Richard Pryor: The Story We Got Wrong | From Big Lives

11:31Emmanuel Dzotsi:And so Richard Pryor thinks this is comedy and so I'm going to do that. There's this clip I found from his closest collaborator in comedy, Paul Mooney.

11:42Kai Wright:He sort He sort of modeled his career after Bill Cosby in the early stages, and that allowed him to be accepted by white audiences. With a tone of voice, if you didn't notice who you were watching, you might have mistaken him for Bill Cosby. You can't get a cab in New York City, right? Especially when it rains. All the cabs are owned by one company. Off-duty. Right? Huh?

12:04Emmanuel Dzotsi:And he's pretty good at it, actually. And he starts to take off. And he gets on the Ed Sullivan show. That's his big moment. And he starts doing these bits on the Ed Sullivan show in the 60s and becomes known as a rising star as a consequence. This is the new Bill Cosby. But that is not going to hold for a man who grew up in a brothel.

12:32Kai Wright:right because what i know of bill cosby's comedies is is it's clean for the most part it's super clean it's it's and i'm also not really about race ever it's not no distinct distinctively

12:43Emmanuel Dzotsi:not about race gets on with white people and so richard pryor is trying to get on with white people okay so it's 1967 he's now become quite popular for doing this bill cosby kind of humor on the Ed Sullivan show, no less. And he's booked at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. And it's a big gig, right? Sold out audience. And he's standing backstage, you know, kind of weirdly reluctant to get on stage looking out at the audience. And he's looking out at like a sea of white faces. Like it's just like a white, white, white audience. And he's like, I don't know, what am I doing? and he has what he describes that moment as epiphany, you know?

13:30Emmanuel Dzotsi:Like, I just, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. This is not what I want. I don't want to go out on this stage. You know, but he walks out anyway. Um, and before he tells a single joke, right? Like, the very first thing he does is blurts out, what the fuck am I doing here? Wait, what? And he's just like, why am I here? You know, in the most profane way. So after he gets that out of his system, he goes on and tries to do the gig that he's signed up for. He starts telling these jokes, right? And about midway through the set, he's just like, nah. And just walks off stage.

14:13Kai Wright:Wait, wait, wait. So he goes out on stage and is like, basically says the thing he's thinking, which is, why the fuck am I here? And then he recovers and is like, okay, let me get back to the clean joke. Sorry, folks. And Manny's like, actually, this sucks. I'm just going to go.

14:26Emmanuel Dzotsi:I'm just going to go. And just walks off stage. And he's so petulant about it. He doesn't even walk off stage in the right direction. Like, he, like, deliberately walks off stage in, like, the wrong direction. So it's, like, awkward to get off the stage. It's, like, a whole mess of a thing. Oh, that's my nightmare.

14:42Kai Wright:That's my nightmare.

14:43Emmanuel Dzotsi:And it's the disaster that you think, right? Like, his agent's like, you'll never work again. And indeed, he, like, stops getting booked. You know, he's pushed into the small clubs and college towns and stuff like that. Like, he's destroyed his career. You know. But it's in this moment, as a consequence, that he starts to rethink that career. And he leaves New York and he moves to the Bay Area. Okay. Now, this is, you know, this is the 60s, right? And he starts getting involved in the sort of Bay Area counterculture. He starts getting involved with the Black Power movement, right, that grows up out of Oakland.

15:21Emmanuel Dzotsi:And that starts to change his understanding of, like, the world and his place in it and what he could do. And he starts to think about comedy that is more raw and honest, right? And so he begins this process and he says, like he says later, like that he realized comedy, real comedy, wasn't just telling jokes. It was about telling the truth. And just to sort of give you an example of where this kind of comedy goes.

15:52Kai Wright:Yeah.

15:53Emmanuel Dzotsi:So he starts making albums. 1971, his second album, it's called Craps, right? Like after the dice game. And it's a wildly profane album. And I want to play you like one of the jokes. Okay. It's toward the end of the show, he goes on this truly profane riff about sex. And then like the last 25, 30 seconds of this is what I want you to pay attention to. But hear it all. And yes, dear listener, this is the clip with the discriminatory language and content.

16:25Kai Wright:I was going to say, this is the stuff you needed the warning for.

16:28Emmanuel Dzotsi:So be ready. All right. So here's Richard Pryor, 1971. You know, like you can't talk about fucking in America, right? People say you're dirty.

16:38Kai Wright:But if you talk about killing somebody, that's cool. I don't understand it. Myself, I'd rather cum.

16:53Kai Wright:Oh, wow.

16:54Emmanuel Dzotsi:I've had money and never felt as good as I felt when I come. So nothing matter, but when you get in the nut, especially if it's a girl.

17:09Kai Wright:Niggas be sick if I ain't doing your act. I'm like, I knew. You know they only choked up.

