Kevin Hart: Dave Chappelle is the GOAT !

That's some of our favorite stories though, or someone who comes back. Like Dave Chappelle's a perfect example of that. I can do what the fuck I want. Not only that, Dave did it in a legendary way. They offer him all this money to do this Comedy Central show in a different way. They want him to change it and tone it down. They want to make it more suitable for advertisers. Too many voices. And he's like, you know what? I'm just going to go to Africa. I'm out. He just went to Africa. Just took off and then came back and said I quit. And then stopped doing stand up. He was doing, I don't know if you know, he was doing stand up in a park in Seattle. He'd show up with a fucking box. And just do it. Plug a microphone into it. And just start doing stand up and people would gather around. Like what the fuck is happening here? No, he didn't want any money. He would just show up at shows. If he wanted to do a show, he would show up at a comedy club. No money. Just show up. Do a show after the show is over. Are you ready to laugh? It's a great Dave Chappelle story. I'm in Seattle. I think I was in Seattle. Sold out. Like some arena fucking thing I'm doing in Seattle. And we got two shows same night. We do about 30,000 people. Right. It's a fucking great day in Seattle. I get word that Dave Chappelle is in Seattle. And Dave Chappelle randomly put up a theater show. He's performing. Tonight. Yeah, he's performing tonight. Call Dave. Dave, are you fucking in Seattle? Yeah. When did you book a show here? I would have fucking came. Dude, I'm here. I'm at the theater. Oh, I didn't even know, man. What did you mean? Dave, I'm at the fucking arena. What? I'm gonna see if I can get down there to you. All right, man. Yeah, I just put them up. What time do you think you're gonna get here? I don't know. After my show, I push the time back, man. Dave, what? Push the time back? What did you put on set? I don't know, man. I just tell them I'll do it and I show up, man. I just call them, tell them, we're gonna push it back, man. I get to the fucking theater. I rush after our show. Dave has a trailer, and there's like a little motor thing on the back of the trailer. It's like a little bus, a fucking motor train-like bus. And then there's like a little, the things that you pull shit in attached to it. I say, what are you doing here? He's like, I don't know, man. We've been going cross country. We taking our bikes, man. We're riding cross country. So I just, when I need money, I just book a show and just tell him. What? What the fuck? He's so different. He's so different, and he's so him. But the freedom. Dave has a level of freedom. Me and Chris Rock talk about it, man. No one's like him. His level of freedom, I put myself in his place. You know, I got the corporate relationships and the CEO hat and the companies. So, you know, I can't do certain things because the consequences aren't just for me. It's for the people that are underneath this umbrella, if something were to happen. I have to be responsible. I have to understand that it's not just about me. And I'm envious and jealous of Dave's ability to go and be free as a comic in the times where we desperately need to be. We desperately need to be, and Dave can be. And I bow down to him. I called him. I don't give a fuck about these numbers or anything I got. Dave, in my opinion, you're the goat. In my opinion, your last special has allowed you to surpass the Richard Pryor, in my opinion. Dave Chappelle, I got to witness, do groundbreaking, controversial movement as a comedian in the times where comedy was being frowned upon. Comedians were being held accountable for doing what we thought we would never be ridiculed for. The one person that stood on a pedestal that got the attention that no others can get outside of myself, a rock, a Seinfeld, he said, in the time where the fucking fire is the hottest, I'm going to do what nobody else will. You got to fucking applaud that. He stood up for comedy. He stood up for comedy. Whether you want to see that or not, he did that. Yes, he did it when there's the most pressure. When there was the most fucking pressure and when the times of, we can cancel you, by the way, which is the stupidest shit that I've ever fucking witnessed in my 40 years of life, the whole idea of, I can kill you today with the goddamn crooked-for-body knock in your life. By the way, this is a real feeling that people have. Yes. I'm in control of your life. If I want your life to stop and be over, I'll cancel you. Yeah. And that means you can't live no more. This is how ridiculous it is. Think about the meaning of council culture. So you're saying that my life is over, I can no longer survive or provide for myself. Cancel. I don't know. Figure it out. You're canceled. Dave Chappelle said, fuck all that. Do what you want to do. I'm going to do me. That is epic. That is groundbreaking. That is goat-like behavior. So I bow down to Mr. Chappelle. He's very important. He's one of the most important figures in the history of comedy. Absolutely. Because of the fact that he's willing to do this when the scrutiny is the highest. And also just his story, the way he did it, the way he walked away for 10 years, and then came back and immediately went right to the top. That is