Rickey Smiley on the spot ( Brodrick Donell Smiley )

0:00Hey, it's a strawberry one. Clicked. Stammery Anderson. How y'all doing out there today? I hope everybody is doing well. If you're not doing well, let's find a way to get well. Look well. And of course you already know it be well. Right now we are getting ready to be listening to Ricky Smiley on this spot. Talk about all the first time you step on stage as a comedian and what was that experience like? And I am nervous. I still get nervous. Really? Yeah. And you told me one day you said, look, if you don't get nervous, that means you don't care. Right. The nervousness is a good thing. And butterflies, man. Yeah. Into the bathroom. How many times have you had to run to the bathroom before you go on stage? Like you got that nervous. My anxiety is a natural, natural, natural, accident. Yeah. So I don't want to take no

1:01lancet of another. Man, when I tell you, I had to, I was so nervous. I actually had to go through the bathroom and throw up when I came off stage because of the pressure. Oh my God. What show was this? What show was this? Oh, there was in Atlanta. Up to Donnell, Rollins got a stand in the front of me on the Martin Lawrence tour. And you don't want a bomb. And then all of the bloggers and celebrities on the first three rows in the Phillips arena at the time was packed. A state farm arena was packed and I was just scared. Yeah. And Donnell was a beast. He hard to follow, but you can do it. Yeah. I didn't know I could. I was nervous. So I had to focus. But you had that running to that bathroom and that dressing on that. It ain't nothing I can do to control it. You know what I'm saying? My grandma like, with taking some avial appeal to him, like none of that works. When I get up there and I tell the first joke and I give my first love, everything relaxes. I'm fine. I can eat after I perform, but it don't bother me before I perform. I'm a hot miss. Right. And so, so you've been working for a while

2:03and I'm 12 years now. And when did we first meet? We met in 2016, which was a year before. I quit my corporate job to be a full-time comedian. Right. Yeah. And I had I had been asked to start on. Yes. At the start on, you know, they used to have this little open mic competition in the small room. Right. And the owners of the start on Bruce and Chi Chi, they saw me and they were like, you need to meet Ricky Smiley. Like I feel like y'all would mesh. You know, you have synergy. And I met you. And the first thing you told me, because I had a little bottle of Jack Dames, which I was trying to use to help me with my nervousness. Yeah. And you were like, put that away. You don't need that. You know, you won't all the credit for your funny. And yeah, ever since then, I don't drink before the show. Good. I do a little something after. Right. Yeah. Because you're so natural. You don't, you don't, you know, you didn't need any of that. Right. And I'm talking about I like when you would be on stage of I have to go by high. You I would be nervous because I can hear people in their stomp and I can hear the last. So you can't hear it on stage. But when you're on the side of the stage, you can hear it. It's different.

3:06Yeah. I mean, here people scream and holler. And something like, Oh, Lord, I hope they don't be tired. By the time I get out there, like, you be coming with it. And you standing in one spot. I got to run. They on the floor, climb all up on the curtain, run through the audience. Yes. To get to that. You stand in one spot and just rock. But you are one of the top physical comedians of our time. You know, like it takes, it takes somebody to just not care about being judged to move around the stage like you do. You know, and in real life, I'm an introvert. You know, so it's not my nature or my personality to just move around a lot. But I do learn a lot from you. And I learned a lot from you and thank you for everything you did. You know, for the whole food production. Oh, yeah. Coming up there, opening up the show, got in the right room and help anybody seen the special, the food, the food, the special comedian extraordinaire, the genius Rita Brent, helped write and put it together and got my mind. We went on the road for weeks to prepare for that.

4:10Yeah. It was a long time. Yeah. You used to be on me too. Hey, you need to do this. Don't do that. Up to six shows in a weekend. I mean, it's like a marathon. People don't see that work. Right. People don't see that work. Like, I'd be telling the young comedians because they like, well, I want to do a special. I want to do a special. I'm like, you have to get in the club. You have to test this material out. You can't just hop on stage talking about you doing a special because it's not special. You know, so take your time. Don't be so impatient. Right. Chris Roxy, he being a club for a whole year. Yeah. Working out a year. Yeah. To break that material. Yeah. So I hope that the young comedians will like pay attention to that instead of just being impulsive and maybe patient. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Today's fun. Today's fun. Mm-hmm. Ain't no way the stuff that you come up with, the stuff that you write, the stuff that you produce, the stuff that you come up with from Fixie Jesus Howell. Like... Well, I think it helps that I'm a comedic musician, you know, that helps. And so that's, I consider music one of my superpowers as a comedian. And you know that, you know, your first special casket shark.

5:12Jamie Fox knows this, you know, you go from doing your stand up, you get on the piano, and then you're doing musical comedy. And so I think for that Fixie Jesus allows me to work that muscle, you know. But, you know, y'all don't know it. A lot of times I be up to five a.m. like, you know, this morning. Yeah. And sometimes I won't sleep. We get so excited. We wait every Wednesday for Fixie Jesus. Then you got your own intro. Fixie Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. And the next day you know, here you go. But it's fun and people receive it well, you know, because I might put some gospel lyrics to a secular song and things like that. It's one of you did a turn off the lights. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. So we got to make fun of stuff, you know. And you know, it's so serious. And you don't got, yeah. Speaking of which comedy is so different today, you got cancel culture you have. So, you know, we were talking about it on the radio this morning on the morning shows morning. Our Elinix was offended by jokes that Martin would do on Pam.

6:15And it's just part of that whole cancel culture. Like you did something in the in the 90s or, you know, just like Martin and Pam like this Martin. So you're going to cancel him. You got to talk about Fred Sanford and unanswered. Oh, yeah. And it's just a lot to go around. How do you feel about comedy versus cancel culture? I mean, we're in your words. You were speaking about Dave Chappelle. You know, you said he is uncancelable, but bull. Right. And for some people, that's true. You know, when you are so good at what you do, you can't avoid this idea of being canceled. But I mean, it's just because everything is on social media, you know, but you know, you think about Martin and Pam. They like system brother. Like you got somebody in the neighborhood like they're right now. What they just talking to us about each other. But it's also acting. It's acting. And it was funny in this legendary. And I've been rewatching Martin episodes on Netflix. And I'm like, man, this stuff was funny. You know, watching Sanford and Son yesterday. And I was just just a way for it. Sanford and great. Girlfriend was going back and forth, roping each other. Man, that was just a great episode when you watch Archie Bunker.

7:21Yeah, but you watch it Jefferson. Yeah, how they just really went across the man when you watch Chibi Chase and Richard prior sitting there. Going back and forth, exchanging words or whatever and not like pushing the envelope. A comedy because everybody is so damn sensitive. Yeah, but you gotta remember, it's comedy. Things are not to be taken literally, you know, like you just gotta get the stick out your butt. You know what I mean? Like, and I don't like this idea of policing the craft. You know, we don't go to where musicians are and artists and tell them to not sing about what color they but holy is. And things like that. That's what y'all want to talk and sing about. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm not here to police you and teach you how to tell you how to express your artistry. And you shouldn't be doing that for me because this ain't what you do. Yeah. But also if you have an issue with something, you can just not consume it. Yeah, keep scrolling. You can block. Chase a channel. You can literally do that. Absolutely. That's great. So, um, so how does being a comic and with everything you do, how does that affect your mental health?

8:26No goodness. For the ball conversation.