rap to this is your life about jerry rice right and tommy approaches me says hey lynn's written this new musical this is like a rap musical about alexander hamilton i was like

it's a terrible idea he's like yeah do you want want to come do a reading of it? Say, are you going to pay me? He was like, yes, that's great. And so I went up to Vassar, and Lynn had just written sort of Jefferson's first song. And the second act, he had written these cabinet battles, and he had this new fast rap for Lafayette. He needed a rap ringer, basically, because he had five days to get this thing on. You played Jefferson and Lafayette, right? Yeah. Yeah.

And they had a very short time and some fairly complicated raps, and they knew I could do that. Right. So they brought me up to do that, and I just went up to them afterwards, and I was like, this is way better than I thought it was going to be, and whatever you need, man, just call me. I don't know what it is, but I have a really good time doing it. And I didn't, you know. And then when they went off, and they kept calling me, And I was sort of like, they had so many Broadway friends. I knew that if it, I sort of just knew if it got to Broadway,

they would replace me at some point. But they didn't. They kept calling me. He's a loyal guy. He's a loyal guy. And they're friends. You know, I mean, that's. And you're good.

That's the other thing. You just, you work with your friends, man. Like, we had known each other for 10 years at that point. You and Lynn? Yeah. And just, I was in Hamilton, which was a totally life-changing career-changing event for me because my friend asked me to come to a reading of his play you know i tell that shit to kids all the time who are like trying to figure out like logic their way into this business and it's like that's not it do the thing you love with the people you love that's true man you know it's like it's weird because you know everyone's looking for

that lucky break but a lot of times it's you know you put your work in and you know a guy or or you know someone knows of you because of the work you put in and and and they're like try this yeah here you go here's your life exactly yeah here's your life so like i i mean could you like i did any of you have any idea you know going into hamilton when when did you feel it starting to become a thing it must have been just been like holy shit yeah i didn't really until we were like open on broadway even i you know doing a making a play is is difficult work and it's and it's so you're so focused on it especially it's something that's in development you know so your lines are being changed every day you're sort of in there just trying to trying to figure out how to tell this story with a bits this incredibly collaborative yeah it's great

you know thanks so you we were so protected from all of the noise of it i imagine like the producers smelled money but like we weren't uh we were really protected from all that so yeah it was just grinding and working really until we were sort of comfort for me until we were sort of comfort comfortably running on broad. I'm sort of looking around and like, you know, the Obamas are back. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like when you meet the Obamas for the second time at your show, it's like, oh, maybe this is a thing. Right.

Yeah. And just like they just packed houses and everybody's crazy for it. It's a crazy thing, particularly if you've grown up doing theater. This is how plays work. You work really hard. The work is always the same. You work really hard. You produce something with a group of people that you're incredibly proud of.

And nobody cares. And then you repeat. And then very few people get the rare opportunity to produce something with people they like to work with, and it changes the culture. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, it was this total crazy moment where all of a sudden people are looking at a play in this, what you're saying, and like to have a Broadway soundtrack that's being quintuple platinum or whatever it is at this point. Sure, kids are singing it. Kids are singing it. I did this, I did this.

And you're on the soundtrack. It's all the original cast. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's great. I did this We Day event a couple years ago. This is like an anti-bullying sort of organization. They do these great things where they sort of have schools commit to doing these anti-bullying campaigns,

and then they invite a bunch of kids to big sort of events where a bunch of celebrities come out and speak to them and perform and stuff like that so they asked me to do one in in los angeles and they had this this thing set up i can't even remember who i was justin baldoni i think i was there with from jane the virgin oh yeah like i can't remember who else was on it, but they had this thing set up where the lights are off and we're all telling stories about times when we felt out of place or whatever, you know? And then the lights come on and everybody's like, oh, it's whoever, and all of the kids are supposed to scream, you know?

But when it got to me, as soon as I opened my mouth, all the kids started screaming because more people know my voice than know what I look like. Wow. So, like, they recognized my voice immediately and were just, I was like, oh, this is not the right. That's crazy. How old are these kids?

These are all, like, middle school age, I think. They love the show. They love the show, which I don't think any of us were gunning for when we were making the show. That's so sweet. It's amazing. So, now, like, how many years did you do it? About two.

Yeah, like if you count downtown. I mean, and many more before that in development, but that was sporadic coming in for a while. But on Broadway, two years? A year and a little bit on Broadway and roughly seven or eight months downtown. Uh-huh. It's funny.