my brother from another mother. I love him. I love him. Chris Rock. Chris Rock, maybe I'll give you one more. Me and Chris Rock, we're at the Comedy Cellar. I call Chris. Hey, Chris. Come down to the cellar, man. I'm working on my jokes tonight. I'll see what you think. All right, Kev. I'll come down. Chris comes down. He said, yeah, I'm going to get up too. I got some shit I'm working on too. So tell him what you think. Bet. I go on stage. Chris Rock sits in the back of the cellar. Get off stage. Chris is like funny shit, Kev. I was like, yeah, you like it, right? Got some stuff. Got some notes. He said, yeah, I'm about to go out. Aren't done. I'm sitting here. Watch it. Chris goes up. Chris got some funny shit. Fuck Chris. Funny. I like it. Man, Chris has a nice conversation. We're about to eat. Dave comes in. What up, Dave? What you doing? I was going to go up. Oh, fuck, man. Chris went up. We won't come down and watch you. All right. Dave goes on stage. Dave does about an hour. There's a moment where Dave is probably at about 40, 45 minutes in. Me and Chris both look at each other. And at the same time, without saying the word, balled up the material that we just worked on. We fucking, without saying it, without saying it, I ripped the page that I had in my little book. And Chris just balled up his little fucking thing. And we were like, he's unbelievable. We came in crafted. We got some shit that we wanted to fucking work on. Dave just went up there and talked. It's like he's living like a legend. You know what I mean? Like if you wanted to have a legend of a comedian, you would talk about a guy who created the greatest sketch show of all time. I mean, it only went for two seasons. But when you talk about like sketches like Clayton Bigsby, when you talk about the Rick James shit, these are so classic. They're unstoppable. And then he goes away. He goes away like a fucking mountain man. He vanishes. He's in a farm in Ohio. You hear where is he? He's on a farm. He got a fucking farm. He's on a farm in Ohio. What? Is he doing comedy? Sometimes he randomly just shows up. He's at his barn. But he does this for 10 years. I was in Denver. Right. And this is before his comeback. I was in Denver and I'm doing stand up and I get off stage and I open the green room and Dave's there. I go, Dave, what are you doing? And he goes, Oh, hey, Joe. I just decided to fly into Denver. I go, you don't have a show scheduled? Nothing goes. No, man. I heard you were here. I started flying. I go, do you want to go up? He goes, Oh, should I go? Fuck yeah. Hold on a second. I run back. People are leaving. People are getting up. I go, come back. Come back. Tell everybody to come back. I go, Dave Chappelle's here. And like, what? They all come back, sit down. And he does 40 minutes and destroys. I love the best part of that story is you want to go up. Should I? Dave. Dave, you just took a flight to Denver. Yeah, Dave. Why not? I guess. So then he takes me out. We go out on the town to all these fucking spots that I didn't even know existed in Denver. He knows where all these after hours places are. You go behind an alley. You knock on a door. They open it up. Yeah, everything's velvet line. Yeah, a small private bar. He's he's he is one of one. He's one of one. One of one. One of one. One of one. This is what the fuck it should be. Like you see this is this is us embracing. This is us embracing. We're embracing someone. Yes. Embracing that there's nothing wrong with that world. It's important. There's nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong with embracing someone is doing fucking what you can deem as great shit. You're supposed to. You're supposed to. You have to. It's part of the thing. You have to. You have to. You're supposed to. Sing praise shower praise on people that are doing it the right way. Yeah. No one's ever done it better than Dave. He's doing it the right way. No. And even like I said, even the legendary story, it's like a he's like a character in a book. You know what I'm saying? A mountain man. He's like a mountain man. He goes off to a farm outside of Dayton, Ohio. Who the fuck does that? By the way, it tells me, Kev, you got to come down to the farm. Dave, I don't want. I don't know what that is. That kind of time. I don't want to. What do you want me to do down there, Dave? What do you want me to do? You got to come down, man. It's a good time. We're going to have a good time, man. It's a barn fires music. Dave, it's a farm. You got to promise me. All right. I'm coming, Dave. I fucking I like literally I can only hope to be remotely close to his creative as he is at that point in my career and find this jello like he's in an amazing jello right now. He knows who he is. He's not compromising. No one can tell him any different. He is who he is. I mean, he just he's unapologetically himself and he gets it. Part of his brilliance is not just being in a brilliant observer and a brilliant orator and a and a describer of life, but also in being who he is perfectly. Like he doesn't have any conflict in being who he is. He knows who he knows how to do it. He knows how to do it right. And he's okay with not having. And when he walks on stage, man, he strolls on that stage like he belongs there. He's okay. Yeah, I have it. You know, fuck.