 And you got fired because of being too funny? Not for being late, not for smoking, not for cussing too much. You know what gave me the most rules? As a headliner, don't do this, don't say this, don't do that. T.K. Kirkland. Really? T to the mother dutton K. Why he do that? Why? Well, because a lot of comedians, headliner comedians thing is they don't wanna work hard. Yeah, we on boss talk, one on one, one on one. Yeah, we gonna talk. If I wasn't gonna make it doing this, we're gonna make it doing nothing else. Then I get a phone call from my man, Derek Kenner. Shout out to Derek Kenner. He say, hey man, I'm writing for WBLS, for Earthquake's radio show, cause he was featuring for Earthquake at the time. Got a radio segment, and they need some quick little one-liners. I know you good at them. Send me a couple of them. I just text about four or five of them, send them in. Turns into a writing job for Earthquake's first radio show. Big. Quake comes to Dallas, Derek can't make it. I fill in for Quake. Right then at that same moment, Derek stops featuring for Quake. Quake needs a feature. You. Proved myself that weekend. Hey young, you wanna go on a road with me? Three years in a row, I'm on a road with Earthquake. Wow. By featuring for Quake, I meet all the OGs. But by also, Earthquake was the first time, cause everybody else, I got fired. I would do two or three shows and get fired for being too funny. They don't want you to take their spotlight. You're not here to be funny. Faizon Cat, I mean, Faizon say Cat Williams pushed him away from the show because he thought he couldn't, he could come behind Faizon. Faizon tells me this, and I understand what you saying now because he's saying, he can't go behind me. Our shit came from us trying to put a tour together and him thinking that I was not going to be funny. So where Amber is, he's like, okay, I'm gonna put, I'm gonna say okay, but I'm okay, yeah, but I've been doing this before you. Okay? Yeah. I can tell you I was on stage with Robin Harris, David Wains, we had to bring it. And what happened was I was smashing him. You know what I'm saying? He couldn't follow me. For sure. So that's where it really came from. The honest, he was like, oh, so he thought he was gonna fuck with my money. I'm like, no, you're not gonna do that either. You're not gonna do that. He didn't know what he was dealing with. The first comedian to ever give me love for being funny was Rodney Perry. The first comedian to promote me from the host spot to the feature spot because the host couldn't even get his credits right was Lil Rel. Those were the first two dudes to actually give me a stamp of validation when it came to working at the white people comedy clubs. So the white comedy clubs would never book me because I wouldn't go through their process. That's what I said. I don't encourage nobody to take my route. What is their process? I did it to bar and grill legends, real time, Brick House Lounge. I'm going to the black clubs. I'm doing black comedy. The white club comedy route. But isn't that normally what black comedians normally do? That's what black comedians normally did. Okay. So just because you black skin don't make you a black comedian. That's why you'll have black comedians that you've never heard of take off because they were mainstream comedians. They worked the white rooms. They went to the white clubs. So when you go to hyenas or the improv on open mic night, they have a sign-up sheet about 40, 50 names long. No matter what time you showed up, the person there decides where you're going. So they're gonna fuck with you. They're gonna put you on fourth block, which is the last 10 names. So you might get there, 7 p.m. to sign up. You ain't going on to one in the morning. And I did this week after week, even though I'm the funniest dude in the room. Another thing they would do, the gatekeepers. So while the club is full of people that came to see a comedy show, they're gonna put their friends up, bumming their ass off. She just couldn't joke their way out of a one-star bathroom. Have you ever seen somebody get booed off stage? Absolutely. He been booed off stage. No. He bummed. Yes. But not booed. But not booed. And damn sure not off stage. No, that's given up. That's real. That's given up. And I'm gonna do my time. You're gonna have to cut my mic off before I walk off stage. I would never let the boo. I would never let the crowd ruin my check. I'm booked to do a certain amount of time. I'm gonna do my time. Now you're not, I wasn't booked for you to like me. I was booked to do my time. So the only way I can get my money is if I do all of my time. Oh, okay. That's real. So I'm learning now. Let's go. So that's when you start to get afraid. Because it's all about paying bills. So the next time you get a feature opportunity, it's bad enough that the clubs don't fuck with you. It's bad enough that you don't play their game because you realize that it's rigged. So you making a name for yourself and you going around the country building relationships with these comics without doing it the white folks way. So then when these headliners come to town, they