When I go, I've seen almost every cast do it sure since me and like it's it's not a thing i recognize as a thing i did it's just a good show right well that's the interesting thing about the you know the the i think the the kind of foundational point of the show is that you know anybody can play you know that the the diversity of right of making these characters accessible right is is sort of the the beauty of it in a lot of ways. Yeah, yeah. So now you and, throughout the years, you and Raphael, how do you say his last name?

Casal, yeah. You kind of are playing with this story that becomes Blindspotting? Yeah, yeah, we're grinding away at this and working on a bunch of other things and making music and and doing like web series and doing you know all all kinds of just stuff that that you that you how many albums does uh clipping have out clipping has four four out yeah and an ep and we're working

on our another one but you know what's's interesting about these times is Clipping could play, you know, a 400-cap venue anywhere in the world, which is crazy. Like, we've toured all over the world with this project. Oh, yeah, that's great. International audience. Even if it's 400, you can go. It makes it worthwhile to go. Yeah. That's incredible.

So it was really through that, through touring. I had never got to travel outside of the U.S. before either until I started doing that with clipping. So, yeah, the track team got you around the U.S., right? Yeah, exactly. Internationally, I had to rap for that. Was giving up track a difficult thing? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I miss it.

I still miss it every day. Because, like you said, you ran a bit after. You did it after college. Yeah, I tried and just couldn't. I couldn't keep as regimented a schedule as i would need to when i also had to work and when i was you know so and eating right you know oh yeah like it's a whole thing so there was sort of a heartbreak of letting that go oh yeah and i still you know i mean being an athlete who's even anywhere near an elite athlete right

it's like having a superpower right you just feel different than other people you know you i like everyone's like going to the gym to lose weight and i like you know what i'm saying like i feel like i'm going to the gym to to work on my fucking superpower like yeah and now i go to the gym because i'm vain like you know like i go to the gym so yeah because i look in the mirror and i'm like you're gross yeah just go do something yeah yeah and do you like uh but so but you're at peace with it now obviously i'm working the windows the windows closed like i wouldn't i probably couldn't do it anymore anyway but still it never leaves you man i still sort of every time i drive past a track you know oh really i should should get out there. Where are my spikes at? Yeah, yeah. Pull over.

I got it. So, okay, so you're doing all this other stuff, but the story evolves. When did you first outline Blindspotting? This is like well before any of this. This is 2009. So you had the crux of the story. Yeah, so we've been working with the same producers the whole time, Jesse and Keith Calder, 2009. So you had the crux of the story. Yeah.

So we've been working with the same producers the whole time, Jesse and Keith Calder, who approached Raphael actually going through like a poetry wormhole, YouTube poetry wormhole. He's a poet guy? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. He's good. He's good with the- He's good with the words there. Yeah, yeah.

And yeah, so they found him and sort of approached him about, would you like to do a movie that uses verse in this sort of way? They had just done a film called The Whackness. So them to us. So it was a concept film was sort of what they were interested in. Kind of. They were like, well, we don't know what this is, but the way that you work is interesting. And eventually they introduced, Rafa introduced them to me.

Actually, another Obama connection. At Obama's first inauguration, they were showing a screening of a film they had done there and needed someone to do a performance. And Rafa couldn't make it, so I went. Anyway, they said, oh, the four of us should work on this. So we decided, great, we're going to work on this. It's a piece that uses heightened language in some way. We'll figure that out. It's going to be about Oakland because we want to tell that story.

And it's going to star the two of us because no one else is going to do that. So those were the constraints. And then right around that time, Oscar Grant is murdered at Fruitvale Bar Station, which for Oakland was a huge thing. The whole city. And it was a different point in the way we discussed these police shootings. It was sort of early on in those types of things being reported. And so I think there was this fantasy that if we yelled loud enough and if we protested enough, they would change,

because at least they were being publicized. Ultimately, that's not what happened, but we were out there, you know, and Oscar's face was everywhere on T-shirts and, you know, and everybody knew his name and the news is covering it all the time. There's riots, you know, I mean, it got ugly. deciding to tell a story about Oakland, this is inherently part of the story. So we had our sort of instigating incident, which is, you know, one of a police shooting like this one is going to happen. The biggest change in the script between then and now is, is actually about how the community responds to that, right? Because at that time it was, it was so present and Oscar in particular was so present. And now I think we culturally, all of us have reached kind of a fatigue with that where you sort of watch the news, you see one of these things, and then they start talking about the victim. And if they have a criminal record, that's it. Right.

