Hoard Memories with Loved Ones with Dave Chappelle

Legendary comedian Dave Chappelle joins Michelle and Craig from WYSO, the public radio station in Dave's hometown, Yellow Springs, Ohio. Dave dishes about growing up with a double life -- one in a small town and one in a city -- what he's learned about himself as a dad, how crucial it is to live in community, and how his mom taught him to not fear being great. Have a question you want answered? Write to us at ⁠imopod.com⁠ http://imopod.com/. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I used to shadow my dad around town. He had this thing he would do, not with everybody, with certain people. "Hey, how you doing?" "I'm good, man." And he would look at me and be like, "Now, how are you doing?" And then they, well, you know, then they'd say what the real thing was. But then it taught me again. Everyone's like a book that I haven't read.

• 0:23Michelle Obama?

  Yes.

• 0:23Speaker 00

  And man, sometimes I can get past the cover and, man, I learned so much from so many unlikely people. So, and then, of course, I take those lessons around the world and make millions and millions of dollars.

• 0:46Michelle Obama?

  This episode is brought to you by Chase Home Lending.

• 0:51Craig Robinson?

  Hey, little girl, how are you doing?

• 0:53Michelle Obama?

  Well, I'm doing just fine. We've got a special episode ahead. We are, we are out of the studio and we are in Ohio in a beautiful town.

• 1:05Craig Robinson?

  Yellow Springs.

• 1:06Michelle Obama?

  I was gonna, you know.

• 1:08Craig Robinson?

  She was setting me up.

• 1:09Michelle Obama?

  Our guest is not supposed to be here. And he's not supposed to be talking, but I think it'll be...

• 1:14Craig Robinson?

  He failed the first test. He's not supposed to be here.

• 1:17Michelle Obama?

  But it's good to see you. I haven't seen you in a couple of weeks.

• 1:20Craig Robinson?

  I know. It feels like months I haven't seen you.

• 1:23Michelle Obama?

  It has been months.

• 1:23Craig Robinson?

  Now that we've been doing this podcast, I get to see my lovely sister at least once a month. But I've been really busy the last couple of months and she's been vacationing in Hawaii.

• 1:34Michelle Obama?

  I haven't been vacationing. That's where I live. You know, see, this is how... I mean, dude, you know, I work almost every day, almost.

• 1:43Craig Robinson?

  Do you?

• 1:44Michelle Obama?

  No, not really.

• 1:47Craig Robinson?

  That's what I thought. But we have a special guest.

• 1:50Michelle Obama?

  We do.

• 1:51Craig Robinson?

  And we should do a proper introduction.

• 1:54Michelle Obama?

  Okay, take it away.

• 1:55Craig Robinson?

  And I know this will sound familiar, but we've got Dave Chappelle, who is, I am such a huge fan of Dave Chappelle. And I'm gonna read him, his bio, but I want to tell you two things about meeting him for the first time. One is, Dave Chappelle is one of those people who makes me laugh just by thinking about him.

• 2:20Craig Robinson?

  I can think somebody, or someone says Dave Chappelle, and I'll start giggling.

• 2:26Craig Robinson?

  And I'm gonna tell, tell, I, I, I mentioned this to Dave in the car, or when we were riding around.

• 2:34Craig Robinson?

  Everybody knows Dave smokes.

• 2:36Michelle Obama?

  No.

• 2:38Craig Robinson?

  I hadn't smelled smoke since our mom passed away. And it was such-

• 2:45Michelle Obama?

  Our mom smoked, by the way.

• 2:46Craig Robinson?

  This sounds weird, but our mom smoked. And being around Dave gave me this warm feeling-

• 2:54Michelle Obama?

  That nicotine love.

• 2:56Craig Robinson?

  Of being around my mom.

• 2:59Michelle Obama?

  Yeah, he told me that this morning. And, and I was like, really? You're really gonna tell that story?

• 3:05Craig Robinson?

  I am, I am, because I think people relate to something like that.

• 3:08Michelle Obama?

  Okay, all right. Well, let's introduce Dave. Come on, dude.

• 3:11Craig Robinson?

  Dave Chappelle is one of the greatest comedians this country has ever produced. Full stop.

• 3:20Craig Robinson?

  Multiple Grammy Awards, the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, the highest honor in comedy. A voice that has shaped culture, challenged power, and made the whole world laugh and think at the same time. This man is a legend. So it is a genuine joy, a personal honor for the both of us, to introduce a man who is not only the most important artist of our generation, but a true neighbor to this community. O-H?

• 3:57Craig Robinson?

  Yeah, y'all thought I didn't know about that, didn't you?

• 4:00Craig Robinson?

  Welcome, Dave Chappelle, Dave.

• 4:02Michelle Obama?

  Oh, Dave Chappelle, wow.

• 4:05Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 4:07Michelle Obama?

  Dave, thank you. Thank you for inviting us here to Yellow Springs, your home. The, the tour, as Craig was saying, we, we got in our cars, there were about eight of them, and we drove around and we, you know, saw all the wonderful sights, had the opportunity to stop by your mom's house. Dr. Seon, thank you. Just a beautiful, beautiful, why was it important? For you to have us here.

• 4:37Speaker 00

  Well, you know, being yourself, being Michelle Obama,

• 4:45Speaker 00

  I'm sure it's not lost on you that this community feels seen by the world if it's seen by you. And unbeknownst to you, maybe you know, this community have an enormous amount of support. You know, Ohio elected your husband twice. And here locally, you know, the message of hope and change resonated profoundly. And I was telling you earlier, and I think you guys would agree, when Obama was running for president, it felt as if he lived in Ohio because the presence of his ground team was so strong.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  And this radio station is our community's lifeblood to us. It's our connective tissue. And we got close to losing them to Dayton, Ohio. And, you know, we were able to work things out and get this building built. And this is the first time I think this room has ever been used in any actual recording capacity. And man, I can't think of a better way to inaugurate any room but with you and your brother here amongst us and our friends and family. And it means the world to us. It means the world to me, but all of us, I can say without a doubt, are elated that you're here.

• 6:03Michelle Obama?

  There was

• 6:09Michelle Obama?

  driving around, I told you, I got this familiar sense. I mean, one of the greatest privileges of my life was not just serving as First Lady of this country, but getting to campaign throughout this country. And what I saw on the campaign trail was, is very reminiscent of what I felt here driving around your community. And it is just a decency and an openness and a willingness to connect with people. And as Luke said, to accept people for who they are. And I always want to translate that to people across the country because in a time when we don't feel like we see each other.

• 6:54Michelle Obama?

  Yeah, I just want to remind people that communities like this one is really the truth of what I saw in America. It was the America I was representing. And I felt that, you know. I mean, it was oozing in every stop that we made. And I think it's important for our listeners to understand that that America has not disappeared. It is here alive and well and thriving throughout this country. So it's just been a thrill for me to be back on soil like this. But you were raised here. This was your community.

• 7:36Speaker 00

  Oh, absolutely.

• 7:37Michelle Obama?

  Or you had your connection to Yellow Springs. Can you talk to us about why this community is so important to you?

• 7:46Speaker 00

  I think my presence, my family's presence in this community is an extension of like my father's life work. He lived here all of my life and a lot of the ethics of community, you know, I learned from him. My mother and he are both from Washington DC, so I would mostly live with my mother. But Christmas time and summertime, I would come out to Yellow Springs and it was so much different in DC. And also kind of prepared me for what my life would be like because I was a kid with two lives. I had friends from out here and I had friends in DC. And, you know, DC is like, you know, it's black.

• 8:30Michelle Obama?

  Very.

• 8:31Speaker 00

  Right. But this town is white and I would come out here and play DC records for them and they'd be like, what is this music? And then I'd go home, play rock and roll stuff in DC and they're like, what is this music? But I felt like before there was an internet, I got a good sampling of culture that way. And that upbringing really did kind of help me become the type of comedian I am. It made me less afraid of people. And this is going to sound weird here, but it made me not afraid of white people. So in comedy, in like, say, the 80s, really the 90s.

• 9:11Speaker 00

  Uh, comedy circuits were segregated.

• 9:13Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  And people don't know that. The black comedians played one set of rooms and white comedians played one set of rooms. And Washington, which was a majority black city, didn't have any black clubs until a few years into my career. Not to say that it was always like that.

• 9:29Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 9:29Speaker 00

  But for just like full-time comedy rooms. Uh, you know, I was, I started out in what they would call white rooms. I can remember one of the owners saying when I started out that he didn't like more than one black comic on the show because he said it, it would offend his audience.

• 9:45Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 9:45Speaker 00

  It's like, dude, it's, it's Washington.

• 9:47Michelle Obama?

  Right, right.

• 9:48Speaker 00

  Right? Uh, but I always played anywhere that anyone would listen. And, and I didn't realize that I was a little older when I would see some comedians hit like an invisible wall. Like they, they would never play Sunset Boulevard or they'd never go play Greenwich Village or certain like, you know, comedy staples that they just considered white rooms. They felt safer on Crenshaw or on this place or that place. They thought they wouldn't be understood. And, and I thought that the challenge of art was no matter where you go, you, you should try to be understood. And, and, and that, I don't know. Something about that upbringing, the duality between O- Ohio and, and Washington,

• 10:32Speaker 00

  I think made me game to become what I became.

• 10:37Michelle Obama?

  What are some of your, your fondest memories? You know, when you think of the time with your, your father, your friendships here. How old were you when, uh, wha- what was your age range when you were spending time here? It was summers, it was holidays.

• 10:53Speaker 00

  Uh, my parents split up when I was two. I don't think they actually got divorced until I was five, but they split up when I was two, so.

• 10:59Michelle Obama?

  What did, what did your mom refer to your dad as? The gentleman?

• 11:02Speaker 00

  The gentleman that I was married to. The gentleman I was married to. We went to my mom's house today and she said, yes, my, um, ex-husband used to live around here. I'm like, damn.

• 11:12Michelle Obama?

  She's like, the, she's like, she said, no, she said, the gentleman I was married to.

• 11:17Speaker 00

  The gentleman I was married to.

• 11:21Michelle Obama?

  It's like, oh, okay. He sounds like your dad.

• 11:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:25Craig Robinson?

  We can see where he gets those chaps from, huh?

• 11:29Speaker 00

  But you know what's funny? Okay, I don't have any memories of them married. Well, I have a couple of memories of them being married. But I have a lot of memories when they were together. And it was always very polite. They never spoke ill of each other. They always found something good to say, you know? And knowing both of you, I hope you don't mind I say this, Ma. I can see exactly why they fell in love. And I can see why it wouldn't work.

