What Now? with Trevor Noah | Michael Che: The Unspoken Rules of Comedy

SNL writer and Weekend Update anchor Michael Che joins Trevor and Eugene in this episode preview. Watch What Now? with Trevor Noah on Youtube or tune-in anywhere you listen to podcasts.

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• 2:01Speaker 00

  Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner. The bonus episode you are about to hear is an excerpt from a recent episode of What Now with Trevor Noah, where Noah and his co-host Eugene Coza speak with Saturday Night Live comedian Michael Che. It is a meditation on money and fame and what it means to be a famous black performer in America today. The first voice you will hear in this excerpt is Michael Che. As always, thanks for listening.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  I look at it sort of in the middle of that because I do think those two things are connected. I think like, first of all, I do deeply in my heart believe that black people are naturally socialist people because we're just community people. And our stake in the community, our standing in the community is kind of more important than anything. But I do think where money comes in is, I think it costs a lot of money to feel free for black people in this country.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  Hmm, everywhere, I think.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I could only speak for myself, though. Like, I realize, I'm like, a lot of money, like, I probably, hopefully, won't spend the money that I've made in my lifetime. Because I don't even want the stuff, you know, I don't even really want, like, how many cars do you want? How big of a house do you need? Like, it don't really cost a lot of money to be me. I wear a lot of hoodies and sneakers from the 90s. You know what I'm saying? Like, they ain't that expensive.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  I do think, though, there's an amount of money where I feel like they won't treat me like they did.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  Damn.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? And or I can go wherever I want, dressed how I want, and they'll say, oh, that's Michael Che, you can't get in here with, oh, no, I know, you come in, come on in. Like, the freedom of just being able to live wherever I want, or to eat wherever I want, or to wear what I want, or to not need permission, that's like what I need money for.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  Can I challenge you on one part of it? Not to dismiss it?

• 4:23Speaker 01

  No, please.

• 4:24Speaker 02

  I think you're making a mistake of conflating the money with the familiarity of fame. I would argue that you would have exactly all of these same things with fame. Because what fame does is, fame bridges the gap of ignorance.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:42Speaker 02

  What fame does is, it allows somebody to see you apart from the collective, as you said in the beginning of our conversation, the numbers. So now with fame, you're not one of those black kids on the corner, you're not some sketchy guy with a hoodie, you're not, it's like, yeah, there was this guy, oh, my God, it's Michael Che. You see that thing? Like, you go from being a blur in a lineup to being a face.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  Does that make sense?

• 5:07Speaker 01

  I think that absolutely makes sense.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  The money thing, no, the reason I say is because like, I think sometimes we conflate the money with the access, or with the preference, or with that. But it's like, no, to me, it's like, oh, I've seen black people with money who sort of don't like have that still.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  But I think a lot of times, that's why black people wear their money.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  Oh, definitely.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  I think that's when you see like a black guy that's not famous, he's got on 40 necklaces.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. No, 100%.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  I think, I think it's sort of a

• 5:40Speaker 02

  A signaling of your promise.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  A signaling of, I'm, you don't have to use the baton, officer. You know what I mean? It's that kind of thing. Like, I make a lot of money, I'm okay. It's sort of this, it's sort of this signaling, like you said.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  No, no, I completely agree with that.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  I think, I think there's something to that, it's all, and, you know, again, I wish we lived in a world where everybody could just kind of experience that sort of freedom, it's not just because you have money.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Or not just because you're famous. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to a restaurant, or a club, or a bar, or whatever, and, you know, they're like, no. And then someone runs down and says, we are so sorry, we didn't know.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, we didn't know we were.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that, I wouldn't feel comfortable there just be, you know, you want me there just because it's me. What about everybody else that looks like me? Now I know who's in there, you know what I'm saying? There ain't nobody that look like me, so this probably isn't the place for me. So it's, you know, it's that kind of thing where you, you know, there's this insecurity that nobody wants you here.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  You feel that way.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  I completely, it's funny you're saying that because it actually brings me back to a conversation you and I had. Man, it's amazing how time moves and how, you know, your experiences shape you. Around the same time you were getting on to SNL was around the same time

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Almost exactly, yeah.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  I was getting on The Daily Show was around the same time Michael B. Jordan got Fantastic Four. And it was so funny, I remember like these random conversations. One I had was with, with Michael, and I said to him, I think it was at a Met Gala, one of those, some event, it was not the right place to have this conversation, but I just said to him, I was like, hey, man, how are you dealing with this? I think because selfishly, I wanted to know.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:38Speaker 02

