What Brought Dave Chappelle Back

Look, you get out in that world, Joe, you're famous everywhere. You've never been to these places, but when you get there, they're going to know you. Or there's a thing that happened to me years ago in London where I was in a restaurant and I was kind of waiting for the table and when the lady, she asked my name, she said, what's your name? I go, David. She goes, well, David on the list. What's your last name? I go, Chappelle. And I look around and everyone's kind of looking. I could tell they had heard of me, but they didn't know that that was me. Oh, right, right. It was that kind of thing. Yeah. This was after I quit the show, but not long after, like 05, 06. What did you do for those 10 years? I don't know a lot of shit. I learned a lot. I mean, but it was a humble existence. I had had young children and I was raising my kids. I was living a suburban life. And then every once in a while I get this feeling like I'm the funniest guy. I got to get out there and I would fly to Denver, do a weekend in with them. And that's when you would read. I was doing like these six hour shows. I performed. I got desperate for it. I loved it. Yeah. And at one point I had done one of these big comedy tours that Live Nation put together, that oddball tour. And I did all right. I had a good run. I had a good run. I wiped out in Hartford and that was all over the Internet. That was the first time that thing had happened to me. But for the most part, the tour went good, but it was a tough tour for me because it was a long show. I had to close it. My chomps weren't as tight as they normally were, but I wouldn't. I didn't suck by any means, but, you know, could have been better. Humbling. It was humbling. But it made me want to go back. The shows were like every show was like 20,000 seats. They were like all these. What year was this around? Shit. I can't remember. Obama was president, maybe. I don't know, eight, nine, ten. But you were famous for just showing up places. You were just flying. That's the one. That's when I started. In the summer I started riding motorcycles, which is like very uncharacteristically. But I loved it. And I rode. I'm going to ride my bike across country. And I did. I cheated. I was with me. It was trailor, so if it rained or something, or if I just wanted to bail, I could. But I rode across country. And I'd never seen America like that. We talked about how big it is and expansive. And, man, I saw all the little pockets on a bike. You know, you really feel the environment. You see things. And I would. I'd stop and play. One of my favorite birthdays was here in Austin. I'd never been to Austin, really. And I pulled up on Sixth Street. I'd been to Austin, but I'd never seen Austin. Pulled up on Sixth Street. It was my birthday. I was riding with a guy. He was like, what do you want to do for your birthday? And at that time I wasn't drinking or smoking or anything. I said, I wanted to stand up. And I found a bar. It was right around closing. And I saw the DJ packing up. And I said, can I use your microphone? And he recognized me. So he was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I went up there and I just started talking shit. And, you know, but it was just like, you know, teasing the bar staff as they're cleaning up, talking to patrons. You know, get a home fast buddy and all that shit. Right. And people laughed. And it was like doing, I used to do street comedy in New York. It kind of reminded me of that, like building a crowd. And in the wild, people stopped and listened. Now, I'm not a tech savvy dude. Twitter had come out. And I guess people had started tweeting like, yo, this is crazy. They should probably just in here ranting. Man, it might have took like an hour. That place was packed. And I must have stayed on stage three or four hours. Wow. And, you know, they closed the door. They locked the door because it was after hours. And I was in there killing it. Wow. Best birthday ever had. One of the best birthday ever had. Sometime around when I turned 40, I just decided that I'm going to have fun. You know, like right now, you know, this is a weird thing to talk about. After DMX passed and Black Rob and, you know, now far more often, people from my peer group pass away. And it just makes me feel like it's not a midlife crisis. It's almost the opposite of that. It's like, look, I know I don't get to stay here forever. My time is limited and precious. And I don't take any of these things for granted. I don't take this money for granted, this platform. And I'm not talking about the fame platform. I'm talking about comedy, this genre. Like, I mean, this genre has been so good for me. Catch new episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience for free only on Spotify. Watch back catalog JRE videos on Spotify, including clips, easily, seamlessly switch between video and audio experience. 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