• 11:54Michelle Obama?

  Exactly like, time, time, let's call this.

• 11:57Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? And I think one of the funnest or most interesting parts about becoming an adult is learning what the adults in your life were actually like. You know what I mean? And getting past the role of them being a senior. Just people that came before you that were trying to figure things out. So I always joke with my wife Elaine. And I'm like, you know, I don't feel like I'm getting older, but the kids are catching up. You know what I mean?

• 12:31Michelle Obama?

  It's like, when'd you get so old?

• 12:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's just like, but I have incredibly fond memories of living here. Now, when I was younger, I should tell you, this place was different. Because Antioch College was a much stronger force in the town. And your viewers aren't gonna know. Antioch College, if you think of the most radical leftist politics, go left of that. And that's what this town was about. There was a policy that Antioch made years ago that everyone used to make fun of, called Ask Every Step It Away. And this was 30 years before the Me Too movement. That was like, if you were getting ready to, you know, you know.

• 13:13Michelle Obama?

  Yeah. We know, we know.

• 13:16Speaker 00

  You know, and then he would be like, well, may I kiss you? Or may I do this and that and the other? You would ask. And man, the whole country was laughing at that policy. And even I was like, because I'm watching, I was living in New York at the time, watching the news. Like, oh, they're making fun of you, El Springs. And so I came home for Thanksgiving. And I found out that my, my father's widow, uh, wrote the policy.

• 13:38Michelle Obama?

  Wow.

• 13:39Speaker 00

  He was alive at the time. And, and I asked him, like, yo, John, what was that? And, and, and she explained to me the reasons for the policy. And I laugh about it now because it's so much like what Hollywood just went through. All this weird ambiguity. And, and, and it's like, how do you teach, uh, young adults how murky sexual contracts are? Cause if you make them correctly, no one should see you make them. Uh.

• 14:05Speaker 00

  And, and, and they, and, and, and, you know, as, as odd as it sounds, it worked. The problem was that people on the campus were, were, there was like a, an astronomical amount of, of sexual assault, uh, accusations. And she says, like, as an administrator, by the numbers, you have to recognize that can't all of these be true? But you can't dismiss any of them. So we have to teach them what it is. And, and it worked. The, the, the, the, those same numbers plummeted. So Yol Springs, I say that to say, has been on the cutting edge of, of solving certain types of problems that Americans face all the time. This, this is a thinking person's town.

• 14:45Speaker 00

  I love doing all kinds of stuff, but man, and this is gonna sound crazy. I have the most joy thinking. I told my wife years ago, I know you remember, I said, babe, if you ever see me staring off into space, don't bother me, cause, cause I, I'm working.

• 15:05Speaker 00

  If, if you see me writing something down, I've already done the hard part.

• 15:08Michelle Obama?

  I'm gonna try that with Barack.

• 15:14Michelle Obama?

  Don't bother me. I'm working.

• 15:19Speaker 00

  It is like that, I just feel like.

• 15:20Michelle Obama?

  Be like, you can blame Dave for that nigger.

• 15:32Craig Robinson?

  My life, pretty hectic right now. And what was making it all so much harder was how spread out all of my tracking was. I had reminders in my calendar, in my email, in a notes app. Then I found Yahoo Mail, now with Planner. Planner brings your tasks and events together in one place, so everything stays organized and you don't miss what matters. So if I've got a dinner reservation buried in my inbox, or a reminder I flagged for myself, it's all there in one view. Planner also pulls key details from your emails, like appointments, school events, and bill reminders,

• 16:14Craig Robinson?

  and turns them into actionable plans, saving you time and effort. Planner is extremely helpful when life gets busy and you start getting that feeling like you've missed something. And it's honestly saved me from forgetting events more than once. And the best part is, it's already right there in Yahoo Mail. No need to download a whole new app, even with your Gmail connected. So check out Yahoo Mail Planner and see how it works for yourself.

• 16:45Craig Robinson?

  This episode is brought to you by Apple Gift Card, the perfect way to celebrate graduates and empower them for their next adventure.

• 16:54Craig Robinson?

  I've had my two older kids graduate, plus of course, my nieces and nephews, and finding the right gift can be tricky. If your kids are like mine, they'll always have opinions, right? And I've learned the best gifts are the ones where they get to choose. That's why an Apple Gift Card just makes sense. They can use it for everything they love. Maybe some AirPods, on apps, games from the App Store, or subscriptions like Apple TV, Apple Music, even Apple Fitness Plus. Whether they're heading off to college, starting a new job, or just celebrating, they get exactly what they want when they want it. And it couldn't be easier.

• 17:38Craig Robinson?

  You can grab an Apple Gift Card online or at a bunch of retailers. Send it digitally or hand it to them in person. Super simple for you and for them. Visit applegiftcard.apple.com to find the perfect graduation gift today.

• 17:57Craig Robinson?

  This episode of IMO is brought to you by Chase Home Lending. When you're thinking about buying a home, it's a major decision. A mix of excitement, nerves, and a lot of questions. I've been there myself, and I know how important it is to have someone in your corner. You know, I was remembering back, I could have used some support when I was shopping for my first home. I didn't know anything. I had saved up enough for a down payment, but I didn't have much else to work with. I knew very little about interest rates, closing costs, or even mortgage insurance. I also had very limited knowledge of how to choose the right home for me.

• 18:39Craig Robinson?

  Chase Home Lending offers personalized local guidance from home lending advisors who truly understand and support you and your community. With over 5,000 branches nationwide, Chase is always close by. And as a coach, I've had to lean on many people for advice, and that really made a difference as I was going through the home shopping experience. It was comforting knowing that I could rely on folks who had been through the process and emerged okay. Finding a place to call home is a big step, and having someone you trust to guide you can make all the difference. With Chase Home Lending, you get support that feels personal,

• 19:24Craig Robinson?

  so you can move ahead with confidence. Visit chase.com/IMO to see how Chase can help you begin your homeownership journey. Member FDIC, equal housing opportunity.

• 19:43Craig Robinson?

  You know, this is such a wonderful place. I've only been here a couple of days. I went to get coffee this morning, and I must have seen four or five folks. They all said hello as if they had seen me before. Thank you for that. And, but what, I think our listeners and viewers want to know, what's a, what's a typical day for Dave Chappelle in Yellow Springs? When you're not thinking.

• 20:14Speaker 00

  Well, that's what I'm saying. I get up at 4:00 a.m. and stare off in the space.

• 20:20Speaker 00

  Well, okay, this question is actually at the core of why I like it here. Because the days are predictable and they're simple. You know, not, I mean, look, the rest of a public person's life, it's like circus fodder. Not nearly what I've experienced with you today, because I can't even imagine having that many people have to be involved in every move you make. But, public life is not an easy life. But for me here, like, everyone's as famous as I am here. We all kind of know each other, we all see each other every day.

• 21:04Speaker 00

  So, you know, I know a lot of names, I know a lot of faces. I have people here that I love. I have people here that I love not liking.

• 21:19Speaker 00

  If something bad were to happen to them, I'd miss, man, I would love to fight with this person or cold, or I'd cold show this person. But it's that kind of culture. And, you know, like, I'm not that old, 50 years old, but there's a whole generation of kids that I watch go from like, nothing to adults to like, strong, really wise adults. It's just, it's just, it's irreplaceable. It really does remind you of the value of people. And I think most people don't, you know, I'm lucky because I get to be celebrated for what I do.

• 21:59Speaker 00

  But I think most people forget how much they influence the people around them. And there's people here that I'll see and I'll know from the rumor mill that they're going through something terrible and I'll see them smile through it and, hey, Dave, good morning. And I admire that. And it reminds me to be the same. And then when I go out in the world, I can be more courageous because I know I have a place where if I completely wiped and came back here, they'd just be like, they'd all smile, good morning, Dave, even though they knew I wiped. And I'd be like, hey. And that's just, that's just why I love it here.

• 22:40Michelle Obama?

  I mean, it's so important to kind of emphasize that point of simplicity in a time where especially young people are, you know, they're suffocating themselves with so much stuff. And I just want listeners and folks to hear this from one of the most famous men, you know, because I know I feel that way, I know Barack feels that way, is that, you know, we, we're striving for fame, for notoriety, for all the wrong things. And the truth of the matter is that life is about that small stuff.

• 23:15Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 23:15Michelle Obama?

  You know, it's the, the small connections that you make with people. It's about relationships with your neighbors and your family members, and you can't get that by holding a phone.

• 23:27Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 23:28Michelle Obama?

  And it is so important when we look at rates of depression and anxiety that our young people are feeling, it's because they've moved away from the simple. You know, just the, like, you, you told us about how, you know, every morning you walk out of your house and you go over the red bridge and you walk down the-

• 23:47Speaker 00

  Bike path.

• 23:48Michelle Obama?

  Bike path. And, you know, you know your neighbors and you see those rolling hills and the trees and you take in the air. It's like, hearing you, Dave Chappelle, say that that is the key to your joy and your sanity is, is powerful.

• 24:04Speaker 00

  I mean, it means everything, you know, especially with comedians, right? So, so fame is one of the worst things that can happen to a comedian, as an artist, because you're sequestered, you know, life is, you know, not, this is not my case, but it's, it's not authentic, your life. You know, the yes people or whatever the cliches are, but this place, man, this place does not do that.

• 24:35Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 24:36Speaker 00

  Like, man, at, at times I really wish that they would.

• 24:43Speaker 00

  They don't, though.

• 24:44Michelle Obama?

  They just don't.

• 24:46Speaker 00

  And I wouldn't, I wouldn't trade it. And the other thing is that I, I do get to just talk to people, which a lot of people, you know, they, ambitious people especially, they, you're gonna forget how much you need to just talk to people. I used to shadow my dad around town. He had this thing he would do, not with everybody, with certain people. "Hey, how you doing?" "I'm good, man." And he would look at me and be like,

• 25:11Speaker 00

  "Now, how are you doing?"

• 25:14Speaker 00

  And then they, well, you know, then they'd say what the real thing was. But then it taught me again. Everyone's like a book that I haven't read.

• 25:24Michelle Obama?

  Yes.

• 25:24Speaker 00

  And, and man, sometimes I can get past the cover and, and, and, man, I learned so much from, from so many unlikely people. So, uh, and then, of course, I take those lessons around the world and make millions and millions of dollars. I'm scared, I'm scared.

• 25:46Michelle Obama?

  It shouldn't be a surprise to anybody, you know, Dave, you're not just one of the funniest people out here, but you're one of the smartest men that, that is on the public stage. Way to go, mom.

• 26:04Michelle Obama?

  So it's no surprise that your parents are badasses.