  I was like, how are you, I'm watching everyone say like, the torch can't be a black man, like, how are you dealing with, how are you? And now, when you look at it now, you people be like, Michael B. Jordan, no, no one was saying that. Now he seems obvious, and now he's entrenched.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:51Speaker 02

  Now he's doing, he can do anything he wants.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Literally, one of the few movie stars left in the world, yeah.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  But there was a time, literally, where people were just like, the Human Torch, it was as simple as that. Human Torch is not a black guy. Human Torch, and I remember asking Michael, I said, yo, how do you, how do you feel? How are you dealing with this? And he said something that was really, really powerful. He said, he said, I struggled with it, I doubted, I, he says, and then one day, I just went like, if not me, then who?

• 8:20Speaker 02

  He was like, yeah, if not me, then who? You don't want it to be me, but then, but then who? In all of these situations, if not me, then who? So instead of me constantly going, ah, I don't belong here, it's like, okay, but then if not me, then who? Someone's got to be in that space, someone's got to do stuff, someone's got to, that stuck with me. And then the other one was for us, I mean, it was a similar thing. We both were in a position where we took over a beloved white man's spot.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  Yo. One of the only things that kept me going at The Daily Show was seeing the hate that you were getting.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Glad somebody got some use out of me.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  No, you know why, because like.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  No, I know exactly what you're saying.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  Oh, it's not personal, Trevor.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  Because at first, at first I was like, it's about me. Then I was like, no, it's not about you. Because they said like, oh, his accent, where he's from, he doesn't understand, he's this.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  How could you talk about American politics?

• 9:15Speaker 02

  All of it. They gave me a full list and I believed it. Genuinely believed it. Then I read people's articles, comments, tweets, posts about Michael and then I went, wait, but he's none of.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  Well, he's none of those things. And then they, but then they found more things. They're like, oh, you know, how are you gonna wear Jordans with a suit at the desk? And that's no respect for the, and look at the way he carries and those earrings. You're gonna, does the SNL desk really need swag? And they put the swag in like the quotes, you know, it's like, is swag the right thing for the desk? And then they would always couch it with things. When Eddie Murphy came to SNL, you could argue that at that time, he was a, but is Michael Che really the, and it's just, it was such an interesting. And by the way, just to be clear on this, this wasn't coming from like, quote unquote, like the racists, if I can say it that way. You know, like the cliche racist, the way you always talk about them in America. No.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  It was from like, the like liberal spaces and the think PCs. Yeah. And I remember being like, and I would read these of Michael Che. And I was just like, I, I, I'm sorry to say it, but it really gave me like a bit of peace because I was just like, oh, okay. And I remember even talking to you about it.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  And I'd be like, yo, whenever I'd bump into you in the cell, I'd be like, yo, man, how you doing? How you feeling about this? And we'd commiserate and we'd talk and he'd be like, how you doing? It's funny because you always thought I had a harder job. You're like, man, you're replacing John.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I always, I still stand by it. I remember one time I was like, I, I like confessed how jealous I was of how much time you get on a subject to kind of dive in and do that. And he was like, I love that you just get to do a joke and move the on. Like literally, like you get to kind of do that. That would be so much more fun. It's like a weird thing. Again, you're just like looking at, you know, on the other side of the fence. You're like, wow, that, that looks like the move and.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, but that, but that thing, you don't understand how you being there helped me be there.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  And vice versa.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  Like, like genuinely, genuinely, genuinely. On a Saturday, I'm not working. I'll get to sit and watch Michael Che and I'll be like, just like in my own little world, it would be me and Kiboka. And we just like, we were religiously on Weekend Up there, we'd watch that with you and we were just like, damn. All right, Michael's doing it.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  That's the dope part too, is like, if we're both doing it, then you don't have to do all things and I don't have to do all things. Like sort of more of us doing it, being in our niche, in our corners, we don't have to do everything.

• 12:00Speaker 00

  That again was Michael Che in conversation with Trevor Noah. If you want to hear the rest of this conversation, just search for What Now with Trevor Noah wherever you get your podcasts. We will be back very soon with a new episode of Freakonomics Radio. Until then, take care of yourself and if you can, someone else too.

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