Right. We can't get out of bed for that person. Like, I can't take the heartbreak of if it's not a perfect victim, that's not worth a protest. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's not. not a perfect victim that's not worth a protest right you know yeah yeah we can't that's not so you know we get we're at this point now where it feels like there's just a sort of pile of

incidents and bodies and and names that we can't even you know where was tamir and was he strangled or what city was that you know like yeah um so you just got a bunch of black bodies and a bunch of names and a bunch of horrific atrocities committed by law enforcement. And we don't know what to do with that. And so in the film, Colin, my character, is the only person who can be really affected by it because he happens to witness it. He's right there. But none of the rest of his community is particularly affected by it.

So we get to watch Colin's PTSD. It just becomes another news story that passes by and you and your character is haunted by it. And then but what I you know, as you know, the instigating piece, it was always there. But I mean, what I found also was going aside from you wrestling with the trauma and your conscience about what you should do and in light of that and your own probation, which we don't find out why you're on probation until well into the movie, which I thought was great. Because the weird thing is you kind of accept it, just sort of like, what do you do?

But it doesn't bother you. Well, you're in love with Colin at that point, hopefully. That's why we saved it to that line. I don't want to give you enough empathy for this guy to write like well you fucked up so there's other things going on these there are these levels of you handling probation of you handling you know relationship that went bad because of what you did and then this friendship with this a white guy you know who you know is is somebody grew up with and, and then the sort of loyalty to each other and also to the town, to Oakland.

There's a lot of stories that you kind of string through this thing successfully. That's good to hear, yeah. Because I don't think it's easy. of like how a white guy who grows up in the neighborhood overcompensates in in ways by acting more sort of stereotypically gangster or black than then yeah well i think for him for him it's certainly not about blackness but it's about you got to imagine right for for miles who's likely the only maybe the only if not certainly one of the only white kids in the neighborhood he grew up in, that kid has to prove themselves every day. Right.

Right? So, like, and that's just sort of, I think, real, like, man shit, right? Like, that person's going out flexing all the time. And it's always going to be the hardest one. It's always going to be the first one to jump into some shit because you know his stripes are always being tested

well yeah there's an intensity to those white dudes yeah yeah was he that guy who Raphael

yeah no but that's there I mean Raphael was Raphael did grow up you know with mostly black and mostly black and brown communities like that's that's true to Raphael did grow up in mostly black and brown communities. That's true to Raphael.

And I think both of us discovered art early on. And that gives you a way to sort of intellectualize things differently. But he certainly has those tendencies. And he was certainly getting into trouble differently as a youngster than than i was you know like i was a easy kid but um yeah i think having there's when you're when you're in cities like oakland right now you know there is there's a tension in the air there like you can feel it and here too you know walk around downtown like well i felt it like like when i moved the street to Highland Park, which was a Latino neighborhood, I had no intent of anything.

I never bought a house before. I was out there by coincidence, and I found a little house. So over time, I lived there for like 14, 15 years. Is that right? Yeah, something like that. 13, 14 years. And it gentrified. And I felt... I didn't feel something like that. Yeah. 13, 14 years. And it gentrified. Yeah.

And, you know, and I felt, I didn't feel great about it. Yeah. Because it was sort of like, you know, people were hanging it on me. Right, right, right. Because I was working from my garage. I was saying Highland Park. And now it's sort of like really in it. Yeah.

And you feel that tension. Yeah. And there was part of me that's sort of like, I didn't want this. I didn't know that it would happen. I didn't believe it would happen. I didn't need it to happen. And now I'm uncomfortable. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I mean, look, I've been a gentrifier every place I've gone since I left Oakland, right? I mean, that's just the nature of it. When I lived in New York, I moved to Washington Heights. And that's a neighborhood. And I didn't know. Same thing. Like, I could afford, on my off-Broadway contract, I could afford a place there.

So like, that's where I moved. And I was like, oh great, it's dope up here. Yeah. You know, and it turns out,

yeah, it is dope up here and like everybody's trying to move there now and that's, and so, it's, genderification is such

a complicated issue. Yeah, but yeah, I like that you were able to really sort of, because of the Bay Area, the nature of it, that there is a type of person with a lot of money issue yeah but yeah i like that you were able to really sort of because of the bay areas the nature of it that there is a type of person with a lot of money who is young and white and in the

tech industry yeah and it's very like you know there's your guy yeah yeah yeah yeah like we we know what that is and then to have to have miles's character be have that being put on him much like that's put on you in highland park right right? Like, for someone to be like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah. Of course he's gonna double down. Sure, sure. But he really grew up there.