17:14Emmanuel Dzotsi:I was the only dude in the neighborhood that would fuck this faggot, though. A lot of dudes don't play that shit. In the daytime, I don't fucking play, man. At night, you're kissing.

17:28Emmanuel Dzotsi:But it's embarrassing because I meant to do like 10 years later. Hi, Rich.

17:40Emmanuel Dzotsi:So, man, this is 1971 that he does this joke, right? When I heard this for the first time, obviously not in 1971, many years later. Like, I heard this album, but I was a teenager, and it was the first time in my life I had ever heard a man, certainly a black man, talk matter-of-factly about having sex with another man. Wow. And he uses, you know, this language and this framework, but he's, like, saying, you know we all do it. Like, people have sex. Men have sex with each other.

18:09Kai Wright:Right, right, right.

18:10Emmanuel Dzotsi:Why do y 'all act like you don't do it? And it just blew my mind. Like, I have an emotional memory of hearing it, you know, and being like, what?

18:19Kai Wright:Well, yeah, because it's interesting because the way he says it is very matter-of-factly. Yeah. Actually, the way the audience reacts is a laugh that also is normalizing.

18:28Emmanuel Dzotsi:That's right. That's like, oh, you know, you told the truth, you know, like, we all know, like, we're all a little gay, you know. But that's the kind of truth-telling we're talking about. and, you know, he goes on telling these kind of jokes about his bisexuality throughout his life.

18:46Kai Wright:Wow.

18:46Emmanuel Dzotsi:And so a couple things about this, right? One, it's a success. You know, like a few years earlier, he was doing Bill Cosby jokes on Ed Sullivan. This pivot to his more profane self is a success, but it's specifically a success with Black people. And this stuff is a hit. Craps, in particular, like, was kind of a cult classic for Black people. That's how I encountered it. My parents had that album. and I was digging around in it decades later. But it would be the beginning of his success. He had a concert film in that same year that was a big hit. His next album, which was titled That Nigger's Crazy.

19:25Okay?

19:27Kai Wright:Okay, he's leading it. He's leading it.

19:29Emmanuel Dzotsi:That's a huge hit. But even still, he's wrestling with this fame and with his place in the culture and it kind of comes to another head with the gay sex thing. I'm going to tell you a story about that. So it's 1977, and he's a superstar by this point, right? And he's booked as the headliner for a show at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles that's a fundraiser for gay rights, right? Okay. So now this is the moment in the history of gay rights where it's like the movement has moved from, like, Stonewall and liberation and sexual liberation to like a proper civil rights movement, right?

20:11Kai Wright:Right, right, right. They're able to come on venues like the Hollywood Bowl. Exactly.

20:14Emmanuel Dzotsi:And what goes along with a proper civil rights movement is like a more proper kind of conversation. Yes. Right? About who you are, you know? And so the event happens and it's packed. There's 17 ,000 people there, mostly gay men. Most of the other acts are super, like, it's got a human rights framework, right, to it. And so people are talking about human rights, you know and Richard Pryor goes on you know and he gets on stage and he's clearly agitated like you can see he's agitated he's pacing around like you know and the first thing he says is I came here for human rights what I found out is it's really about not getting caught with a dick in your mouth laughter laughter

21:07Kai Wright:so so not the proper no like tailored statement that they probably wanted for this benefit right

21:14Emmanuel Dzotsi:what about sex y 'all and now what we're here talking about but but the crowd responds exactly as you did they like you know like this is now classic richard pryor that's right shake it up you know um and so he goes on to tell a gay sex joke right like he goes back to like he talks about the first time he gave a blowjob. And he names names. What was the guy's name? Wilbur Harp. In 1952, he was the first man he sucked.

21:40Kai Wright:Oh, not that poor man. I hope he was out. That's all I have to say. I do too.

21:46Emmanuel Dzotsi:And, you know, and he describes the experience as beautiful. And he says, you know, everybody was sucking Harp's dick. I was the only one to bring him roses. Right? So it's the same sort of setup as that craps joke. Right, right, right. It's the same thing. And so people are loving it. They're eating it up in the audience. But the whole time he's telling this joke, he is enraged.

22:08Kai Wright:Oh. Like, inside he's enraged because backstage he had seen, so this is a pretty white event, you know.

22:17Emmanuel Dzotsi:And there had been this black dance troupe that went on and had, like, some technical trouble and asked for help. and he witnessed the white production staff be dismissive of them and, like, not help them. And then there was a white dance troupe that had the same technical trouble and they got all the help they needed.

22:36Kai Wright:Naturally, yeah. And he was just in livid about this. And so he tells these reverse jokes.

