Dave Chappelle might be back … for good this time. For the past year, he’s been touring the states selling out stand-up shows. Recently, GQ sat down with Dave and talked The Dave Chappelle Show, family, Kanye West, Idris Elba and D’Angelo.
Check the excerpts below.
I know you used to live near D’Angelo. Do you think his album will ever come out?
I’d like to think so. I haven’t talked to him personally in a while, but the last time I called him, he had a long outgoing message on his machine. It was like a Malcolm X speech. And the last part was so intense. He was like, “The price of freedom is death!” Beeeep! I didn’t even leave that dude a message. I just hung up the phone. Like, just listening to D’Angelo’s answering machine puts you on the no-fly list, it’s so militant. When a guy goes away like that, they might not come back for any number of reasons. Yesterday I was watching this YouTube video, and it’s William F. Buckley interviewing Muhammad Ali when Ali was banned from boxing. And one of the guys on the panel asks Ali, “Do you miss being the heavyweight champion of the world?” Ali is like, “What makes you think I’m not still the champ? I’m still the champ.” The guy replied, “Wait, no, no, no—that’s not what I mean. Do you miss boxing and blah blah blah?” And Ali is like, “Nah, I don’t miss boxing. As a matter of fact, I could call my sparring partner today. I could box all afternoon. I miss boxing for money.” In other words, in his mind, just because he wasn’t in the public eye, his title was no less legitimate. And his capabilities were no less legitimate. He looked at it like, “I’m just being separated from my livelihood, not what I love.” So I look at a guy like D’Angelo and I’m like, I’m sure he’s still making music. It’s just a matter of whether or not he wants to share that with us or not.
On Chappelle’s Show, you came into contact with a lot of guys who later became famous. Like Kanye. One of his first TV performances was on Chappelle’s Show?
Yeah! And no one was more surprised than me when he did the surprise performance during my Radio City show. It was weird. You know what he said after the fact, which I thought was funny? He said, “Why wasn’t I on the show in the first place? Like, why wasn’t I booked?” So I don’t know what happened via the machinery. It also could be that Kanye’s like a girl that’s so pretty, nobody asks her to the dance. You know what I mean? I knew the day before that he was coming to see the show. Then, as I was walking onstage, right before I went on, Kanye was there and was like, “Yo, can I rock with y’all?” And I thought he meant in general—like, “Yeah, man, always! We all cool for life! Blah blah blah.” Talking all that shit. And then afterwards, when I say good night, I looked up. Kanye is actually onstage, standing there with a microphone in his hand. I was like, “This is nuts.”
Do you watch a lot of television?
I started being the new television viewer, where I come in late to a series and just binge-watch it online. And I love it, because sometimes the anticipation, waiting from week to week, is too much. I binge-watched the first two seasons of The Walking Dead that way. I probably didn’t get into Breaking Bad until, like, the third season. I watched The Wire retroactively, too.
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