• 26:08Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:08Michelle Obama?

  Especially your mom.

• 26:10Speaker 00

  Mom is...

• 26:11Michelle Obama?

  Can you talk a bit about her, your relationship with her, as you said earlier? What did you say? She, you, she was, she championed you? You had a way to...

• 26:23Speaker 00

  I said she put that battery in my back.

• 26:25Michelle Obama?

  That's, that battery in your back.

• 26:26Speaker 00

  My mom is, I called her a greatness whisperer.

• 26:29Michelle Obama?

  That's it, a greatness whisper.

• 26:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, she would say things that I still meditate on, that, that made me not wanna be great as much as, and this is gonna sound arrogant, but it's not as arrogant as it sounds. Almost, but not quite. You, you made me not afraid to be great.

• 26:52Speaker 00

  I think so many people who have greatness inside of them are timid or don't shy as much or don't want to out exceed anybody, don't want to be noticed. Because there's a target on you that comes with that. And my mom kind of put the soul in my back. If someone said, "Or else," my mom would teach me to say, "Or else what?" You know what I mean? Just ask or just move or just take the step if you feel. But it was very moral. Because she also gave me lessons in what humility actually is. And she gave me antidotes for self-loathing.

• 27:31Speaker 00

  Or like, I feel like people just swim in a broth of like just shame and self-loathing a lot.

• 27:38Michelle Obama?

  How did she do that?

• 27:39Speaker 00

  How did she make me not?

• 27:40Michelle Obama?

  How did she? What was that antidote?

• 27:43Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, there's one I mentioned when I got the Twain Prize. And I said, "This really moves people." But something she used to say to me all the time, she said, "Sometimes you have to be a lion so you can be the lamb that you really are." Because she saw me being timid and she was like, "It's okay."

• 28:03Speaker 00

  She used to tell me not to be afraid to fight. Let your hands go. Can't win a fight without letting your hands go.

• 28:10Craig Robinson?

  Okay, Mom. Okay.

• 28:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, but for real, she taught me, this is gonna sound, it's not gonna sound, I can't explain this, but she taught me how to not be afraid of getting in trouble. Because she was my authority figure.

• 28:26Michelle Obama?

  So you're his problem.

• 28:29Speaker 00

  But she was a loving authority figure. And to both my parents' credit, they didn't just bombard me with rules. They helped me understand the rules had reasons. And we didn't agree.

• 28:42Michelle Obama?

  Young people, don't we snap for this?

• 28:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, the rules had reasons. I know you know about that.

• 28:50Speaker 00

  Because I see an activist in the front row.

• 28:54Michelle Obama?

  But that sounds so much like our parents. I mean, we were talking in the car about how blessed we were to have two parents who loved us. You know, mother and a father that poured into us. But a big thing was, I talk about this all the time, our mom loved our voices, you know? I mean, she just loved our dirty drawers and loved everything that came out of our mouths. And she was interested and curious, our parents both were. And it's that pouring into us, but the humility that comes with, you know, you don't just tell a kid no, you tell a kid why and how.

• 29:39Michelle Obama?

  And we got that every step of the way. And it's amazing how that little simple thing of seeing a child, valuing their voice, giving them some boundaries, giving them some humility, like that's better than stuff. That's better than iPhones and new cars and the best sneakers and contacts and connections. We didn't have any of that.

• 30:01Speaker 00

  Right.

• 30:02Michelle Obama?

  But we had parents who put that battery in our back.

• 30:06Craig Robinson?

  And even if we, this, what I remember is, it didn't matter how ridiculous the things we said. She didn't, what she did was she would ask questions to encourage us to get to the point we were trying to make. And that patience is what I remember and what I think gave me the confidence to be intellectual and successful that way.

• 30:37Speaker 00

  And you was South Side Chicago intellectual.

• 30:40Michelle Obama?

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:41Speaker 00

  Well, you Oscar science, no disrespect, but you're renowned nerds, both of you.

• 30:45Michelle Obama?

  Well, you had to, you had to learn how to fake the funk. You had to talk two languages. You had to talk the language of, I got an A, but let's not talk about it. Because I gotta get home, too. And you had to, you know, own your intelligence. Now, my brother had basketball to help him.

• 31:10Speaker 00

  Everybody loved you because he could play.

• 31:12Craig Robinson?

  You just played every sport and throw out the N-word every now and then.

• 31:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, it works.

• 31:19Craig Robinson?

  You know, that always works. Show that I'm a little hard, but don't tell my mom I said that.

• 31:27Speaker 00

  You didn't have to fight because you were a baller. Everyone loves a baller.

• 31:30Craig Robinson?

  Everybody loved ballers, but I didn't become a baller until I was about 12. So I had my share of fights before I was 12 years old.

• 31:37Speaker 00

  Right.

• 31:37Craig Robinson?

  And unlike your mom, my mom would be like, be careful fighting because you're bigger than everybody.

• 31:44Speaker 00

  Oh, man, my mom was like, you better bite, nigga. You better fight.

• 31:49Craig Robinson?

  If your mom was at my house, there would have been a couple of ass-whuppers going on.

• 31:57Speaker 00

  But you know what else it was about your mom that I love is, okay, my mom's laugh is like music. If she, you know, and her mom's laugh is like music. And my grandfather, her dad's laugh is like music, man. And I think that's another thing that made me want to be funny, just hearing that music come out of him. It made me feel joyful.

• 32:20Craig Robinson?

  At what age did you realize that? Because one of the questions I was thinking about when we were talking about talking to you is you were smart enough and talented enough to pick a whole lot of different avenues. But you picked comedy.

• 32:37Speaker 00

  So, okay, yeah, or I don't know if I picked it. Okay, so I can't remember a time when I didn't feel like I was a funny guy. Or some kind of equivalent of like, yeah, I'm just like, that was my thing. But I didn't know that was a thing. When I was eight years old, my grandmother had a friend come visit who was a jazz singer, Johnny Hartman, the famous jazz singer, one of the only vocalists that John Coltrane has ever recorded with. Beautiful voice, smoked cigarettes, his voice sounded like velvet, so smooth. And I had, I remember I had just done a book report on Dr. Charles Drew.

• 33:17Michelle Obama?

  How old were you?

• 33:18Speaker 00

  I was eight and I was thinking, you know, I was going to be a doctor. And, and I showed the guy the book report and he goes, man, he goes, that's good. I go, I'm gonna be a doctor. He goes, nah, he said, cause I was cutting up all day. I was eight, he said, you're gonna be a comedian. Wow. And, and I, I go, what's that? He's, oh, you know, like, uh, Red Fox or Richard Pryor, you know who that is? I'm like, yeah, yeah, I watch, you know, from Sanford and Son, I don't know him, like, he knows him. He, he, he said, he said, it's a person that, that's funny for money. He goes, you're gonna be one of those.

• 33:54Speaker 00

  And, and I thought about that, I think about it every once in a while, I'll think about it, cause, you know, he's long passed away, God rest his soul, but, but whatever he saw in me that day, he saw it so clear that it scares me to think back at it. I'm like, so, like, did I choose this or did I? But, uh, when I finally did do stand-up, well, you know, to me, it's feel like a lifetime. It was only six years, from eight to, I was fourteen when I started. Fourteen? Yeah. Which didn't seem crazy at the time.

• 34:26Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 34:27Speaker 00

  Yesterday, I got a text message from a comedian I started out with, this kind of famous guy, Patton Oswalt. Yeah, yeah, he, he sent me a, um, a video that one of his fans has sent him, and I couldn't understand it, we're in some, like, dilapidated room, and then he pans over and I look, and it's the stage that we both started on.

• 34:49Michelle Obama?

  It was in, was it in DC?

• 34:51Speaker 00

  On Fourteenth and L Northwest, it's, ironically, drum roll please, it's a gay club now.

• 35:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, but it, it gave me chills just to see it, because it's, it all happened so fast, I can't believe how far I came.

• 35:21Craig Robinson?

  You know, something I love about this show is getting to hear so many different people's stories. It's so inspiring to research each guest and discover their backstory. All the hard work and big swings that went into their success. Because, and I know this has been true for me, you need to take some big swings if you're going to build something yourself. Fortunately, there's tools out there like Shopify, a platform designed to make running your business one million times easier. Whether you're just getting started with a side hustle or growing something bigger, Shopify gives you the tools to actually build your business the right way.

• 36:03Craig Robinson?

  Even better, Shopify is how your stuff gets discovered everywhere, from Google to YouTube to the shop app. I'll just say that Purple Shop Pay button is another game changer for so many brands. The one-click experience means fewer abandoned carts, more completed purchases, and less stress. I'm always a little too relieved that I don't have to dig for my wallet. Want to build something that's truly yours? Start your free trial at Shopify.com/IMO. This episode is brought to you by Netflix's Remarkably Bright Creatures. You all know I'm a movie lover.

• 36:46Craig Robinson?

  And while I usually steer towards your classic crime dramas and heist films, I also love a good comfort watch. Remarkably Bright Creatures, based on the New York Times bestselling novel, is just that, a feel-good, heartwarming flick about nature, family, and new beginnings. First of all, I love that Netflix is adapting this novel. There's already a lot of people who love this story and have been waiting for this one for a minute. The movie follows Tova, played by the incomparable Sally Field, as she forms an unlikely bond with Marcellus, an octopus. And their relationship ends up bringing some real healing, an unexpected connection with Cameron,

• 37:31Craig Robinson?

  played by Lewis Pullman, and a few big discoveries that change all of their lives. Also, the octopus is voiced by Alfred Molina, which is just good casting. It's the perfect watch for Mother's Day weekend. So, definitely check it out. Remarkably Bright Creatures is only on Netflix May 8. My kitchen has never quite felt completely put together, like it's always felt like something is missing. And then Kelly and I found these striped linen cafe curtains on Wayfair, and the effect has been perfect. Once we realized we wanted some curtains, it was just a matter of typing our ideal item into Wayfair's search bar. And of course, they have what we want plus 10 other options.

• 38:16Craig Robinson?

  Their inventory truly cannot be beat. I especially like being able to look through customer photos and reviews before I decide. That's what sealed the deal for us with our new curtains, as well as all of the other amazing pieces we have from Wayfair in our house right now. Wayfair has more than 20 million verified five-star reviews, so you can actually see how something looks and works in real people's homes. Find pieces made for real life and get even more value with Wayfair Rewards. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com.

• 39:00Speaker 03

  Wayfair, every style, every home.

• 39:08Michelle Obama?

  There are a lot of creative kids in communities across the land. Being a creative, going to do show business, I mean, for most black parents, they'd be like, "You better get you a good job. What are you talking about?"

