Daveed Diggs on the Need for Artistic Expression | From Who's With Me? with W. Kamau Bell

19:00W. Kamau Bell:there's no industry there which is a it's a wild place in hindsight to to be such a robust like arts forward place where there isn't an industry behind it so all of us are just making it yeah And like making the time to make it and figuring out how to work other jobs and make it. And that's just what you do because like art is necessary and we make art. And so, yeah, that, yeah, so that, that's just part of the thing. And I have, so I was just thinking about this today. Like I have a lot of, I have hired people and also keep other people around me who are concerned with product. Right. Because I don't even know how.

19:40Daveed Diggs:Oh, you need people who are like, that's a good unit. we can sell that yeah and i mean that not in a cynical way but in like a this is a capitalistic society we live in you have made a good unit that we can this is a good thing we can do yeah or even

19:52W. Kamau Bell:you know even in films like this i am such a process guy that i don't you know i if i see a thing that's like this is a really interesting script i would like to do that's all i need to want to do it and other people can advise me like that's gonna tank that's not or this is whatever ultimately I can decide to do it even like while shooting somebody to tell me that's what directors are for I'm so interested in the process I'll do a thousand takes of a scene I don't care you gotta tell me when it's done I'm gonna keep trying something new I'm having a great time here you know so like you tell me when you got it otherwise because I don't know I'm just out here I'm just out here doing it I'm just out here playing you're out here to sort of like

20:33Daveed Diggs:do the thing and let the director go

20:34W. Kamau Bell:oh there it was great I'm glad to know that's where it was and I I put a lot of trust in my collaborators in that way like my you know when I know what my role on a particular project is. My role here is as actor. Great. That's what I'm doing. I have to learn the lines and say the lines. Those are my parameters. And like, I'm going to do as much as I can within that. It's everybody else. You tell me when I'm lit. You tell me if my hair is out of place. You tell me I'm not going to look at the screen. I don't care. Oh, wow. My job is to be honest, try to find these moments of honesty. Like, that's it.

21:06W. Kamau Bell:And as many chances as you want to give me to do that, cool. If you're losing light, we got to move on. Cool. You know, like that's what it is.

21:14Daveed Diggs:So I don't know if it's intentional, but I mean, it's sort of connected to like you just want to work and do things. But you're just a person who also has no problem appearing in, like you said, a small independent film on stage doing, you know, how would you describe clipping? Where is their role in rap and hip hop? What is the, you know, I talked to Mike Eagle yesterday. He was like, I called myself art rap. That doesn't work anymore. So now he's like, I say indie rap because it sort of describes the entire thing. Oh, that's interesting.

21:42W. Kamau Bell:Yeah. Maybe we'll just put ourselves there. I don't we've always just called ourselves rap music. It was like very intentionally track because when we first came along, it was a lot of a lot of the commentary around us was like. Like, I don't like rap, but I like this or like this isn't like what rap is like. And we kept so we started being very intentional about this is just rap. We're not actually doing anything new. we are taking all of the traditions that we have learned from being lifelong like practitioners and fans of this culture and music and making the thing that we do so um so i've always just called i just you're not you're not anti-rap you're not there's no post you're not post-rap not post-rap

22:21Daveed Diggs:no nothing i yeah it's all it's all rap music so but yeah just to get back to the question is like i see you like this is like what i would define as like like this hardcore rap outfit rap group you're doing independent movies and then but you're also i'm not shocked at all to see you pop up in something big and loud and commercial like the boys that doesn't feel like david is supposed to be independent there's a time when people sort of put those labels on people like you're not supposed to be doing that you parker posey what are you doing in a big movie and i don't feel like with you that i see you as being like oh that's i feel like no that's perfect for him and i'm happy for him and and i can't wait to see what he does in that space oh

23:01W. Kamau Bell:Oh, that's cool. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I think that those that kind of sectioning off is sort of disappearing in some ways. You know, I think we've we as fans, as audience, have become so much more aware of the business side of it than we were before and how hard it is to make money doing art. So, like, I don't know, generally for me, any actor I see in a big thing that it looks like they got paid a lot for, like, I'm very happy. man that guy got insurance you know he's got his insurance covered for the whole year any you know mike eagle song gets a placement in a on a netflix movie hell yeah like that's yes like it's my brother i know you didn't get paid enough for that but like i you know yeah i hope you did like you know so yeah but i i do you know i mean the the jump off for me was hamilton and it and it was the most popular thing in a very long time yeah but it was still for me it was me and my friends making something dumb right so like that it was so like the only process i know it's all part of the same is the same process oh these people are people i trust like these are artists i enjoy working with this is an idea that i don't know if it works or not it's a big a big thing for me on everything is like if I'm the most attractive thing for me is to not know if it's going to work yeah because I need the experiment I need the excitement of being like wow this is a big swing or what could we possibly be doing here you know being halfway through and be like this is a failure you know I kind of need that juice so uh yeah and so it just but because I think I have benefited in many ways because of that being my sort of entry to the more mainstream world.

24:55W. Kamau Bell:In that, for me, it was still that exact same modality of working, but it became this phenomenon that was just pop art, you know?

25:04Daveed Diggs:Yeah, I mean, I don't want to spend too much time on that because I know you've talked about Hamilton a lot. But I do, I don't actually know the origin story of you and Lin-Manuel coming across each other. I'm sure you've talked about it before, but how do you?

25:15W. Kamau Bell:Just Freestyle Love Supreme. okay okay which is the hip-hop collective yeah yeah so we were rapping like yeah yeah and i and yeah and a funny clerical error but and so on some bass style i've told this story before too so you cut it out of the thing but like it's um me and anthony veneziale who's another founding member freestyle was living in san francisco we were both due to a clerical error called the substitute teach the same class in marin city uh and so we show up it's like a first grade class or something You have to come up with something new to do with these kids every 15 minutes. I guess we're both getting paid today, so we're both going to do this.