22:44Emmanuel Dzotsi:The audience is with him. They're all in his palm. They're laughing and enjoying it. And then he stops and says, how can faggots be racist? and he proceeds, and that's a quote, he uses that language, and proceeds to light into them for being hypocrites. Wow. So then he just lays into them for, essentially, for being hypocrites, you know, for not wanting to stand up for black people in the way that they now want everybody to stand up for them. And this is Los Angeles, right? Yeah. So he's like, where were you during Watts, you know? Mm-hmm. Where are you for black civil rights? And, you know, it gets pretty bad.

23:24Emmanuel Dzotsi:And, you know, he starts feeling himself in it, you know, because he's mad. And he says, I hope you all get arrested when you leave here. Because, you know, it's illegal to be gay. Like, sodomy is illegal. And that's just a really nasty thing to say to somebody. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Yeah. And so they're booing him and heckling him and all of that. And finally, he just turns around, puts his ass in the air and says, kiss my happy rich ass and walks off stage.

23:52Kai Wright:Kiss my happy rich black man ass? Yes.

23:57Emmanuel Dzotsi:Which is still funny on top of everything else. This is, you know, obviously it's a horrible, you know, I mean, the language is terrible and like, but, you know, he's also telling a truth. that we are still arguing about, like, in the gay community. He is naming something, you know, that we are still discussing. Right. Like, the way white gay men will be there for their rights, but not for anything else, including for the rights of black gay people.

24:32Kai Wright:It's also just interesting because it feels like the whole point of the event was to sort of bring the gay rights movement into sort of, like, a more mainstream button-up sort of, Like, to make it the sort of thing that, like, your average do-gooder white housewife of that era probably could be like, oh, you know, look at them. They're doing this thing. And he's refusing to basically keep it in that place. He's like, no, let's talk about what we're really here to talk about.

24:59Emmanuel Dzotsi:Well, he can't. He's incapable.

25:01Kai Wright:Okay, so what is going on for him? Like, is he just rejecting just, like, the whiteness of it all one more time?

25:09Emmanuel Dzotsi:Emmanuel, this is part of why I'm talking to you about this, because I don't fully know. but I think that it connects to something that is going on for the whole generation of Black people, this post-civil rights generation for Black people, right? So, like, here he is, you know, he has found this success in these mainstream white spaces. But these mainstream white spaces that are now letting Black people into them are not, they haven't stopped being racist, you know?

25:39Kai Wright:Right, right, right.

25:40Emmanuel Dzotsi:As we see at the Hollywood Bowl, right? Like, there's still racist spaces.

25:44Kai Wright:There's still racist as hell. And he's also doing that thing. I don't know. There's this thing I feel like with black performers, especially in that era, probably, which is, you know, we're only like a couple of decades removed from sort of like the dance, black man dance kind of nature of like minstrel shows and people performing for white people in a way that was totally like black people were always the joke.

26:08Emmanuel Dzotsi:We're always the joke. And so now are you the joke or are you laughing? with me. You know, so I'm sure he's wrestling with some of that. And like adjacent to that is like, just what am I doing here? Period. Like I need, I need access to these white spaces in order to become rich and famous in the way that I want, you know, but these white spaces remain racist, you know, like I kind of don't want to be here at all, you know, but I do want to be here at all. And like, what do I do? Do I say something about the racism? Do I not say something about the racism. And, you know, Richard Pryor's response to that seems to be when he short circuits is to spit in white people's face.

26:47Emmanuel Dzotsi:Right. Right. Go fuck yourselves. Right. You know. But I will say part of my interest in him is like I my father, I feel like I watched go through this, you know, like as this man who, you know, was the first this and the first that in his field, he was a doctor, you know. And so like he was routinely in whites only spaces. He really wanted to be in black spaces. You know, that's where he preferred to be. But to have the success he wanted, he had to be in these spaces. And I think it kind of curdled him, you know. And for all of them, what ends up happening, and I don't understand why. I mean, I don't know why this happens, but all of them start to self-destruct, you know.

27:32Emmanuel Dzotsi:And I guess part of my, like, if you talk to a Black Gen Xer, like, this is a regular part of my conversation with my black peers is thinking about this. Is this something that like your generation talks about? Do you have this?

27:44Kai Wright:I think it's something, honestly, I think it's something in my generation when you talk to black as you grew up in suburban spaces. And just by existing, just by doing stuff, I'm the first of this. Every other black person I'm meeting is the first person to do this or is exceptional in kind of some way by virtue of the fact we're in this room or this place. But I don't know. I feel like the stakes of it are way more real for like Gen Xers or like people who came before. For our parents. Yeah, you know.

28:12Emmanuel Dzotsi:Because part of what is the struggle to carry that, like what they do, how they carry that, that they had tried so hard to be there. He worked so hard to go from being, you know, the kid that grew up in a brothel to standing on this stage being so famous that they would book him for this, even though he obviously was not a fit, you know.