• 39:24Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly.

• 39:24Michelle Obama?

  You know, but your mom did the exact opposite. I mean, she got you onstage. She thought about the education that you would need. Wasn't she the one that suggested that you go to one of my favorite high schools on the planet?

• 39:41Speaker 00

  Duke Ellington.

• 39:42Michelle Obama?

  Duke Ellington in Washington, DC.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  Yes, she was. I think what, you know, not just that. She would sit with me, you know, after school, she'd meet me. We'd go to the comedy club. We'd sit there all night.

• 40:00Michelle Obama?

  Your mom would go to the comedy club with you?

• 40:02Speaker 00

  After she had been working and doing whatever it was she did that day. And I didn't realize it at the time, but you know, she's a mom. She was auditing the scene. Now, I don't think she necessarily thought I was going to be a famous comedian, but at that time, the crack epidemic and everything, all the bad things I could be doing, and I expressed such an earnest interest in being a comedian. And so she shepherded me. She figured out who's trustworthy and not trustworthy. And, "Okay, could you come give my baby a ride home if I leave early?" and that kind of thing. And then by the time I was 16, I was a professional. Like, I would get gigs and make money. And I didn't need her to go as much.

• 40:46Speaker 00

  And then that was kind of sad because her baby was growing up. But the big one was not going to college because I'm the first person since slavery in our family to make that choice.

• 41:01Michelle Obama?

  Way to go, Dave. Way to break the cycle of education.

• 41:06Speaker 00

  Someone needs to break this cycle of learning.

• 41:11Speaker 00

  But I ended up moving to New York and honestly, maybe it was the best education a person could ever get. But the guardrails of that education was ambitious, ambition, not just like, really artistic ambition. I was enamored. I always looked at comedy like, what else can it do? And I still experiment with it, which is more dangerous now, but no less rewarding. This job never gets easier. It's never, it's never not fulfilling and it's never not challenging.

• 41:45Craig Robinson?

  So at 16, you're a professional on the road, on your own. Who were your influences? Who were your, did you have any mentors? Did you do it solely by yourself?

• 41:57Speaker 00

  No, no. Okay, so the local scene in DC was popping. Like I said, Patton, who went on to be famous, he was there. A guy named Tony Woods was one of the big guys on the scene. BET had just started and it was local in DC. So Chris Thomas was doing all these things on BET. Tommy Davidson was on in Living Color, but he was from our local scene. Martin Lawrence was just getting big. But he, but these, these were all local guys. So I wasn't on the road yet. I would get a road gig here or there. But, and, and the, and the principal at Ellington used to give me excused absences if I left on Friday to go on the road, because it was an artistic pursuit, not catch the train up

• 42:41Speaker 00

  the Eastern Seaport and get a gig here or there. But it was mostly happening in, in town, in, in Washington. And the, the scene was very experimental and very competitive, but there was a lot of camaraderie on that scene. New York was different, but, but man, DC was, I think, the perfect place to start, because I had enough room to get good.

• 43:09Michelle Obama?

  Is there a point in a comedian's development where they determine what kind of comic they want to be? I mean, you are a gifted storyteller, weaving in life and observation and, you know, taking us full circle. Did you have to become that? Did you know that as a kid? That, you know, that's how I want to make people laugh.

• 43:38Speaker 00

  That's a very good question.

• 43:40Michelle Obama?

  Thank you.

• 43:41Speaker 00

  No, that's a very good question. There are certain, you know, people ask me, who are your favorite comedians? And it's not like that. In my mind, it's a dunk reel of just different comedians doing different things that amaze me, some more consistently than others. But, man, any night, it could be just some guy who just says the thing of that night. But, man, when I was in high school, and I can't remember who I saw do it first, the first time I saw a guy do what we call call back a joke, make reference to something he referenced before, I'm like, wait a minute, he can do the same joke twice? And from then on, man, I'm telling you, I'm like those guys that can draw a perfect circle freehand.

• 44:26Speaker 00

  If I went on stage with no material, I would just know what to do. But I've been doing this so long, comedy, it's almost like a language that I know how to speak. I can say anything in this language. But there are real parameters, and it's like music, you also want to break out of those parameters, like a bebop guy. Like, I don't want to play the same stuff everybody plays. But that being said, man, in my life, man, I've seen some of the greatest comedy ever done, and I feel so lucky to have seen all of it. But what made me want to be what I'm like is a long story. Can I tell it?

• 45:07Michelle Obama?

  Please. This is your interview, Dave Chappelle. Please, take your time. Tell it slowly.

• 45:14Speaker 00

  I have so many questions. It feels dumb talking about myself around y'all, but I'll try.

• 45:22Speaker 00

  Okay, the single most impactful thing that I've ever seen. I was maybe nineteen years old. I opened for Richard Pryor at Newark Symphony Hall. And I got there early and I met Mr. Pryor before the show. And I could see, like I was eyeing him, that he's not, he wasn't feeling well. And by this time, everyone knew he had MS and all that. I just don't know what MS does to people, but I knew that whatever it does, it was doing it. And so I said to myself, you know what? Like, I want to do good, but let me just take it easy because it's like a legend. So I just did the housekeeping job. I got the crowd good and warm.

• 46:07Speaker 00

  And they didn't want to see me anyway, they wanted to see him. And then I go and I get off the stage. He had the intro where his man goes, ladies and gentlemen, the most two beautiful words in comedy. Richard Pryor. Man, man, crowd goes nuts. And he goes out there and you could tell early on that this was not, this was not his night. And maybe thirty minutes into his set. He stops and it's something I wouldn't even know you could do. He looks at the crowd and he goes, look, he goes, I want to do this for you guys, but he goes, I'm not feeling well. He said, I'm sorry. He goes, I don't got it in me tonight, I'm sorry. Just like that.

• 46:51Speaker 00

  And man, you could hear like, like a pin drop. And then this guy in the back of the room jumps to his feet like that. He jumps up, he goes, we love you, Richard. And the place exploded.

• 47:08Speaker 00

  Longest, loudest ovation, like, man, it went on and on and he stood there. And then, okay, I'm young, right? But then I realized when I'm looking at that this is his last. Show for them. They probably will never see him live again. And people were crying and wiping tears out their eyes and he looked a little emotional. And to me, it was the first time I had seen like actual love. Like bouncing off the walls, like, man, they love this person. And if I had never seen that, I wouldn't even know that's something to want. Because no one has a language like that.

• 47:48Speaker 00

  And when I saw that, more than any type of style, I'm like, man, I want. I want it to be like that. And that notion made me work, I think, more patiently than I would have. But that was the moment I knew that fame was one of the things I wanted. But whatever the hell that thing Richard had, that moment.

• 48:17Michelle Obama?

  So then, what does it feel like when it doesn't work?

• 48:23Speaker 00

  Now, man, okay, this is a good question. You mean like if I do a show and it doesn't go well?

• 48:30Michelle Obama?

  You know, that and when the love doesn't come and the opposite comes.

• 48:37Speaker 00

  Oh, okay. Well, okay.

• 48:41Michelle Obama?

  It could be both and.

• 48:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, maybe. It's more like, in my experience, it was both. Because I was doing jokes that some people thought were controversial and some people didn't. But that experience, from my perspective, is much different than what it must have been like watching it.

• 49:00Speaker 00

  Because, you know, listen, people would think it's me versus the gay community. I never looked at it like that. I always thought it was corporate interest in culture negotiating itself. So, you know, most of those people who were critical of what I was doing didn't seem like they were of it. They had, it's like they had their faces pressed against the glass commenting on what we were doing in there. But they weren't in there doing it. And I think I spoke to you about this earlier.

• 49:34Speaker 00

  Every opinion you can think of is represented in a comedy club. Every type of person you can imagine does stand-up comedy. Transgender stand-up comics, uh, black, white, Asian, every kind of perspective. Uh, and we all champion whatever opinion we champion. We would never think to silence one another. We might duke it out on stage in the sense of like, if, if someone says something racist and I get mad, I'd be like, yo, put me up next. Cause I'm gonna say something about what he said. But, but, but silencing that person wouldn't be anything. And then after the show, we all be upstairs drinking. And we might still talk about it or argue about it. But that's, that's our life and, and we're artists and that's what we do and we have this outlet.

• 50:19Speaker 00

  So for a media outlet to speculate on a comedy show that they weren't at, or misinterpret a joke, or like, you know, nothing makes a comedian madder than reading his joke wrong in the paper. You know, and, and reading a joke is nothing like hearing one or being one. And the intention of a comedy show is a very unique intention. We are playing with the, whatever the culture is made of. And we break it down and we get it right or we get it wrong. But in all art, if it's gonna be good or even hopefully great, you gotta have a margin of error.

• 51:01Speaker 00

  And, and what they were doing was acting like thought or speech was binary. Like there's only, everything's either this or that. But all art is in between it. It's all nuance. So when they take nuance out of words and just say, did you hear what he said? He said, it's like, yeah, but, but that's not what I was saying.

• 51:21Michelle Obama?

  So. We talked about, you know, the, the, the first time I realized, oh my gosh, I'm in politics. Was, you know, my husband's running for president. I was campaigning heavily for him. But my experiences campaigning were in communities like this. It started small and then it grew from there. And all my conversations would be like this. Extemporaneous, talking to a group, introducing myself, telling a joke, trying to humanize myself and my husband, introducing us as real people, but not on script.

• 52:02Michelle Obama?

  And there's a difference in how you would see the crowd respond right here. You know, we're all in the room together. You know, maybe the words wouldn't be exact, but we would all be able to feel it, you know? And that feeling wouldn't just be a small group. It could expand into a stadium, you know, an arena. The people there could feel the intent. But then I realized, oh, it's not about the people here. It's about the people with their faces pressed against the wall interpreting what I said without being there.

• 52:41Speaker 00

  Or even more serious, trying to bend what you say to make it more interesting or salacious or because they have a different, I don't know. I don't know why they do all the stuff they do. But I do know in recent years, it's, you know, you'll hear a lot of comedians complain about that. And what they'll say is, we can't say anything. That's not true. You can say anything that you can get away with.

• 53:14Michelle Obama?

  Right, right.

• 53:16Speaker 00

  And that's the skill. You know, the negotiation with the audience of what's acceptable is what makes the genre so interesting. And it could change from room to room, night for night, like every room's a little different.

• 53:44Michelle Obama?

  Well, you said younger comedians are a little bit different because they're not, their audience isn't in their room.

• 53:51Speaker 00

  No, they're internet people.

• 53:53Michelle Obama?