25:52W. Kamau Bell:And at some point, we just start freestyling with the kid. He's like, do you freestyle? I was like, I do. He was like, great. This is what we're going to do. We're going to beatbox. And we did that for half an hour. It really worked out. I think his wife's car had broken down or something, so I gave him a ride home to San Francisco. And we started talking. And he was like, I'm part of this group, Freestyle Love Supreme. My friend Lynn, I don't know if you know him. He's like, whatever. He's about to do a show on Broadway called In the Heights. I have no idea of anything that you're talking about, but whatever.

26:20W. Kamau Bell:But that's how I know those guys. We became friends.

26:25Daveed Diggs:I've become more fascinated recently with just the idea of sliding doors and butterfly effect and the idea that your whole life goes a different direction. You're still an actor, you're still rapping, but you're not necessarily in Hamilton.

26:41W. Kamau Bell:Yeah, I'm almost certainly not. I don't know how, you know, how I would have met those cats otherwise. And it's, yeah, that is particularly crazy, especially because, like, if anyone who's been a substitute teacher knows, there's not a lot of great opportunities to come out of that. Not a lot of life-changing. And after I substitute taught. Yeah, yeah.

27:01Daveed Diggs:Most of those things I'm trying to forget. And then I tripped over a billion dollars. And I was like, there's a billion dollars here. Thank God I substitute taught today. Yeah, no, that's. So I want to give you just, this is how, like, my Hamilton, how I've seen Hamilton from the outside, because that ends in a very personal way. Otherwise, we wouldn't necessarily talk about it. But, like, I'm a person who, like, I was living in Oakland when Hamilton hit. And all I knew about Hamilton was that people in New York Twitter were, like, raving over it. That was, like, when Twitter was Twitter, you know?

27:31Daveed Diggs:And Twitter was talking about Hamilton. And at the time, I didn't know if I was ever going to see it. My wife's a big Broadway person, but we were not in a position to go to Broadway and see these things. And then I remember, and then it tours, and then more people start to see it. And then my wife starts to see it, and then it becomes Hamilton, and it's everywhere, and everybody's talking about it. Pandemic, it airs on Disney +, and then the Hamilton discourse begins. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I sort of have this feeling, because my wife loves Broadway, that I don't know that Broadway's for everybody.

28:05Daveed Diggs:like i think like there's a reason why it's in new york and the people who want to see it go see it i agree and that like i feel like you can basically discourse every broadway play because it's just it's just and i know if it's broadway it's just it's it's about there's a lot of suspension of disbelief that happens when you go into a theater like a broadway theater absolutely and go why is everybody singing at me you know yeah why is it why are there why isn't there this why isn't there that but so the hamilton discourse starts which you know which we don't have to get into but it's just about like is this thing is is this thing the thing that it is or is it not the thing that it is and how why would you do the thing this way and all these things and I remember seeing that Hamilton discourse and being like at the time knowing you and be like man it's not his play but he's in the middle of this and sort of feeling like how does it feel to be in the middle of this and sort of like and then everybody and then it feels like that happened you know we also in the pandemic and we all and then we sort of come back and then then you all are at the Tony's and it's something like it's okay again 10 years will do a lot we're back we're back baby and we're celebrating the anniversary my favorite moment of the tonys is when you you did that jump i was watching with my daughter and she heard me go oh yeah i got texts from everybody i know they're like are you okay you're okay like i think i might have said my knees literally i don't think i've

29:25W. Kamau Bell:I've never ever gotten more reach outs for anything.

29:28Daveed Diggs:It was just like, I watched it several times. I couldn't pull it off even at my most athletic day of my life.

29:35W. Kamau Bell:But that was truly impressive. I got separate phone calls before when we had decided to do that from both Lynn and Andy, the choreographer, both reached out separately, being like, can you jump off a table? I was like, I can't do it eight times a week, but I could probably get it up one time. You don't let me.

29:55Daveed Diggs:And that is something about you that I also respect. There's an athletic, kinetic nature about you as an actor that is also a part of your process.

30:06W. Kamau Bell:Yeah, man. I came up running track. And so from when I was nine till post-college, I ran all the way through college and thought I might be able to make the trials or something after college. So it was really important to me. And it is still the thing that I miss the most is that, you know, I think most former athletes have this thing where you just, there was a kind of, especially for me, where I'm not, you know, I'm a pretty, I'm a relatively shy person. I'm like not, you know, I'm not, I play a lot of boisterous characters. When I'm really that way in my life, it was a way to just quietly walk around and feel superior to people.

30:46W. Kamau Bell:You know what I'm saying? It's like you have this superpower. I can run really fast and I can like jump over these. I was a hurdler. So I could also do this kind of like weird timing, technical flexibility thing that like, you know, is useless probably in life. Yeah, no. Especially given the -

31:03Daveed Diggs:We need to get over there quickly, but there's a bunch of obstacles in the way. There's a bunch of stuff in the way, you know? Who can do it?

31:07W. Kamau Bell:Especially with my life choices. I'm not running from the police or anything like that. So I, but, but it was just nice. You had that thing and that just go, like all physical things goes away with age. and so when I get those opportunities to do that on shows or in TV work or whatever, I'm always annoying my stunt performer by being like how much you gonna let me do? Can you teach me that thing? Wouldn't it be better if I did that thing?

31:33Daveed Diggs:Hey, I mean, because then you can get the camera angle. So to wrap up the Hamilton discourse, just about seeing the reason why my daughter was watching it, she's Juno, she's now 12, at the time she's probably 10 because she became a kid who fell into Broadway and fell into Hamilton. And then I'd be walking around my house and hear a 10-year-old be like, how does a bastard? And it was just like, I don't care what anybody says. This thing is like, I just was like, it was just so cool to see it in my life come full circle and come around. Like now I got this 10-year-old who is rapping to herself in her bedroom lyrics from Hamilton.

32:11W. Kamau Bell:That's wild. I never know whether to apologize to parents or to...

32:17Daveed Diggs:There are creators who need to apologize. Are you involved in Cocomelon?

32:22W. Kamau Bell:What's funny is we were at Clipping was asked to contribute a side to Cocomelon. And we were all like, absolutely not. I didn't even understand how that would work.

32:29Daveed Diggs:I don't either.

32:30W. Kamau Bell:I mean, you know, we made Puppy for Hanukkah. So we have some.