telling the club, no, I want Black Run to feature for me. So now the club gotta break down and call me. Which is why I would be fourth or fifth or sixth on the call list when the headline was out. I need a black comedian to open for me. Even though black is my first name and my stage name, I'm number six or seven on the list even though I'm at the top of the heap as far as skill. Is that why you named yourself Black Run? Well, yeah, because I'm proud of myself. But I named myself Black Run because when I was in the hood, living my hood life, everybody called me Black. Okay. And then when I would be doing my corporate life, everybody would call me Run. So my dichotomy is both of those. So I'm Black to some and I'm Run to others. I'm Black Run to everybody. Got it. So working with Quake, Quake see me on stage half-stepping. He pulled me to the side in the dressing room. He said, hey, young, when I first saw you in Dallas, this ain't what I saw. I said, well, OG, I was doing a guest spot in Dallas. I never thought I would be working with you. He said, you say that to say what? I said, man, I'm just trying to play my part. He said, I ain't one of them cats. I didn't bring you here to pity pat the room. I didn't bring you here to pacify the audience. I brought you here. Because of what had happened previously? Yes, ma'am. When you got fired because of being too funny? Not for being late, not for smoking, not for cussing too much. You know, it gave me the most rules as a headliner. Don't do this, don't say this, don't do that. T.K. Kirkland. Really? T to the mother doesn't K. Why he do that? Why? Well, because a lot of comedians, headliner comedians thing is they don't want to work hard and some of them don't want to overrun the room. So if he going to do a whole bunch of sex jokes, he going to do a whole bunch of bitching and hoeing. He going to do a whole bunch of... He don't want you to do the same thing. He don't want you to do it too, because now the crowd has ran down, they've heard too much of that. So his jokes lose, they sting if that was your material too, especially if you're going to be on stage for 30 minutes before him. But do you think that makes sense? It makes a whole lot of sense. But at the same time, it also comes from a place of fear if you ask me. Because if your material was strong, it don't matter what you was talking about on stage before me. I don't care if you set a dog on fire right in front, right before you said my name. The minute the song plays, and I go up there, I'm from the race that hold chalkboard and teach a new lesson. That's just my take on it. And I learned that from the OGs and the dogs that I worked with from quake and then from then on. Quake said, man, I didn't bring you here to push it for it. I brought you here to push me. I'm trying to work a new special. I'm trying to get a new hour together. I need you to push me. So then I started going on stage, dogging it. So then I'm sitting in the back and because I'm an earthquake fan, I'm watching his show every show. And you saw the way how you pushed him. You saw that. I saw where I pushed him. And then I also saw ways like, oh, OG, if you didn't say it like this, but if you said it like that, I think you might have a stronger response from the crowd. So you were helping him. Because I'm a student of the gang. So I'm starting to punch his jokes up. And at first he like, young nigga, who are you to give me a punch up? And then he said, I'm, I tested to him. He said, spit it to me. You know, don't, don't write it to me. Say it to me how it should be said. And I told him the joke the way he should say it. And he slapped the steering wheel. He said, boy, you got something. And that night in his set, he told the joke my way instead of his way. And everybody cracked up. When he got the response, he looked off stage and looked at me and nodded his head. I didn't know I had just got hired. I just thought I got validated. Like, yeah, that was funny. From that moment on, then I became a trusted counsel. So when he would write a joke, he, young, what you think about this? And that's validation right there. When the OG, a man who been doing this long, as long as you've been alive, but who been professionally doing this, as long as you've been knowing what standup is, now values your opinion. All the rest of you local niggas can't tell me nothing. So from that out, when he would introduce me to people, this is my young gunner. He right for me. And you know, a lot of comedians won't even tell that. No. Just like musicians and entertainers, according to them, they write everything. That's ego. So. True greatness has no problem acknowledging the people who helped you be great. Henry Ford had that concept. That's right. I'm going to put myself in a room full of great people and what comes from that, we are going to be, you know what I'm saying? That's what they say. The sum is greater than its individual parts. If you surround yourself with great people, y'all going to make something that's greater than any one of y'all could have ever did individually. Yeah, we on boss talk one on one, one on one. Yeah, we gonna talk.