Originality is never embraced as quickly as the commonplace.

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'?

I advise treating the studio audience like a nightclub audience because that's the reason you're doing television - to get them to come see you in a nightclub.

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.

Evaluate every performance on: stage presence, concentration, delivery, material and lessons learned.

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.

Bombing teaches you how badly you want to become a comedian. Because unless it's a burning desire, you'll quit when the consistent bombing becomes too much to take.