32:34Daveed Diggs:But Cocomelon's anyway, that's a whole nother podcast. But like, luckily, my seven year old who was the Cocomelon fiend is out of it for several years. But it was a I don't I don't I don't you don't need to apologize for Hamilton. There's other things I would like to talk to people about too. Other child creators.

33:06Daveed Diggs:So for me, just to see it as an inroads for this 10-year-old to like music and to hip-hop. was like i think it's just like becomes like that's that's what you want right there right

33:18W. Kamau Bell:you know it's a pretty wild you know that's not what we thought we were doing i don't think but that's amazing that that's happened well the thing that it did is just the thing that lynn is which is like a person who exists at the intersection of exactly those things that there are a history buff who is as knowledgeable about broadway as he is about rap music and uh and so that it like this show is just like the intersection of the things he loves and that's he's a pretty like unique fascinating person but he's so kind of his you see this when you see him when you see him speak publicly or whatever his gift is that he um lets everybody into it very and that that was it there these are actually sort of three spheres that always feel incredibly gatekept right um and he was just like or or the reverse or you everybody could just walk in yeah um you know i just wanted

34:14Daveed Diggs:to give you my this is my my hamilton the arc of my hamilton uh relationship based on my 12 year old um who's very excited i'm talking to you uh the other thing that i when i think about you is just public displays of men in community men who are friends is such a cool thing like dudes who have each other's backs all the time and don't so you and rafa is like this as this sort of like Like one of the most. Botanic life mates. Exactly. One of the most adorable things being Kelly Rafferty, who was, who worked with me for years. When we discovered the Calvin and Hobbes videos you guys did. I mean, it's just like, it's like, they're so sweet and so saccharine and so underrated.

34:54Daveed Diggs:Like, I feel like, I just want, if anything can happen on this podcast, I need people to go watch those videos. Yeah, yeah.

34:59W. Kamau Bell:But they're not too many because litigious. I don't, they'll just get taken down. I don't know. It's not what we've made anymore.

35:04Daveed Diggs:I don't think the Calvin, I don't think he's that worried about it. Yeah, I'm sure he's. yeah yeah but anyway yeah i don't want to i don't want to get upset but anyway just talk about being uh that this is you know we all have this many of us will be friends with somebody in high school like we're going to be friends forever we're going to do things forever and then you know things don't happen that way yeah talk about being friends for a long time publicly professionally

35:27W. Kamau Bell:and continually yeah man i mean rafa so we you know we actually we knew each other in high school but we actually didn't start really hanging out very much. So I was a little bit older than he was until I got back from college. So it's like 2004. And one of my best friends, his little brothers, the same classes as Raphael, they were very good friends. And so Raphael at whatever he was at the time, 18 years old or 19 years old, was already running a recording studio in North Oakland.

36:08W. Kamau Bell:And my friend Justin was like, you guys do this. So we got set up on a rapper play date, basically. And that was it. We stayed up till four in the morning that first night I was there making a song. And we got in the car and we listened to the song, as is the custom. And then I was there pretty much every night. I have probably spoken to him almost every day since then, either. um but it was it's just yeah it's crazy when you i think especially at that age um early 20s you know when you're really trying to figure it out um and if you're an artist and you find someone you click with artistically that's incredibly valuable that person also becomes somebody who you trust who you're you're making mistakes together and growing up together and you know has your back and has seen you at your worst and is still there and get forces you to celebrate your wins like rafa is so good with that for me because i'm not a celebration type and he for my whole life is all it has always been like i could tell i tried to give you flowers and you were like i know yeah but he's he's yeah he has always been the one who's like we gotta let's acknowledge it who knows how many of these we get you know so he's um he's he's one of those and so it's um it's interesting we're we're uh we're writing another film together right now and it is kind of about the how that kind of a friendship ages and what happens you know when kids get on the stuff you know like um just yeah what is you know we made blind spotting is essentially about like a you know young man late 20s right um that kind of male friendship and now what's a what's a a 40s male friendship like like you know um and what are those changes and how do you you know um how do those things grow together but it is i think to me what's interesting about it is it's both absolutely effortless and also incredibly intentional yeah yeah um yeah when you're in

38:18Daveed Diggs:your 40s i don't know if this is true for women as a man you have to be intentional to stay friends with your men friends. Anybody, yeah. Because it just sort of, yeah, or with your friends, because it can just easily, because you get so caught up in whatever your life is, you'd be like, I don't even talk to that dude anymore. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.

38:33W. Kamau Bell:Yeah, when your life just stopped involving friends as a necessary part of life, it kind of does. It's always, so yeah, it has to be intentional. I mean, even all of our, you know, starting to, when we were working together, when blind spotting happened and it happened after Hamilton, and so there was like, for two people actually honestly in the bay when we were making rap songs like rafa was kind of the famous one so he had the deaf poetry thing going on so he had like a huge youtube following he was the one who was able to book shows out of town and he would always bring us along it was always like you know so he he was the one opening doors so everybody could run through and then this this thing happened and now like the sort of balance had shifted the other way people knew my name wanted to talk to me and um like navigating those kinds of things and then now you're adding agents and managers and stuff on top of that who like don't understand the history of it and who you know there are so many hard conversations that had to be had we're like i know you suggest draffa but who else should we look at for this like literally nobody but um but also you know hard conversations with them hard conversations with each other about you know we've we've had to we've developed a pretty good muscle now for on projects that we're working on together like sitting down really before we even get into it being like what is important to you about this and what is important to me about this.

39:51W. Kamau Bell:And let's get really clear on that. What are our non-negotiables so that when all the bullshit starts happening, it's going to happen, like we can know that like we are satisfying these things. And we get that really clear before we start.

40:03Daveed Diggs:Being intentional about like, what do we both want out of this? Yeah. So that when all the showbiz nonsense happens, we can remember, well, I just need this and you need that.