  They're internet people. And, you know, it goes back to, you know, the whole point of community. You know, it's like sharing a space with people is really important to connection and understanding. And it's no wonder why we feel so divided is because all of our interaction is happening without this heart-to-heart feeling, this even seeing somebody's face nod and, oh, you get it, or maybe you don't. We're losing that. And you said, young comedians nowadays have a different ethos because they're not in the room.

• 54:31Speaker 00

  Negative, too.

• 54:32Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 54:32Speaker 00

  Because that gets more engagement. If they talk bad about somebody, they'll get more clicks and more engagement. So everything's a diss record now. And it used to be, it's not like that.

• 54:44Craig Robinson?

  Can we talk about The Chappelle Show?

• 54:47Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:49Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, yeah, sure.

• 54:50Michelle Obama?

  Yeah, really.

• 54:51Craig Robinson?

  I just...

• 54:56Craig Robinson?

  When I think about you doing that show, I think about how much fun it must have been just sitting around with your friends and your boys, thinking up ideas to be on The Chappelle Show.

• 55:09Speaker 00

  Man, that's the truth. I had one guy that I primarily wrote the show with, Neil Brennan. And we're still friends. But one of the things we would do is we would take submissions. We'd always rewrite the submissions. But the guy would give us an idea, and we'd be like, oh, that's funny, we'll write it up. And if we used it, we'd pay him.

• 55:31Craig Robinson?

  If I had known that was the thing, I would have been submitting submissions.

• 55:36Speaker 00

  Man, it was funny. But it was my first time being corporately funny. And it got me ready for the next time, because there's always the negotiation with the network. But I liked, in hindsight, because we had pitched that show to HBO. And, boy, they turned it down in spectacular fashion.

• 55:55Speaker 00

  Because at that time, they had The Chris Rock Show, and they felt like they were invincible. Man, but we went on Comedy Central and shot Lights Out. And I think the show was better on Comedy Central because there was an era of, you shouldn't be able to say these things. HBO looked like you're just doing anything, anyway. But on Comedy Central, that dance around standards and practices was joyful. And shout out to South Park. Because I remember one time I did a Tyrone Biggum's character I played on a show who had an addiction problem. He... Well, there's no nice way to say it, Craig. He takes a shit in the alley.

• 56:36Speaker 00

  And Renee, the standards and practices lady, calls me upstairs and she's like, "Look, you can't have Tyrone take a shit in the alleys." And it was gross too, because we took like a baby Ruth bar and like melted it. And then we just dropped it in the frame. It was really gross.

• 57:00Craig Robinson?

  But really funny.

• 57:02Speaker 00

  She goes, "You can't do that, you can't do that." And I go, "I don't know, I go, "How about this Renee? What if I put a Christmas hat on it and make it sing a Christmas carol?" And then she goes, "Okay, okay." So we got away with a lot of stuff because South Park pushed boundaries and people got away with stuff because we pushed boundaries. But it was all about just kind of, you know, making room for everything. And to their credit, especially at that time, at that time, television was governed the opposite of the internet. It was called least objectionable programming. How do we make sure everybody likes everything everyone says? And that's obviously impossible.

• 57:43Speaker 00

  But they were brave in the sense that they would let us challenge a lot of conventions. Chappelle's Show was fun. Charlie Murphy.

• 57:56Craig Robinson?

  Oh my gosh, yeah.

• 57:57Speaker 00

  You know. Really. May he rest in peace.

• 58:03Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 58:04Speaker 00

  You know, I used to see Charlie Murphy in Hollywood at parties. I shouldn't say this, but one night, man, I'm sorry, mom, I was high on mushrooms. And I went to some place.

• 58:17Michelle Obama?

  He's okay now, though.

• 58:18Speaker 00

  And I'm fine, I'm fine. But I say that to say, if you were high on mushrooms and ran into a personality as intense as Charlie Murphy, it's like, don't. He talks to his teeth and he, "What's going on there?" And he's real gangster, he got that growl. But man, this one night I ran into him and the whole night just... Became about watching this guy Charlie Murphy. Now, I didn't know in the near future, we would work together in such an intimate capacity. But, but that night, I could see something great about him. And he would always talk about Eddie, but he always go, my brother, my brother this man. And if anyone said anything bad about Eddie, at any point in his life, he'd smack the shit out of him.

• 59:01Speaker 00

  He, he loved his brother so much. And, uh, but what I learned that night, that I, because he was always a villain in movies. He was hilarious. He was a, like a, a artful storyteller. His, all his stories had all this texture. And, and then one day on the set, we were doing some sketch. And, uh, Charlie is telling us all these stories about coming with Eddie. And in the, in the middle of lunch, he goes, someone said something about Rick James. And he said, man, I fought Rick James on five different occasions. And we were like.

• 59:38Speaker 00

  What? And, and man, he started telling us all the times he be, in every story, he beat up Rick James and all this. And man, we were dying laughing. And, and, and, and we pull him aside and like, man, can we do that on the show? He's like, wait, wait, you want me to beat up Rick James on the show? I'm like, not really, like. And, and, and we just had him tell the stories and, and we dramatized them. Now, and, and, and now you think, you know, and now as we're shooting it, like, yo, this is like, like, cause we were on set dying laughing. And, and then here's the kicker, then we, we on the set and Charlie goes, I bet you I can get Rick to come for this. And he did, he did. We ended up doing one sketch for Rick James and then another sketch about Prince. Yes.

• 1:00:20Speaker 00

  And, and, and, and I asked Prince to do the sketch and he was like, no.

• 1:00:28Speaker 00

  But then when he saw it, he said he wished he had. And by all accounts, like, like by his own account, he loved that sketch. So it was just, it's just one of those things where it's like, uh. And the other thing about that Rick James sketch, last thing about it, is Charlie made us show it to Eddie first. So I'd never been to Eddie Murphy's house, but we go there with his brother. And Eddie has this big screen in room downstairs and he's sitting in like a, a big armchair with his back to us. And no one's seen the sketch, so there's no laugh track on it. Chappelle shot a real laugh track. And man, he didn't laugh once.

• 1:01:09Speaker 00

  And the sketch was like 10 minutes long. And man, I'm, I'm sitting behind with a pit in my stomach. And then the sketch goes off and he doesn't even turn around, but from behind him, I see him raise his arms like this.

• 1:01:22Speaker 00

  And then he turns around and goes, "It was a red couch and Rick had on Capizzi's."

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  And he gave us the green light and he let, and he let us do it. And to me, it's one of the greatest sketches ever.

• 1:01:35Michelle Obama?

  It sure is. I mean, I think I watched that once a month, at least once a month.

• 1:01:41Craig Robinson?

  Well, being from Chicago, the players' ball is, is lights out and so accurate.

• 1:01:51Speaker 00

  You know what's funny? When people ask me what the, to me, that was my favorite day of shooting.

• 1:01:57Craig Robinson?

  Really?

• 1:01:57Speaker 00

  I, I laughed more on that. Not necessarily my favorite sketch, but those characters are the ones I, I revisit the most. And, and it's not as fun to do without Charlie, but it's still fun to do. And, and, and man, that was like Patrice O'Neal.

• 1:02:15Craig Robinson?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:16Speaker 00

  Who's a great, great comedian. He and I used to like, like hate each other. Because he's an asshole, man. And, and I won't say it because he's dead, but he, he, you know, and, and Kevin Hart and everyone get mad when I say that because they love Patrice so much. I love him. I love, I, I, I got there.

• 1:02:38Speaker 00

  But at that time, I was the guy to beat. And Patrice was new in town. So he would always, he was like, before an internet, he was a perfect troll. And there's a few people I've met in my life that just knew how to push my buttons. And man, Patrice could play me like a keyboard. He just knew how to make me mad. And then one day, I snapped. And when I finally yelled at him about it, he was like, Dave, Dave. He goes, Dave, Dave, think about it, man. Think about it. I talk to everybody this way. And I'm like, that's true. And then I started laughing.

• 1:03:10Michelle Obama?

  Like, get over yourself.

• 1:03:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was that guy. And then that same week, I'm like, you know, we wrote the sketch. And I'm like, yo, let's call Patrice. And he was great. And one of the things that made me love him for doing the sketch is that when he showed up, he was nervous, which was a huge honor that he cared as much as I cared. And man, we were good. Up until they died, we were good.

• 1:03:37Craig Robinson?

  And are you guys, and when I say guys, men and women comedians, how do you train yourselves to be such good actors?

• 1:03:48Speaker 00

  Well, I don't know. Everyone can do it.

• 1:03:52Speaker 00

  I'm not gonna say any names, but well, I think for me, it was definitely Ellington.

• 1:03:58Craig Robinson?

  OK.

• 1:03:58Speaker 00

  You know, there's a vulnerability that an actor has to have that I don't know that comedians are necessarily vulnerable the same way. And with the mercy of a script, like, you know, unless you're working on something flexible, you gotta service the writer's words. But acting is an amazing skill. Now, this has nothing to do with me, but the fact that it's one of my favorite performances I've ever seen. And I think I told you about this. I saw you once in Mars. Denzel Washington in Training Day is like watching the most technically perfect.

• 1:04:36Speaker 00

  It's like everything I learned in school, he executes perfectly. If you know what you're looking at, it's amazing. And in the Academy Museum in L.A., they have his script with the marked up margins. And I saw it, and it just reminded me of how much work this guy puts into acting and how serious he is. And I don't think a lot of comedians would be that serious. But Richard Pryor was a great actor because he was vulnerable. Cat Williams is a guy, every time I see him act, I'm like, man, he should do that more. Because he's like, he's great at it, surprisingly great at it. And he never studied a day in his life. I don't know how he knows how to do that. I went to school.

• 1:05:18Speaker 00

  I read books and I can do it like, you know, but some people can, it's like music. Some people can just play. I don't know how.

• 1:05:26Michelle Obama?

  Do you feel like you tap into that vulnerability?

• 1:05:31Speaker 00

  Well, I do. I think I'm more vulnerable onstage than most comedians. You know, I'll say anything when people feel like they can't say anything. But which is a vulnerable position to put myself in. But some jokes, it's like, I just got to, I just want to see if it works. I don't want to not try. And I think that I've, over the years, cultivated an audience that's more forgiving than most people's, than a casual comedy observer would be. These people, I think, almost come to experience the danger. Because the audience is also vulnerable. If you're taking it out of bounds.

• 1:06:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 1:06:18Michelle Obama?

  So there's much talk about you walking away from the show. It's been discussed. But I find it, I was reading something where you said, you know, you just went out the country for a week or so.

• 1:06:34Speaker 00

  It was just like two weeks.