I was just a guy who happened to move there. Right, right. You know, but it didn't feel good. Right, but, and also those people, you know, the way that guy, the way you guys wrote him

to sort of like glibly appropriating, you know, that tattoo business, which I wrote Rowan, was great. guys wrote him to just sort of like glibly appropriating yeah you know like that to the tattoo business which i ruined was great yeah and same with the oak tree thing i mean that yo so here's some crazy shit about that oak tree thing so we have this this bit in the in the film where where there's i'll just ruin this one where there's a there's a tree stump in the that's being used as a coffee table in this in this guy's house this new Pandora exec's house that is made out of a cut down oak tree.

And he knows a ton of history about the oak tree. He knows how many rings are on it and shit. From Oakland. Yeah, yeah. It's an original Oakland oak tree stump. Um, and, uh, but when that house that we were shooting in, we go in there to, for the first day and we're in there lighting it and shit outside the fucking window. The house is sort of in this U shape around, around a little tiny like courtyard and outside of the window looking into the courtyard is a, an Oak tree that they had killed, that they had cut to build this house around. And we were like, holy shit, like, you can't write that shit. And we couldn't light it. We didn't have time to light it.

We would have used that. Yeah. It was so much more, like, violent and devastating than the table that we brought in. You know? Yeah, yeah. I was like, oh, fuck, man. Like, just real shit. That was like, it was life-imitating art. You know?

In the worst way. And, like, you know, the whole, there's a thing about Oakland that we say where the only oak trees left are on the street signs, right? Like that's it. It is the symbol of Oakland, but there aren't oak trees in Oakland anymore. Are there not really? There aren't any really? There are very, very few. Like, you know, that one that you can't see.

But the history in the movie is real that it used to be they lined the streets. Yeah. I mean, that's why it was called Oakland. That's why it's the trees on the sign because it used to be full of oak trees wow it was great i really i found the the film like yeah compelling and surprising and and uh you know informative it was good it was all good thank you very much and i'm glad you came by and i'm happy to meet you yeah i'm a fan it's great i i am a fan as well. So it's, yeah, we're, Clipping,

you know, when you tour through this country, you spend a lot of time in the car and we always drive ourselves over like a bus or anything. Yeah. So we listen to stand up the whole time. Oh, good.

Like you're one of our favorites. Oh. For sure, for sure. Well, that's nice. And this show. Oh, good. We listen to this show all the time. Well, now I'm going to go listen to Clipping

because that's the one zone of your thing that I didn't quite get to. Check it out, man. It's weird rap shit. All right, man. Good talking to you. You too. Well, that was good. I like talking to that guy.

Great guy. Again, his movie Blindspotting, which he stars in and co-wrote, opens in select cities tomorrow, July 20th. Also, there are new dates. You can go to new dates. I don't know if, did he put them up? Jesus, I don't know if they're up on my site yet. Are they? Would they be?

Hold on, I'm going to look. Yes, they are. They're all up there. I'll be at the Ice house tonight uh tomorrow night and Saturday I'll be at wise guys in Utah August 3rd and August 4th I'll be at the comedy addict addict I'll be at the comedy attic attic in uh in August the 30th 31 31st, September 1st, and September 1st. Twice. So I'll be there the 30th, 31st, and the 1st of September.

August and September there. I'll be at Acme in Minneapolis September 6th, 7th, and 8th. And I'll be at the Comedy Works in Denver September 21 and 22. And I think I got a Largo day coming up, but I don't think I've got that on the... I don't know if I've booked that out yet. Whatever. I got some bigger shows coming

up that I'm just getting ready for, but these are going to be great club shows, so come out. I don't think I'm going to play guitar today, because my dad's in my house, and I should go deal with him. Boomer lives! Calgary is an opportunity-rich city home to innovators, dreamers, disruptors, and problem solvers. The city's visionaries are turning heads around the globe across all sectors each and

every day. They embody Calgary's DNA. A city that's innovative, inclusive, and creative. And they're helping put Calgary and our innovation ecosystem on the map as a place where people come to solve some of the world's greatest challenges. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look out at calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th

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