40:11W. Kamau Bell:Right. Because, you know, when you start, especially with us, when you start talking about like, who wrote what or whose idea is it's like not what are you talking about like that's not how it works

40:23Daveed Diggs:it's like lennon mccartney we were both there talking about it we sit down and we eat food and

40:28W. Kamau Bell:then like you know a year later there's a thing but it's um so yeah we've had to realize that and this work the hollywood business is very much about dividing those things up and being like credit the credit is what you need and so we tend to decide early on like what's the credit you need from this like what's the what do we say obviously it doesn't matter like the work doesn't matter we're gonna do what we do what do what what do you need out of this what do i need out of this okay let's do let's make that happen let's send the teams off to accomplish that yeah i would

41:00Daveed Diggs:that's the part about it that is so remarkable to me because once the as you know i mean you know being a person who's a also a rapper the money has broken up a lot of friends in a rap it's

41:11W. Kamau Bell:broken up a lot of crews like a lot of boys have fallen apart over money that's true ours

41:17Daveed Diggs:maybe ours didn't come from rap but just i would imagine that there's probably it's got to be certain times where you have to sort of go stop let's talk about this because the i would you

41:27W. Kamau Bell:want to prioritize the friendship yeah oh absolutely it turns out that these yeah having relationships for that long you you have to talk things out yeah stuff does get weird you know and stuff and time passes and you don't know. You go from when you're young and you're just hanging out in studios or whatever, you spend all, you know, most of your free time is together. So you don't actually have to have those check-ins. I just saw you. But, and I'll see you again.

42:00Daveed Diggs:And you're also now, if you two are working, there's not a sense of like, we'll just do this until four in the morning because I got a kid. I don't do nothing until four in the morning.

42:09W. Kamau Bell:He's up at six. I was like, yeah, but yeah. And we work, you know, he's off shooting a TV show right now. So also like geographically, we're just spread out and time is different. So it's just, yeah, with the clipping stuff too, like finding time to record now is crazy. When I first moved to, we started that band in 2011 when I first came down to LA. And it was very easy to spend all day at Jonathan's house making rap songs. I didn't have anything else to do. literally my calendar was free yeah you're like let me look at my google calendar

42:43Daveed Diggs:yep i'm free for the till the end of time currently i've got nothing going on um has there been have you guys been like you said i the there was a point when early in your relationship where rafa's like the big dog or the more prominent one and then you you're after hamilton you but is there is there any tension there is there any sort of like it's a guilt survivors you know the

43:04W. Kamau Bell:the you know i deal with a lot of survivor's guilt but not with that relationship really um i think uh the tension is always from it's not from within the relationship right it's always from outside but it's always it's and it is often like i how do i or it has been so this is with me and rob it's not really like this now but at some points early on it was like well how what can i do to even this out because there's no way i can get the the thing isn't out yet right there's no way that i can get them to see it so what's the what's the thing that i can do to level this playing field or something um what do you mean the thing isn't out yet like when we were making blind spotting or whatever you know for example like trying to get that deal once this comes out things will

43:54Daveed Diggs:then i think it becomes very obvious that we're a duo yeah but right now it's not here but so you're feeling I'm doing half the work, but the world sees you as being the guy. Yeah. Or I want you to feel like I value your input into this.

44:07W. Kamau Bell:Yeah. So I used to worry about that a lot more, but we've, we've gotten pretty good at it. But yeah. Talk about being a dad. It's the best thing I've ever done. It's not even close. But it, it did. It was that I really liked being on the road before and I really enjoyed. um yeah there's a certain kind of like high that you get from that like not sleep like different city every day kind of life um and now i just literally everything is to go back home like what how much can i minimize the time away from home is there a flight after the show yeah i'm on red eyes all the time and like i like i yeah or that the you know the show i'm working on right now in new york i'm my lap whatever my last day of work is there's a 7 a.m flight the next day and i'm on it you know if they can get me on it i'm on it um and here it's the if you put me on that midnight red eye i'll take that one you know mostly they don't like me to show up the day of the

45:07Daveed Diggs:more you start to like get you know put more miles on yourself i don't say get older you start to realize i can't do that red eye flight and show up at like hey i'm here everybody yeah i'm here to work and I'm ready to work. I won't be good.

45:20W. Kamau Bell:But again, like that's actually less of a concern for me than spending time with my kid. Like if I, if I get to do bedtime, I'll take being shitty tomorrow. I'm going to need extra makeup today. So yeah. So that, um, thing is, has been interesting and, um, but being a dad is, it's the best.

45:42Daveed Diggs:What's the most surprising thing? I mean, I know it's the best thing, but talking about some like really like specific things for me, I'll say just to give you an example, like how much that like the kid, the moment the kid is born, you're actually meeting who they are and it just reveals itself more over time. Like from the day each of my three daughters was born, they're that same person that they were the day they were born. It's just because I just see it more. Their personality has emerged more over time. Oh, man. It's so real. And so, yeah. Like, they're not empty vessels. They don't show up.

46:17Daveed Diggs:They don't show up like, well, just put whatever personality you want in me. Yeah, yeah. And I don't know.

46:24W. Kamau Bell:I don't think I thought that's what it was going to be exactly. But I did think I'd have slightly more influence than I do. Yeah, for sure. It turns out, like, I don't really have any. Sometimes I get lucky, but, you know, he's really into music, which is great. And we listen to so much music every day. And he's got, you know, for a two-year-old, like, you know, generally they want to listen to the same things over and over again. But his playlist of songs that he loves that you can sort of play any time is, like, probably 30 songs long now. Like, he's made some choices. Built up some musical stamina.

46:56W. Kamau Bell:Yeah, yeah. Now, are these kid songs? No, almost none of them. Oh, really? I mean, he likes the Bluey theme song. I mean, come on.

47:04Daveed Diggs:I don't think Bluey is really kids programming.

47:06W. Kamau Bell:No. he doesn't really watch the show i watch the show but every time the it loops back to the song he

47:12Daveed Diggs:comes back it's a show for parents yeah and the cartoon part is for the for the kids but the

47:18W. Kamau Bell:actual content is for the parents exactly um that show's so amazing um but big fan of of of uh gnx like he like that was you know which is amazing that it you know it came out it was for It's literally his generation. And he, like, that Kendrick Lamar halftime show, we were just watching it. Again, he watches it daily. We've had to limit it. He'll watch it. Eat your vegetables and then we can watch the Kendrick Lamar. That's literally what we do. Like, that's not— Me and your son have a lot in common because I just watched that recently too. Again, like, yeah. Yeah, that's on all the time. And he has his favorite—Peek-a-boo's his favorite song on there, which is inappropriate.