• 1:06:36Michelle Obama?

  It's just like, you know, what do you think it was about that time that made people lose their minds over you making a decision that was preserving yourself?

• 1:06:52Speaker 00

  I think at that time, it was the idea that the money, you know what? You know, comedians weren't getting fifty million dollar checks that I had heard of. I think it, I think it was the money and that at that time, the show was wildly popular. And it was all of a sudden, it was just gone. And, and you know, I gotta tell you the truth. When I quit, I thought, you know, maybe I'll go back and, but it, it took some time for me to realize like, oh, I'm not, I'm never going back. Maybe like a year. And then I thought my career was over. I, I believed that for a few more years. So I went through the whole process of mourning the narrative that I had in my head of being a big star.

• 1:07:35Speaker 00

  And I, and at that time, I was just back in Yellow Springs. You know, Yellow Springs is, "Welcome back superstar."

• 1:07:45Speaker 00

  I was like, "Oh, man."

• 1:07:48Michelle Obama?

  It's like, no, how are you really doing it?

• 1:07:55Speaker 00

  Yo!

• 1:07:58Speaker 00

  Perfect callback.

• 1:08:02Speaker 00

  Took me, I don't know, what do you think, like, maybe four years to get over it. But, but man, imagine how liberating that is to believe that it's over. Uh, and I got over it and then I just went back to work. I still needed money and I could still fill rooms up because people liked the show. Uh, and, and like, I started back in comedy clubs. Uh, and then I did this big tour. Uh, and the tour was tough for me because the show was like, it's a festival thing. It was like a five hour show that I'd have to close. It was tough, but it got me back out there. And, and then when I left that big festival thing and just did my own thing, I was just in the pocket again.

• 1:08:47Speaker 00

  And then like a few years after that, the, someone would call me and be like, "Congratulations." "For what? You just got tour of the year." I'm like, "I did? I would never even pay attention." And then one time, somebody called me and said, "Congratulations." I say, "For what?" They're like, "You just made Forbes list." And I was like, "What?" And I looked and, and it, because I don't just count the money as it comes in. And I looked there and said like, "Dave Chappelle made," I don't know what it was that year. And I'd never, I'd made eight million bucks. I'm like, "Oh." And I looked, I said, well, who? I was 10th in the top 10. And then I looked at the other nine names and I'm like, ah.

• 1:09:26Speaker 00

  I should come back.

• 1:09:33Michelle Obama?

  It's like, I can do, I think I can do this now.

• 1:09:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, thing like, eh.

• 1:09:37Michelle Obama?

  I wish Elaine was mic'd up now, because I want to be like, what was he like during that period? Were you staring off into space and telling them, don't talk to me?

• 1:09:47Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:09:48Michelle Obama?

  What were you like then? Because Elaine does not have a mic.

• 1:09:52Speaker 00

  She was the person that really helped me get over myself.

• 1:10:00Michelle Obama?

  Let's give a round of applause to Elaine.

• 1:10:04Michelle Obama?

  Girl.

• 1:10:09Speaker 00

  And, and, and I gotta tell you, especially if you want.

• 1:10:12Craig Robinson?

  Nice move, by the way.

• 1:10:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know what it is, Craig, you know what it is.

• 1:10:20Speaker 00

  But, but you know, I think at that time, maybe I did, you know, you almost have to fight the urge to feel sorry for yourself if you're mourning your career. And she's not that kind of person. She just always keeps it moving, almost. I mean, it's like too much sometimes, like, were you slow now? She just, but she just, you know, and, and, and our kids were young. And, and so she was just like, come on, man, get over that. And I gotta tell you, a friend of mine that was famous passed away recently. And, and one of the things that he said as he was dying, and, and man, he knew, he was dying. He said, I'll never forget this. He said, man, he said, he said, I took myself too seriously.

• 1:11:03Speaker 00

  And, and, and man, that really resonated with me, because it's, it's such an easy trap to fall for. And, and nobody sets that trap for you better than yourself. So it's good to have somebody that, you know, I mean, not to say she didn't let me mourn my career, but she also helped remind me that my life is about more than myself. And, and for someone that's like, you know, your, your wife, ideally, the best of times, she's at your shoulder. And for someone at your shoulder to remind you of that. And it's like, you know, and then I had to think about it, like, well, I guess technically, she lost the money too.

• 1:11:43Michelle Obama?

  I bet she knew what number you were on the Forbes list.

• 1:11:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:48Michelle Obama?

  She's like, "Eight million? Okay, check."

• 1:11:52Speaker 00

  And you know what? We also always had what we needed. You know, I never really worried about money. Now, what happens is, when a guy gets famous, they upgrade everything. That's when they get a new wife, and a new house, and a new this, and a new that. Man, we everything the same. Which allowed us to do stuff like this when we did get money. It's like, you know, why upgrade our house when we can upgrade the town we're living in?

• 1:12:25Michelle Obama?

  You said something really lovely about Elaine. Because Elaine, you grew up in, you were a New Yorker. You're not from Yellow Springs. This is, this is, this was new. But I asked you how she felt about moving here. And why you chose here. Can you talk a bit about, you remember, you remember that conversation, Dave?

• 1:12:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, I said something to the effect of, and this is true.

• 1:12:53Speaker 00

  At that time, my idea was, we should build a lifestyle that, that I can feel more secure in maintaining. So that I can, you know, be courageous. And, you know, she's from Brooklyn. She didn't have any friends out here like that, or any of that stuff. And we moved down here. You know, at first, it was just me and her and our kids.

• 1:13:21Speaker 00

  And that's, I'm sure, that's tough, giving up your social life. And, you know, and New York City in and of itself, if you live in New York, it's hard to live. I mean, I'm from here, and it was hard to come back here after living in New York. But man, but she did it, man. She learned her way around. She found everything that she wanted. And eventually, as the years went on, she made her life here. We have, you know, she has friends and I have friends. But, you know, she, she was, she was a pioneer. And even now, like, I'm, I'm more inside. And, you know, a lot of people in the community don't reach out to me directly. They, they go through her because she's-

• 1:14:06Michelle Obama?

  A lot of head shaking here. Everybody like, "Yeah, Dave, you can't count on Dave for nothing."

• 1:14:12Speaker 00

  No, you can't.

• 1:14:17Speaker 00

  But she's outside and, you know, she's a very kind person, but she's also, she can, she can hold a line because everybody asks us for everything. And, and, and, you know, it's part of being in a community. Everyone's like that. But, but she's been amazing at helping me do all of the things we've been doing in the community and, and, you know, having a relationship with the community. When I go travel, she's the one that tells me what's going on in town.

• 1:14:48Craig Robinson?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, you're, you're a father of three.

• 1:14:51Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:14:52Craig Robinson?

  What's, what's Dave the father like?

• 1:14:59Michelle Obama?

  Who can we get the mic to?

• 1:15:05Speaker 00

  You know, if my kids were vegetables, they'd be organically grown.

• 1:15:13Speaker 00

  I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't.

• 1:15:15Michelle Obama?

  That's got a big definition in the organic community.

• 1:15:18Speaker 00

  Okay, well, meaning, well, number one is with the soil, which would be Yellow Springs. This is the place where they can independently learn to be courageous and, like I learned before them, no offense again, to not be afraid of white people. My kids are, unlike me, they're, they're mixed race, right? Their, their mom is Asian, their dad is black. But their generation, I don't think, thinks of anything like that.

• 1:15:48Speaker 00

  In a town like Yellow Springs, a young person can use their time more the way they want to because there's not so many immediate dangers. And it is a community. If my kids are messing up, somebody in town tells me, hey, I saw your kid doing this or that. Correct. But.

• 1:16:09Speaker 00

  You know, my parents weren't like heavy on rules. In fact, looking back, and I hope this doesn't upset you, Mom. I looked at my parents as reference books. You get the most out of them if you're interested. My mother has amazing stories about her life. My father would tell me amazing stories about his life. But they also gave me a weird context about my life. They didn't police me as much as they guided me or horsewhistled me. I would think it was my idea, but it was them. And I think a parent in a similar style.

• 1:16:52Speaker 00

  I'm the invisible hand dad. You know, I'm there and, you know. I think my oldest son has figured it out, everything. He figured everything out first. But he's, I think, uses the resource of me as like a wiser person than him the most. He's the one that calls me just to chew on something. I'm trying to figure something out. What do you think of this? What do you think of that?

• 1:17:18Speaker 00

  I don't know. But we're all happy. We laugh together. All, you know.

• 1:17:25Michelle Obama?

  What have you learned about yourself?

• 1:17:27Speaker 00

  Being a parent?

• 1:17:28Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:32Speaker 00

  That's a great question.

• 1:17:34Michelle Obama?

  Another one.

• 1:17:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, man, it's like.

• 1:17:37Michelle Obama?

  I think I'm keeping count. That was three.

• 1:17:40Speaker 00

  Yeah. No, that isn't. I don't mean that in the meet the press. Thank you for your question, Scott.

• 1:17:49Speaker 00

  What have I learned about myself? Probably that I'm more courageous than I believe myself to be. And also being a parent, you gotta, again, like Elaine, you gotta forgive yourself or get over yourself. And I think that being a parent for anybody is very humbling. But if you have all the money in the world, it doesn't make you a good parent. You know, like in the beginning, I'd think I gotta provide for my family and all that stuff. But I've realized my time was way more valuable than I ever understood when I had three people that needed it. You know what I mean? So maybe that. And I learned that.

• 1:18:34Speaker 00

  Well, I learned that I'm a happier person than I thought. And really, COVID was when I really learned that because we were all like trapped in our choices.

• 1:18:42Michelle Obama?

  Yes.

• 1:18:43Speaker 00

  And I remember at one point just being in the house like, this is not that bad. Like, I like these people. Everyone was comfortable, it was safe. And I could walk around town and we'd all be going through COVID together and I recognized everybody. And then all those choices that I made, like moving to Ohio and stuff, that people laughed at me about. Now I felt vindicated about each and every one of them because the world shut down and just for a minute I'm absolutely right. And it felt great.

• 1:19:14Craig Robinson?

  Do your kids find your humor engage? Do they think you're funny?

• 1:19:21Michelle Obama?

  They think you're funny.

• 1:19:22Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Maybe not around the house, but like, like,

• 1:19:30Speaker 00

  I remember when they were kids, we were talking about Tyrone Biggum's earlier. And that was the first time, they were in the backseat like cracking up laughing, watching something on iPad, what y'all laughing at? And it was that Tyrone Biggum sketch. And I was thinking in my mind, I told you that poop was funny.

