When you take a pause before delivering your punch line, you will be using silence as a creative entity in itself.

This whole urban rap thing needs to be pulled back some. The ghetto is being glorified, and there's nothing good about the ghetto except getting out of one.

On a good night, I'm just into the flow and seeing the pictures and words in my mind clearly before I say them. On a bad night, which to be honest are nowhere near as bad as when I was starting out, I just concentrate on performing the routines correctly. I focus on my delivery.

When you take a pause before delivering your punch line, you will be using silence as a creative entity in itself.

Be prepared to cut your little extra lines that come after a big punchline and move on to the next joke or routine to give your set more punch and crispness. You can keep them in your set, but if the audience applauds your big line, don't do your tag when it dies down, just move on.

Taping yourself and making yourself listen to the tape of each performance no matter how bad is really important. There's always a nugget line or a direction pointed out to you in even the worst show.

Being black and speaking properly are not mutually exclusive. My father was an African, and he spoke beautifully at home. Nelson Mandela speaks beautifully. Should Mandela put his hat on backwards and say, 'Yo, homey, this is Nelson. Yo, Winnie, yo, this is def'?