47:58Daveed Diggs:I got it. I'm a—my seven-year-old's a TV-off kid. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah. Mustard. Yep, exactly. Yeah, yeah. He calls that song Mustard. Yep, of course. She was excited to see Mustard at the Super Bowl. She's like, is that Mustard?

48:11W. Kamau Bell:Him too. And every time it comes out, he goes, here come Mustard. Yeah, so GX is out. He's a big Brandi Carlile fan. Didn't get that from me. Oh, wow. That's what I'm saying. I like that. He makes a lot of choices that are his own also.

48:26Daveed Diggs:I would like the musical festival that was like, the big stage is Kendrick Lamar and Brandi Carlile. I'm saying, yeah. And clipping.

48:34W. Kamau Bell:Yeah, he only likes a couple of my songs, but he does ask for them, which is very sweet. He goes, want to play Dada rapping? Breaks my heart. And then I'll play a song, and he's like, not that one.

48:49W. Kamau Bell:But yeah, he's, yeah, like he discovered, I left the room at one point and came back in. And we had been, like, cruising through Apple Music on the Apple TV, which is how crazy it is that he can use remotes and stuff. I left to use the bathroom or something. I came back, and he's got some Egyptian pop song on called Bum Bum that he's just dancing. And he insisted that I add it to his playlist right then, and it is, like, that's another thing in heavy rotation that he discovered entirely on his own. He did fight on his own, yeah. I didn't know. I had to go look up what it was about. Turns out it's about a guy who accidentally gets drunk when he's out with his friends and the hilarity that ensues.

49:32W. Kamau Bell:It's kind of like a novelty song. This dude, Mohammed Ramadan, who's apparently a huge—which sounded fake to me, but that's because I don't know nothing. Apparently a very big star. Shout out to Mohammed Ramadan. I don't know. So that stuff's crazy. But yeah, him, that, that thing about them already being their own people. I think I was surprised initially, this has calmed down somewhat now, but by how much anxiety I had right when he was very small. The pregnancy too. Yeah, I was having, I thought I was sick. Like I was in the, at the doctor all the time. He was like, I think you should try therapy.

50:14Daveed Diggs:Oh, wow.

50:16W. Kamau Bell:Anxiety of I'm about to be a dad. I wore one of them seven day heart monitors. You know what I'm saying? Like I was really, I was like, there's something wrong with me. And I wanted to be a dad. It was just, it was like this incredible amount of fear.

50:33W. Kamau Bell:And then when he was small too, just that, the not knowing if you're doing anything, right? And what does that even mean? And like the whole, you know, yeah, really, I was a person who hasn't, I'm a pretty nervous person, but I don't think of myself as an anxious person. I haven't had a ton of anxiety in my life, but the last couple of years I've been like, yeah, more stressed than I ever remember.

50:59Daveed Diggs:Have you figured out what it's connected to exactly? I mean, as a dad, I don't need to be like, why would you be anxious? But I get, but have you sort of figured out what it is or where it's coming from? I think it was just, I, you know,

51:15W. Kamau Bell:really loving somebody very deeply is anxiety inducing in some ways and that like I can't control everything I can't make everything good for them you know and I I am so mostly I think at peace with like the that not everything's going to be good for me you know but yeah yeah yeah you know yeah yeah um but you can't you can't wrap your head around not everything's gonna be good for him yeah and then with a kid like I had never I've never loved anybody that much like that was wild so this this thing of being like oh i only want good things for you and that's impossible and i i just like that really stresses me out and i think i also had a i had a great childhood in a very hard situation you know what i'm saying in hindsight like we were we were poor we were east oakland we were you know like it was a lot against us and i was so happy and like I had so much fun.

52:11W. Kamau Bell:Yeah. And we have everything relatively and I am so worried about his happiness all the time. You know, I'm just like, oh, is this what you want to do? And I'd like, and am I around enough? Which I'm really worried about being around. That's the one thing I know is that both my parents were, they were there. They weren't together. They were both very present, you know? So that's the one thing I try to control as much as I can. But that, just that. He's about to start preschool. Are we choosing the right? I don't know. And it's preschool. It's not even... We could change it if he doesn't like it.

52:46W. Kamau Bell:It feels like such a stressful decision right now. I don't know.

53:09Daveed Diggs:We live in a time where the algorithm, once it knows, oh, you're a new dad? Let me send you some things to be anxious about. I had to get the hell off.

53:16W. Kamau Bell:Yeah, I barely, you know, when I have to promote something, I tap back in, but I'm mostly off that.

53:21Daveed Diggs:But I think there's just the idea that there's also just so much more information to make you feel anxious. And that before, when our parents were around, they just had to sort of, you know, there's that one Dr. Spock book. But other than that, it's just like figuring it out. Whereas now there's like, oh, here's a book for kids who are one month and three days old. You know what I mean? So there's just a lot more information that wants to make you anxious. And I understand that. And as a dad who travels a lot, and as a dad who, if I talk about work, my kids sort of have that moment where they're like, are you about to leave?

53:54Daveed Diggs:You know what I mean? Often, and I don't travel as much as I used to, but even coming down here, I have to go, two sleeps. I'll be gone for two sleeps. Describing things in sleeps, I feel like helps. it changed everything so immediately um and all like i love my life right now it's so great

54:15W. Kamau Bell:but it was it is it's a big it's a big change you know so yeah yeah and it's great it makes

54:22Daveed Diggs:me know when you're on the road you're always like like you said it's like oh i'm glad to be here after the show you go to the airport yeah yeah can i get how to get home how do i get home from here yeah this is like i'm right i'm like oh this will wrap up soon i mean i have a nine o 'clock flight but i can just go straight to the airport you know another flight you know what i mean like

54:38W. Kamau Bell:just the idea of like all all three of us in clipping now have young children and like that jonathan described it really well one time she's like yeah i love playing shows i love it nothing's better than hanging out with my daughter though there's another i would of course rather be doing that than anything else so it doesn't really matter how much i love this yeah i love that more.