• 1:19:47Speaker 00

  Spann genuinely.

• 1:19:48Michelle Obama?

  Renee?

• 1:19:49Speaker 00

  Renee, I told you that shit joke would work.

• 1:19:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't know. It is humbling having kids. And, you know, I see time on them, you know, as they grow and become. And it is just like, it's so precious.

• 1:20:10Michelle Obama?

  Isn't it fun watching them become people?

• 1:20:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, it is.

• 1:20:14Michelle Obama?

  Right before your very eyes.

• 1:20:15Speaker 00

  And scary.

• 1:20:16Michelle Obama?

  Yeah, oh, my God, the most terrifying thing. So I tell people, it makes sense not to have kids. Absolute, complete emotional sense, don't do it.

• 1:20:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's right. And you know what's funny? I think now with AI and all these things, I don't know what you would tell a kid about how to prepare for the next 10 years. Like, what kind of jobs there will be or how those jobs will be done. What does a lawyer do in the AI age or any of us? And I think. I don't know. It's interesting. But I'm amazed at how sophisticated the kids' minds are. That they can sift through an avalanche of information. And they can say, I'll send them videos and be like, Dad, that's not real. And say, AI, I'm like, sorry.

• 1:21:04Michelle Obama?

  You know, I'm getting that a lot. I am so foolish. I believe all this stuff. It's a shame.

• 1:21:13Speaker 00

  I am the worst.

• 1:21:15Michelle Obama?

  But it's also a reminder of why we have to train them up and move out of the way. I mean, it's the organic parenting piece of it. We've got to trust that they have to find the courage now to figure it out. It's not our courage anymore. You know, we can't supplant our courage for theirs. And these times are gonna be, that's gonna play itself out. I mean, we're moving into something that we don't understand. We don't know AI. We're not, we can't figure it out. And it may seem scary now, but we have to have faith that they will figure this out

• 1:21:55Michelle Obama?

  and be able to tap into the values that we've instilled in them in communities like this. That they'll remember humility and boundaries and love and trust and all of that. That compassion has to go into whatever the solution is.

• 1:22:14Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 1:22:15Michelle Obama?

  You know?

• 1:22:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, you know, in the last, you know, a big part of their lifetime, my kids, maybe my daughter's entire lifetime. I was trying to explain to somebody, like, you know, my daughter's 16, so Donald Trump is like the first white president she's ever seen.

• 1:22:32Michelle Obama?

  I know, right?

• 1:22:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:22:33Michelle Obama?

  I know, right?

• 1:22:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. And my baby's like, oh, no, they're not good at it, Daddy.

• 1:22:50Michelle Obama?

  It's a hard job. It's a hard job. Trying to tell the people.

• 1:22:53Speaker 00

  It's a hard.

• 1:22:55Michelle Obama?

  It's a hard job.

• 1:22:56Speaker 00

  It looks hard from the outside. But to that end, just so I make sure I say this. You, your family was so incredibly graceful. This is a long way to go, but you know what it remind me of seeing you guys is that black dude on that Artemis ship.

• 1:23:17Speaker 00

  You, you remind me of, of that. You, you, you experienced something here like in a, in a social space program. And, and it's so sequestered and you see all these amazing things and come back and you share all that information, but whatever you had to go through to get in that spacecraft and the pilot through all of that. You know, as, as, as I go on in public life and see one, I have a greater appreciation of what I saw during the presidency. And, and you use the word I always think of. You in particular, I believe, did more to humanize what a presidency is than maybe anybody ever.

• 1:24:00Speaker 00

  That, that you're the first person that I feel like I, I could know that's been in that space and, and, you know, survived it and came out as gracefully as you went in. So I really, really, really appreciate you and your family and your presence.

• 1:24:28Michelle Obama?

  Well, I wanted to ask.

• 1:24:29Craig Robinson?

  Go ahead. You, you ask and then I'll go.

• 1:24:32Michelle Obama?

  What's, what do you think? How do you feel about where we are now in society? You know, just some Dave Chappelle thoughts about.

• 1:24:42Craig Robinson?

  And while you're thinking, please know that your voice means a lot to a lot of people.

• 1:24:49Craig Robinson?

  Our age and younger. Because, you know, I've got four kids and they range from thirty-four now down to fourteen.

• 1:25:01Michelle Obama?

  He's the head of the O D C. The old dads' club.

• 1:25:05Craig Robinson?

  I'm the head of the... Actually, I am, I am, I am the vice chair. So there's one guy who is above me, but

• 1:25:17Craig Robinson?

  your voice carries a lot of weight.

• 1:25:21Craig Robinson?

  I personally could hear it every night.

• 1:25:25Speaker 00

  Oh, man, thank you, bro.

• 1:25:26Craig Robinson?

  Like...

• 1:25:29Speaker 00

  You know, it's funny, I think.

• 1:25:32Speaker 00

  You know, last, was the last week I was in L.A. And I, I performed at a nightclub on Ventura Boulevard I'd never been to. This, for me, is a, a big treat. If I get to test drive, like, a new venue. And, and I love the club. Thing's called, what's it called? Babe Katie's, I think it's called. So shout out to Katie's, that's a great, great room. But, but I bring it up because it, it, you know, on a night like that, I'll try out mostly new jokes just to see, you know, where I'm at and where, where people are. And you're right, people, it's not that my voice is important, but now it's like somewhere the crowd is coming

• 1:26:17Speaker 00

  almost like church.

• 1:26:20Speaker 00

  They're not coming to hear me say anything important, but they're, they're coming to lay down a burden, so to speak. And, and, and so a show like that was, was incredibly fun to do. But, but it tells me about where people are, and remember, this is, this is in North Hollywood, so everyone's doing pretty good out there, is that these times are uncertain, that, that there's an emotional content or, or pain, or, or some people come to counteract a numbness. They just want to laugh so they can feel something.

• 1:26:59Speaker 00

  But it's never really been quite like this before. Where everyone feels like we're on the precipice of some amazing change. And every day, the new cycling is more appalling than the last day. And this doesn't seem like it's ever gonna end. And every week, I learn some new word, like straight of harmuse, or blah, blah, blah. And it's such an avalanche that it is fun, even for me now, to watch comedians contextualize this stuff. Someone asked me about my transgender jokes. They go, "You know, you got in a lot of trouble for those transgender jokes." And I go, "Ah, the good old days."

• 1:27:42Speaker 00

  Because so much, so much has happened so quickly. And, but, okay, I'm hopeful.

• 1:27:54Speaker 00

  As a matter of practice, this building opening up and being completed, it makes me hopeful. Having my own comedy club, finally, after all these years, that makes me hopeful.

• 1:28:07Speaker 00

  You guys being here with us, it's like a dream come true. It makes me hopeful. My community coming together in tough times. Or, you know, our family, we had tremendous losses recently. People in our family passed away. And the community, you know, picked us up. That made me hopeful.

• 1:28:34Speaker 00

  The little things mean so much more now. And I would wanna remind anybody that's listening to this show, man, that smile that you must have when it hurts to smile, this is priceless right now. Anything you can do to let each other know you're safe or that you're okay,

• 1:28:56Speaker 00

  it means everything right now. Because otherwise, this is intolerable. It's insufferable, what's happening right now.

• 1:29:12Michelle Obama?

  Thank you. Thank you. But I, you know, I'm hopeful too. And this day with you, with this community here in this space, gives me a whole lot of hope. You know, I mean, as my husband says, "We have overcome worse." But we overcome it by pulling together and not feeding on each other. That's just the thing that we have to remember. We have to remind our young people, you know, because this internet kind of conversation, we're playing in that space a little bit too much. You know, I don't want young folks to get comfortable with that dissing mentality.

• 1:29:57Michelle Obama?

  What'd you say?

• 1:29:58Speaker 00

  Everything's a diss record.

• 1:29:59Michelle Obama?

  Everything's a diss.

• 1:30:00Speaker 00

  They're good algorithms.

• 1:30:01Michelle Obama?

  Yeah, you just play in that space and you mistake those for real feelings and truth. And this is what's real, you know? What you feel in the room when you're with people. You know, you were showing us the videos of the juke joint gatherings and the, you know, the...

• 1:30:19Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, the cornfield.

• 1:30:20Michelle Obama?

  The cornfields. You know, people of all races and ages and with different cultural proclivities, all dancing to the same beat and smiling and moving together. It's like, that's the power of gathering. You know, the power of gathering is that we are reminded of our similarities and we forget the minor little stupid differences that is tearing this country and this world apart. And I want more young people to fight for the gathering, you know? Fight for coming off of their phones, finding community, being reminded.

• 1:31:06Michelle Obama?

  Of who we are as people and do not let the algorithm separate us from one another. That's the, that's the danger of AI. You know, that's, that's, that's, you know, but that's in our control. You know, that's something we built.

• 1:31:22Speaker 00

  I could text message, argue with an AI bot all day. Like if I, if I, if I thought it was a person, I would fuss with the thing all day. Uh, it, it feels, it does feel good to be outside. You know, my son told me it's a trend with him and his friends, like they ditched their phones just so they can be outside. Uh, my daughter got a CD player for her birthday and went through the roof because she couldn't believe that she could hold the music in her hands.

• 1:31:51Speaker 00

  The, the kids are nostalgic for something that they haven't really lived through or seen. And, and I think, you know, we, the OGs got to let them know that what a analog, how good a analog life feels. You know, uh, and I do think that, that, that pendulum will swing back, at least in the culture somehow as an elective. But, but yeah, I got the technology, I'm overwhelmed by it.

• 1:32:15Michelle Obama?

  And I think the point that you, the decisions that you made to, uh, live in a way that allowed you to be courageous, you know, another way of saying that is to, you know, start out living small, you know? We're a culture where everybody is promoting, you start out big, you know? Even watching, uh, HGTV, everybody wants a big tray ceilings, they want the, they want the man cave, they want everything now. It's like, it's your starter home. You know? Why does everybody think they deserve a granite countertop? You know?

• 1:32:57Michelle Obama?

  We've just, we've, we've just lost the script. It's like, you know, we grew up in a one and a half bedroom apartment over our aunt's house. My father got a new car occasionally. You know, we, we got three gifts at Christmas, you know? Our, our parents didn't believe in stuff. And now everybody's promoting the bling, the this, the that. And look, there is nothing wrong with making a good living, with, you know, living well. But I try to tell my kids, learn to live small.

• 1:33:37Michelle Obama?

