I started when I was 14. I figured out that's what I wanted to do when I was 14. Even when I was six, I can remember people telling me, "You're gonna be a comedian," and all this stuff.

At the time, I was reading this Miles Davis book, and he was talking about coming to New York right after he was in high school. It kind of made me feel like, "Yeah." I didn't want to go to college; I wanted to do stand-up. And I figured, "What's the point of doing stand-up around DC? I'm always going to be under-appreciated there because I started there." I felt like I was strong enough and unique enough that I should give it a big leash to shine. New York was the best thing that ever happened to me as a comedian.

Every black American is bilingual. All of them. We speak street vernacular and we speak 'job interview.'

I'm an introspective dude.

Why don't you click your heels three times and go back to Africa.

There's not too many people that don't think I'm crazy, for walking away from so much money. I'm at a restaurant with my wife, it's a nice restaurant, we're eating dinner. I look across the room, I say, 'You see this guy over here, across the room? He has $100 million.' And we're eating the same entree. So, OK, fine, I don't have $50 million or whatever it was, but say I have $10 million in the bank. The difference in lifestyle is miniscule.

I get a little heated when I talk about the past. But I wanted to be clear - I'm not mad at anybody - not anymore.