54:57Daveed Diggs:Unfortunately, I can't figure out how hanging off my daughter will pay. Once they come to the shows. Or you do like a family channel where you just put your family on the internet. Yeah, I can't do that.

55:09W. Kamau Bell:No, I can't do it either. I don't wish that for him. He is very cute, though.

55:13Daveed Diggs:You look at your kid like,

55:15W. Kamau Bell:man, you could be... I know, you could really make some money, kid. I could just be your manager. We could really be out there. The fact has occurred to me. But I think

55:25Daveed Diggs:he's he's pretty introverted like me i don't think he would love it so for sure for sure uh before we get out of here a couple more things uh so i moved to the bay in 97 and i was really moving to be a part of the san francisco comedy scene but i found an apartment in oakland yeah so that's how i ended up in oakland yeah i lived in the city but i was even for a while but i was always in oakland because i met melissa she was in the east bay so i worked in had a day job in berkeley and so it was like I was like again the sliding doors thing if I found an apartment in San Francisco maybe I'm maybe I'm a different my life's different but I'm so like and I've only learned more as I've sort of been in Oakland and we moved back to the bay in 2014 right before I met you and I my one oldest daughter was born in San Francisco but the two kids were born in the East Bay uh but so there's just this real sense of like my kids are growing up with this idea of like we are from oakland or we are from the east bay uh can you talk about for people from the outside because there's a thing and i heard you we've talked about you've talked about before like daddy you told me when you were doing uh blind spotting that like you had to explain to the to the costume people no people from oakland wear things that say oakland on yeah it's not it's not weird it's not a thing that only tourists do it's a real conversation yeah like yeah no actually we do wear yeah people it's not like everybody can just be wearing shirts to

56:44W. Kamau Bell:rep the city yeah like kind of go walk around for a second you know yeah so can you just explain

56:52Daveed Diggs:what that is what what is the secret sauce there because you know a lot of people love their hometown but you've traveled all over the world so you've seen other places what is it about and i feel like there's also this part of the conversation that i also want to have east bay versus oakland uh that's interesting like like you also went to high school in berkeley right yeah So there's also the Berkeley thing versus Oakland. And I find myself in times trying to figure out, I live in Oakland. I love Oakland. But also I love the Greater East Bay. And also I did live in Berkeley. And I'm not mad.

57:21Daveed Diggs:And I'm not trying to. But there's all these different ways to describe this place and to name this place.

57:27W. Kamau Bell:Yeah. There's a lot to unpack there. Good. I'm going to sit back. We're going to get real inside baseball. I think about a lot. Yeah.

57:35Daveed Diggs:It is inside baseball. But I sort of feel like. There's no more baseball. but yeah that's not true the root i mean the the ballers yeah yeah the ballers the ballers um but yeah so like i just feel like i i you are from that place so you and i feel sometimes i've gotten to the place where i'm really careful with my language like because i know that sometimes people from oakland are like hey kamal slow the down you know what i mean like you're not you didn't go to high school here right so settle down so i'm like okay so you know okay i'll settle down a little bit you know but you put i don't know you've been there an awfully long time but uh but yeah as long as you like you're i've been here longer you've been alive but okay fine

58:14W. Kamau Bell:um i think this is this feels like it's i'm speaking from a particular perspective of my age also that should be made aware so like i don't know how this applies to people younger than me but um it used to be and this is still to a degree true um when you tell people you're from California. It's either LA or San Francisco, right? Like those are the two things that people know. Back in the day. Yeah, for sure. So part of being from the East Bay was about differentiating from that. It was this hard line about we are not San Francisco. And, you know, because you're there, like culturally, they are very different experiences, but also like, yeah, we just hated that thing.

59:00W. Kamau Bell:Like, that's not who we are. Like we're, We're over here and we're our own thing. It's sort of analogous to the Brooklyn, Queens thing. Yeah, exactly. It's a borough situation. These are separate cities, but they're separate cities. They have different cultures and different personalities. Yeah, it functions the same way, sort of. And so there's that. Oakland being kind of like the biggest East Bay city, like the kind of hub, that also became kind of a catch-all for East Bay, right? And so there'd be, again, like if you're away, you could tell people, people from San Francisco, no, from Oakland.

59:31W. Kamau Bell:and you have to smash just across the bridge or whatever. If you start saying things like Hayward or San Leandro or whatever, El Cerrito, Albany where I lived, like, you know, Richmond, all of these other things, it got so granular that people couldn't take it. So there was also this generalization happening, and for people who are really from Oakland, you should be like, you got used to being like people say, I'm from Oakland. Oh, where? What part are you from? Or I'm from there too. Oh, well, I'm from Piedmont. Which is actually part of Oakland, but you don't want to say. Or, you know, it's like a suburb.

1:00:12W. Kamau Bell:Or, you know, I'm from Hayward. So there's this other kind of like Oakland chauvinism because Oakland feels special because it like was the hub. it was like it had the the um it was a historically was like a rougher area you know although i don't know we we were always scared of richmond but um so yeah so there was there was that too um so yeah there was like a badge of honor with being from oakland from this like home of the black panther party this like real like sort of important like cultural culturally relevant thing and so i always i was born in oakland and my dad always lived in oakland and my mom then kept moving further and further north so i was as a person who was kind of out of place anyway would always just claim oakland because i was always living there um and then when i moved back home i moved to oakland so you know i've always felt like that was my home um but i also like my mom lived in albany and i I would never claim that.

1:01:17W. Kamau Bell:Like, that's crazy. You don't want to say that in public. Like, Albany is a very, like, well-off, small suburb with great public schools and where the most of the population, at least at the time, were families of professors. Or in my mom's case, they had one student housing complex down by the train tracks called the University Village where, like, graduate students with families could live. And so my mom had gone back to school after my brother was born. And so she moved to the village, which is really desirable because, again, like great public schools in Albany. So if you're going to send your kid to public school, you could live in Albany, then there you go.

1:02:02W. Kamau Bell:And so, yeah, so there's always this kind of like division and explanation and like where you really from and all this stuff. But, yeah, a lot of it, at least when we were young, was about being able to claim something that felt tough, you know, both because, like, it's cool because you're a young man and you want to feel tough and also because, like, there's a certain kind of safety with having people be a little bit afraid of you for no good reason, right? Especially for someone like me, you know, who's not a scary person. I need to lead with something that's a little bit like, oh. Oh, he's from Oakland.