  Because that's, you know, you're happier if you can, you live within a thing you can control. You know, you're not reaching for something that's not even that important. That is not the thing that's gonna make you happy. You asked, what was it like living in the White House? You know, it was a house. Because that's all a house is. What made it a home was what we brought to it. You know, I love the people we brought in it, how we opened it up, how we shared it with other people, how we made sure that we got every black entertainer that would never get invited back in there. How we brought in Duke Ellington's school, how we touched young people.

• 1:34:21Michelle Obama?

  That's what made that house a home. It wasn't the size of it, the color of it. And that's, you know, what I want young people to understand in this pursuit of fame and fortune, it's a lie. You know, it, it is, you know, we've lived it. That is not the thing that is gonna bring you joy.

• 1:34:41Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 1:34:45Speaker 00

  To that end, I once got to go to one of your parties there.

• 1:34:49Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:50Speaker 00

  And it was your birthday.

• 1:34:52Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:53Speaker 00

  We were talking about it. But one of the things that, okay, you know, obviously, I love smoking cigarettes. That's why my, but.

• 1:35:00Michelle Obama?

  Obviously.

• 1:35:01Speaker 00

  I, I asked somebody, I go, where can I smoke a cigarette around here? And one of the butlers took me down by the kitchen. And I saw your dog, Bo. I get him walking, I'm like, oh, there's that dog. I seen that dog on TV. And I'm like, can I get his autograph? They're like, he bites.

• 1:35:19Speaker 00

  And the dog walked by. And, and in the kitchen was like a jewel box kitchen. And I'm like, man, it's the kitchen at the White House. And, and I said, I wonder what they cooking in there? And I looked, fried chicken.

• 1:35:35Speaker 00

  I said, man, it does feel like home. There was some greens, some fried chicken going. I said, man.

• 1:35:41Michelle Obama?

  Lots of bacon.

• 1:35:42Speaker 00

  And one of the chefs was Filipino. I'm like, man, this is just like home.

• 1:35:47Craig Robinson?

  We used to call those White House parties.

• 1:35:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:35:52Speaker 00

  They were so good, though, man. And that particular night was one of the last. Actually, that weekend was the last time I'd ever seen Prince alive. And he was playing, and he was a surprise guest. I didn't know he was there. And he came out, and as soon as he saw me standing out there, he was like, "I should have done that sketch."

• 1:36:14Speaker 00

  It was so great, though.

• 1:36:15Michelle Obama?

  Yeah, a lot of special nights, yeah.

• 1:36:17Speaker 00

  Lot of joy.

• 1:36:18Michelle Obama?

  Lot of joy.

• 1:36:19Speaker 00

  But one of the, I forgot to tell you this. One of the greatest highlights of my life, as I'm standing, I'm like, "Man, I can't believe..." And I'm shy, I was just standing in the corner. And I feel this hand on my shoulder, and I look over and it was you. And you go, "Are you having a good time?" And I was like, "I'm working."

• 1:36:46Michelle Obama?

  Way to go.

• 1:36:47Speaker 00

  Close them loops.

• 1:36:48Michelle Obama?

  Way to go. Man, oh, man.

• 1:36:51Craig Robinson?

  Well, Dave, talk about joy, man. You and this community have brought us a lot of joy. So, thank you so much for inviting us.

• 1:37:00Michelle Obama?

  I do have one more question.

• 1:37:02Craig Robinson?

  This is what she does.

• 1:37:03Michelle Obama?

  I know.

• 1:37:03Craig Robinson?

  This is what she does to me.

• 1:37:05Michelle Obama?

  I know. I know, but we talked about this. It's like, you know, we're, because we're on the same, you know, you have invested so much in supporting this community, you know? And we're in the process of opening up our Presidential Center in June, on Juneteenth, by the way.

• 1:37:28Michelle Obama?

  So, I know I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what is legacy? What does it mean? I don't know. How do you, how do you think about legacy? And your legacy in particular?

• 1:37:40Speaker 00

  Well, okay, first of all, that's not apples to apples. But, I mean, okay.

• 1:37:46Michelle Obama?

  But the goal is the same. I mean, we're opening up this center on the South Side of Chicago for a reason. Because it is our community. It is our place. In the same way, we're making that investment, you know? So, I, it, I think it's, maybe it's red apples to green apples.

• 1:38:05Speaker 00

  I think, um...

• 1:38:10Speaker 00

  Recently, because I'm getting older, and I lost friends. Like, you know, the worst part of getting older is you start, you get those phone calls more often. And, and, uh, I don't think he would mind me saying this, but, but last week, when I was in L.A.,

• 1:38:31Speaker 00

  I hit up Eddie Murphy, out of the blue. It's, it's not something I do often, but when I do it, it's almost just because, could I just call Eddie Murphy? And it turns out I could. And, and, and I said, "You mind if I just stop by? I want to just talk to you for a little while?" And he was like, "Sure." And I went by and I didn't realize it was his birthday, or the day before it had been his birthday. You know, Eddie's a beautiful house, obviously. He's a family guy, so it was, you know, we're sitting on his back patio, and the music in the background is his grandkids, like, joyfully playing in his pool. And he, he was wistful, and it, and we're talking,

• 1:39:11Speaker 00

  and I realized that it's the first time since his brother passed that he and I had just spoke about Charlie, or, or things like that. And, uh, and this is to the legacy part, and I say, "Hey, can I use your restroom?" And I walk into the restroom, and, and, you know, I saw a picture of, you know, Eddie, holding his Mark Twain Prize with your husband, and it was prominently featured in his home. And, and, and then, I'm like, "Man, I would wear that as a T-shirt," I'm thinking to myself. And, and then, it, it, it's gonna sound weird, but it dawned on me, like, "I'm Dave Chappelle, hanging out with Eddie Murphy on his birthday." It's just the two of us. And that's important.

• 1:39:56Speaker 00

  Another time, I, I chased Bob Dylan down for a meeting. And when he got there, he don't know me at all, but they, I guess someone told him, "You should meet with this guy." And he was like, "Yeah," and so he goes, "Yeah, man, what are we talking about, anyway?" He was like, he was like, real standoffish, and I just kept asking him questions. And it took him a while to realize, like, "Oh, man, he just didn't want to know about that stuff." And I'd be like, "What about the sixties?" He goes, "Man, I don't want to talk about the sixties, man," he would say. But, but by the end of it...

• 1:40:25Speaker 00

  You know, Bob Dylan was explaining to Dave Chappelle what many Bruce was like. And so when I think about legacy, it's always in these moments where I meet

• 1:40:39Speaker 00

  the first black first lady of the United States and her brother. And I'm like, you know, as simple as these meetings are, they're important. They happen. Credit Scott King went to college here. And then she went off and married Martin Luther King. And a few years after she graduated from Antioch, her husband came back with her and they did the commencement address at Antioch College. And that's just, you know, at the time, it was just another day in Yell Springs. But now, you know, I've never met any of these people, but I know Antioch and it's our history.

• 1:41:20Speaker 00

  So I think the buildings encapsulate the message of what our lives have been. That you, you know, I've got to spend all day with Mr. Robinson and Miss Obama. And I feel like I've known you for years. I feel like when you speak of your mother, I can just see her vividly. And it makes me want to smoke.

• 1:41:49Speaker 00

  But, but as simple as it all is, what you've accomplished with your life and how you've gone about it is, you know, very well will live far beyond our bodies. And so for me, more than money or anything, I hoard memories.

• 1:42:12Speaker 00

  Today is like a memory, like I'll close my eyes and I'll treasure the day for the rest of my life. Even if we became the best of friends, this time was such a special time to be together. So, you know, I also look at it like when I meet people, I try now. It used to not be like this, but I try to remember it by myself because I had made fun of a comedian once. Who was younger than me, just busting his balls. But he got really hurt and he did all this press about how, how bad I was. And I was mad at first and then I, I called him up like, why you say all those things about me? He said, well, you forgot that you said this and the other. And then dawned on me like, oh, it never occurred to me that this person might look up to me.

• 1:42:57Speaker 00

  It's just another person I'd see at the comedy club. So now I'm more mindful in that, in that regard. So, uh, I mean, you know, one day at a time, one foot in front of the other. Uh, uh, I look back only at the places where the treasures buried. But I look back at all the, the shadows and the scary faces. And I just try to just, you know, I, I, I'm just hoping that my legacy is something like that applause break Richard Pryor got in Newark.

• 1:43:29Michelle Obama?

  Well, you, you're well on your way. For sure.

• 1:43:34Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:43:35Michelle Obama?

  Thank you.

• 1:43:36Speaker 00

  Man, what an honor. Thank you.

• 1:43:38Michelle Obama?

  It's been a special visit for us, really. It really has. You, you all should be proud of the community you've built. All of you.

• 1:43:58Craig Robinson?

  I'm mad. Appreciate you.

• 1:44:01Speaker 00

  Thank you, man. Thank you.

• 1:44:02Craig Robinson?

  Thanks for having us. Yeah, I guess I have to officially close it out now. So we really appreciate it, man. And it's been, it's been a wonderful couple of days. And, uh, thank you all for being so welcoming and to, to me and my sister and, and our, and our colleagues. It's been absolutely wonderful.

• 1:44:25Speaker 00

  Man, Craig, don't be freaked out because I know you don't know me that well, but you'll see in time. I love you, Craig.

• 1:44:35Craig Robinson?

  I love you too, Dave.

• 1:44:37Michelle Obama?

  I love you, Dave.

• 1:45:04Craig Robinson?

  This episode is brought to you by Cologuard. I knew that I shouldn't delay screening for colon cancer, and Cologuard has made that process 1 million times easier for all of us. I just answered a few questions about my age and medical history, and once their licensed clinician determined I was eligible, they issued the prescription and the Cologuard Plus kit was sent right to my home. No doctor's office visit necessary. For me, there was just immediate relief in getting it done. It cost me $0 with my insurance. It took me truly 15 minutes, and now I can rest easier knowing I screened properly. Plus, if you get a negative result, you generally don't need a repeat Cologuard test for three years.

• 1:45:48Craig Robinson?

  If you're 45 or older and at average risk, it's time to screen for colon cancer, even if you feel perfectly healthy. And Cologuard Plus gives you an option you can use right at home. Talk to your healthcare provider about screening for colon cancer with Cologuard or request it online today at Cologuard.com, where they have an easy telehealth option. Don't wait.

• 1:46:11Speaker 04

  Cologuard products are intended to screen adults 45 and older at average risk for colorectal cancer. Do not use if you have had a personal history of colorectal cancer or polyps, have inflammatory bowel disease, a family history of colorectal cancer, or certain hereditary syndromes, or a positive result from another colon cancer screening method within that test-recommended screening interval. Cologuard results should be interpreted with caution as false positives and false negatives do occur. Available by prescription only.