1:02:42W. Kamau Bell:and like there's another great thing about oakland is that like there's a kind of danger associated with it even though like a lot of us are very artsy like even though it's a sort of and it's you know you get your you get your like kumbaya your sort of hippie aesthetic mixed right in with all your gangsterism and stuff so like it's um and it was so it's very useful to be able to come from a place that is that mixture you know um where i got this the hard part for free god I didn't actually portray any of it um and so yeah that's what I think about it for me but it is like sort of the rich um cultural history the history of protest the um intellectual history of Oakland you know um and it is all there and it is all there actually in the whole East Bay but the neighborhoods feel different but like you know I can go home and talk to people about books I can't really talk to people in LA about books, really.

1:03:42W. Kamau Bell:Like, not really. You know? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so it's, there is something different there. And especially for artists, but kind of for everybody, there's a, I think if you're from there, there's a, there's an understanding that, like, it is special. And a lot of us end up fighting to keep it that way or to figure out how to keep it that way and to figure out how to be able to survive and live there and make better livings there. And, you know, you're still living there. So like this is a this is you're like really part of that. It's like how to, you know, how can we grow this here instead of having to leave so much to figure this out?

1:04:25W. Kamau Bell:um and so and often at odds with our elected officials or you know like um there's often not a lot of help um but because i think historically that is also true like the way community works there is different than it is in a lot of places certainly that it is here you know um which geographically is very different there are all sorts of reasons for that but um but yeah la was

1:04:54Daveed Diggs:northern was that area it would be like nine different cities yeah like it would not be just

1:04:58W. Kamau Bell:los angeles yeah so yeah so we you know there's a yeah there's a kind of community there that like does feel different and i think when you're from there you've lived there a long time there is this sort of uh drive and desire to continue to give back to it and continue to figure out how to make a better place because we all love it so much. And even when we're not there, like we want it to thrive. Like I really, so much of my identity is about being from Oakland and being from the East Bay in general. And so like, as that changes, I feel it is like shake, it shakes some things for me. There were, yeah, as people, you know, families that I knew can't live there anymore, all that stuff.

1:05:52W. Kamau Bell:Like all these, just home, the things that you call it home. And that happens for everybody everywhere. But I think us, or for me, loving that place so much, like it takes on like more of a, sometimes you feel like your foundation gets shaky when, I don't know if the A's leave, heard something, you know, like, or whatever. Or the Warriors leave. It's not like I'm not still a Warriors fan, but like they went to San Francisco. It's like, that's a what? yeah a slap in the face you were on the better side yeah you won some championships and then

1:06:24Daveed Diggs:services like oh we'd like that team now yeah bring them back over here yeah yeah yeah well i think it's just the sort of connected to all this is there's not every city has an activist culture but i don't know that every city demands that all of its people sort of be engaged in the activist culture the way that oakland does and berkeley is part of this too with the free speech movement and everything but just the idea that like talk about because you could be doing everything you're doing and not be regularly engaging in activism right you could just be like i'm working i'm a good representative of my city right but you are also regularly sort of like speaking out and saying things and supporting things someone regularly yeah yeah i mean i see you know yeah yeah i'll say regularly yeah yeah more than most all right again more flowers thank you sorry yeah Yeah.

1:07:14Daveed Diggs:Yeah. Here's the thing. When people call on you, you do answer the call. Yes. It's not like you're not like, sorry, I've got a big movie coming out. I can't really be out here looking like I care about these things, care about humans. Yeah. Right. Right. So why do you answer the call?

1:07:29W. Kamau Bell:Yeah. I mean, I think it was how we grew up. You know, I mean, the Berkeley, all the Berkeley High thing, like we were walking out of school every day. I don't know. It was a protest. It was at least a protest a week. and the teachers were like oh we got to wrap up class early i know you got a big protest to get to you know it was like uh we'll stop math today because you got to get out you guys got to get out there i know nuclear disarmament here i have some extra signs behind the desk if you'd like to you know whatever um so yeah it was just part of it and i don't know it was um it was sort of a surprise to find art separate from activism actually like upon leaving you know i didn't really know i guess i had heard tell of it but like i didn't really know how you participated i didn't know that it existed i you know i was a poetry slam kid i was like whatever like i you know mark bamuti joseph one of my mentors like there there literally was no separation between like any word he says and like any way that his body moves and like his connection to activism so um like i yeah so it's just yeah it's just kind of in there um and it's not you know it's not all great there's you know there's some ways that like berkeley is really fucking annoying man like oakley can be really annoying yeah but also So I would take it over, you know, I would take an awareness even at the expense of just being able to have a nice dinner, you know, to the other side of it, to only ever having nice dinners with not having at least some awareness and desire to help people.

1:09:23W. Kamau Bell:that like things should not be as they are and how do I at least some exploration of how do I fit into that and how can I affect that and how can we affect that for each other there's also to

1:09:34Daveed Diggs:me with the thing that when I think about what I gained by moving to the Bay Area and living in Oakland specifically there's an effortless intersectionality that happens there where you just stumble across different communities and so then you leave and go wait you guys are freaked out about those things yeah i didn't know to be freaked out about those things you know what i mean like i was just sort of around people saying those things and you know so right uh you know that we didn't know that even though it's funny oakland has this very hard you know like you said like you know like don't oh you're from oakland oh yeah but also like oakland has this like as long as you're cool you know yeah and and also down for the people down for the cause down for the people struggling down for the oppressed yeah yeah and not a lot of um

1:10:22W. Kamau Bell:there's not a lot of pretense about what that looks like on some what kind of person that is right it's a diverse community in all senses economically ethnically um and just so like there's yeah i feel like a lot of places you go and there's there's just an assumption that a person who cares about this is this kind of a person or has this kind of a job or does this really you know and that's just not true there like you said like the intersectionality is very common it's almost like it just is how it is you know um and i think that's one of the things when you talk about the reason we are so proud of it when we're from there is because uh we you know you go away and you is the is the first time when you realize that not everywhere is like oh and you're starting to explain yourself all the time and the explanation always ends up starting with oh look i'm from i'm from oakland so and then you know and you hope that that will be enough it's not you know so you yeah um yeah it's a different way of of seeing things it just is it just it just is i don't know i didn't make it but i grew up in it so like i yeah and you're

1:11:38Daveed Diggs:and you're making it you're making it my penultimate question uh are there any is there any life lesson or thing that is true in your life that are things that regularly help you sort of get through the day or sort of process the world or things that you're like this thing is true this thing i've learned this thing my mom said this thing i read one time really helped you sort of like a mantra or anything that sort of like like that you're like this is one thing i know i have a few i have a couple good mantras um and me and rafa's mantra for since we

1:12:08W. Kamau Bell:started making rap songs energy up expectations down that is it uh and so yeah energy up expectations down so when we were doing rap shows at you know the senior citizen center in berkeley or whatever like this was the thing like you're gonna put if you this is what we're doing this is what we're doing now i'm gonna put all of myself into it and i'm going to expect absolutely nothing in return I'm doing this because this is what I do. And so that has served me very well. I'm always pleasantly surprised when anything comes back. It's not the point. It's, again, like about being a process person.

1:12:46And my dad always told me that you love people for exactly who they are

1:12:56W. Kamau Bell:and not who you want them to be. You love them for who they are. and when they tell you who they are you get to listen to them and you get to hold them to that you know um and that is a thing that has really served me i like that you look for that's who

1:13:11Daveed Diggs:you are then then if i love you then i understand that's who you are and i don't again energy up expectations down i now know exactly what to expect from you because you've told me who you

1:13:20W. Kamau Bell:are yeah and it's and it was never about what i get back from you necessarily you know it's about I love this. This is you. This is what I love. And yeah, so those are probably the two best ones. That's great. That's great.

1:13:33Daveed Diggs:We don't only get two. So thank you for that. Last question. What cause would you like people to support? What nonprofit? What thing that's going on do you want people to know about?

1:13:43W. Kamau Bell:The organization I've been doing the most work with lately is one called Cool Hand Series, which is run by a woman named Madison O 'Leary. And the hype is we bring films and filmmakers into prisons and then have conversations with inmates after post-screening. So it's allowing art to make its way into the prison system. And for the artist, for the creator, also getting us to think more about where our stories come from and who our stories are for. And where the storytellers are. cool hands oh that's cool um it's a great organization it's basically maddie doing all of it um raf and i have brought blind spotting into a number of prisons at this point they're also doing playwriting and and theater workshops in there so producing plays um and uh yeah and she's brought in so so many great films and filmmakers in already um a lot of work in California, a lot of New York.

1:14:50W. Kamau Bell:Also, we've done work in Utah. She's doing work in Texas. I haven't been there yet, but we're trying to figure that out. So yeah, it's a great org for like the artist friends of mine, like the namey names who are listening to this. When you get the call, just say yes. It's so fun. It is actually like, you know, it's a great, great time and a great and eye-opening experience. And you get to have some really beautiful conversations and meet really beautiful people and uh you know it's a way to acknowledge the madness of our for-profit prison system in a very like hands-on way and then figure out at least start to spin a little bit on well what what what can we do this is how it is a how can we change it and be like what can we do with in its current state.

1:15:43W. Kamau Bell:I think that's actually, for a thing that is pretty simple at its core, it's just like come into prison and talk to people who show art and talk to people who are interested in art.

1:15:54Daveed Diggs:Yeah, and it's called the Cool Hand Series.

1:15:55W. Kamau Bell:Cool Hand Series.

1:15:56Daveed Diggs:And I haven't done that, but I have done some at St. Quentin, and I think people don't understand that you get afraid of going into a prison, but when you go to those places, you immediately feel like, who's I afraid of? They're just so happy that I'm here. Oh my God, yeah. And the things that I say that I know they never have heard before and they really appreciate it.

1:16:14W. Kamau Bell:Yeah, no, it's always a beautiful experience. Everyone is thrilled that you're there. And also, I end up getting so much out of it every time I go. Sure, all right.

1:16:25Daveed Diggs:Last, the podcast is called Who's With Me? Are you with me? I'm with you. All right, thank you. It'd be weird to find out. No, I'm not. Actually, yeah. I'm glad you finally asked. I didn't want to be here at all.

1:16:37W. Kamau Bell:Thank you. Thank you, man.

1:16:39Daveed Diggs:Thanks for having me. That was my conversation with Daveed Diggs. Loved talking to that dude. Could talk to him for hours and hours. Just sort of a good person. As you heard at the end, he shouted out the Cool Hand series, which is a curated series that brings filmmakers and their films into prisons so that the population there can see these films they might not otherwise see, and also they can engage and have conversations with these filmmakers. It's a great idea. I do a lot of work with San Quentin in my area, so I know the power of going into a prison. It is powerful for the people in the prison.

1:17:10Daveed Diggs:It's also powerful for you. Thank you to Daveed for being on the show today. Come back anytime. Also, thank you to Rabbit Grin here in LA where I am right now, who's producing this show, Rabbit Grin Productions. Thank out to Pushkin Productions, who is helping send this podcast around the world. And thank you to, who else? Thank you to me. I showed up and I did it. I did my best.

1:17:36Daveed Diggs:Special shout out to Skyline Studios, as always, who lets me do things in Oakland. Next week, our guest is Nava Mao. Nava Mao is famously known for being one of the stars of the Netflix series Baby Reindeer. Nava Mao is also a transgender actress, which I only mentioned because we talk about that a lot. And I want you to tune in for that episode because the last two weeks we've talked about the transgender community. But I should probably have somebody from that community to speak for themselves. So next week, Nava Mao. And also, once again, please like and subscribe. Hype the channel. Give us five-star reviews.

1:18:08Daveed Diggs:And once you do all that, then share the podcast with somebody in your life who you think would dig it. That's the important part. That's how we build it. If you share this podcast with one or two people, then we can really start to do some things and really get the word out there who's with me. Are you with me? I'm with you. If you're watching right now, I'm pretty sure I'm with you. I can't imagine that Dana White and Joe Rubin made it this far.

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