28:33Kai Wright:100%. And also it's just like, it's so telling to me because he came up doing one type of comedy that was very white people safe. And then ultimately had a break with that. And then by necessity, kind of had to reshape himself in front of black audiences.

28:49Emmanuel Dzotsi:In front of black audiences. And then he was okay.

28:51Kai Wright:Right. And then he was okay. And then became famous doing that. But it still took him to the same place where it's like, he still ends up performing in front of white people. And as funny as you were describing this, it kind of reminded me of like, what happened to Dave Chappelle. Oh, that's right.

29:07Emmanuel Dzotsi:You know what? That's exactly right. That's exactly right.

29:09Kai Wright:Where you're making all these jokes, you get famous for, like in Dave Chappelle's case, making the Dave Chappelle show, which was like this sort of skit show that aired in like the early 2000s. And you got famous for like doing these very like avant-garde, risky, very race-focused, very honest jokes. Honest stuff. That black people loved. And then eventually he had to stop because it was just like, wait, I feel like white people are laughing at this in a way that is making me very uncomfortable. And me being the biggest this show has ever been at the height of his fame, the attention he's drawing and trying to figure out just like, OK, how can I be this famous when I have white fans?

29:52Emmanuel Dzotsi:Right.

29:53Kai Wright:And in a white gaze.

29:54Emmanuel Dzotsi:And, you know, maybe the comparison is apt as well because, like, I think, you know, today's Dave Chappelle is a man who is self-destructed. And part of my interest in this is, like, the self-destruction that Richard Pryor engages in as a consequence of this stuff was epic. And I'm going to tell you about that after a break.

30:18Kai Wright:Okay.

30:24Kai Wright:I'm C. Fishman from Orbit Media, and I want to tell you about our new series, Lives of Crime. The most intimate stories imaginable of life as an outlaw, because they're told by the outlaws themselves. Where's this day going to end? Will I be in prison or will I make a million dollars? I would go to a Chipotle and meet up to get$20 ,000 in cash.

30:48Emmanuel Dzotsi:I put the shotgun right behind his ear. He stiffens up and I pull the trigger.

30:54Kai Wright:Lives of Crime from Orbit Media drops March 24th on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.

31:09Emmanuel Dzotsi:Welcome back. This is Big Lives. We are talking about Richard Pryor, and we are now going to talk about his epic self-destruction. Oh, boy. All right. So June of 1980.

31:23Kai Wright:Yes.

31:23Emmanuel Dzotsi:Richard Pryor is wildly wealthy by this point. He has already been the first black person to make a million dollars in a movie. So, you know, his Hollywood Bowl flame out, you know, was not enough to derail him. He's that famous now. And he co-wrote Blazing Saddles. Do you know the movie Blazing Saddles?

31:45Kai Wright:I didn't know he co-wrote that. Yes, sir.

31:47Emmanuel Dzotsi:That's Richard Pryor. Wow. Okay. So those things have happened. He's like killing it. Also, he is spending more than a quarter million dollars a year on drugs, just on drugs alone. That's what he says in his memoir. Wow. And so June of 1980s, he's like on a days-long binge of freebasing cocaine. So it's been going on days. he's at his mansion in Los Angeles. It's this sprawling estate, you know, and he's not having fun while he's doing this. You know, he's just really, really high. And, you know, he has this moment where his manager describes it as, like, he's trying to deal with his guilt for the crime of being Richard Pryor, whatever the hell that means.

32:42Kai Wright:The crime of being Richard Pryor.

32:44Emmanuel Dzotsi:I have no idea what that means, but that's what he's experiencing in the moment while he's on this, like, binge. And he takes a bottle of 151-proof rum that a guest he's drinking while he's on this day's lunch binge. He pours it over his head, and he lights himself on fire. a fireball erupts, engulfs his body. Oh, my God. Because the freebase cocaine also has these volatile substances in it.

33:21Kai Wright:Oh, wow.

33:21Emmanuel Dzotsi:You know, flames cover more than half his body. He runs out of the mansion, past his security, out the gates, runs down the street, a streaking ball of fire.

33:33Kai Wright:Wow.

33:34Emmanuel Dzotsi:I mean, it's awful. That's terrible. It's horrific. and you know he somehow survives this

33:41Kai Wright:that was going to be my next question so he survives that but probably with like horrendous burns

33:47Emmanuel Dzotsi:horrendous burns he has six weeks of recovery I want to play some of that documentary from 2006 again where people in his life try to make sense of this moment and so you're going to hear from his daughter again and his son now and from his closest collaborator in comedy, Paul Mooney. So here's that. He wanted to end his life. Sometimes you get to a point where you can't take anymore and you don't know how to get a way out of it or you don't see a way out. And a lot of times you take matters into your own hands saying this is the only option I have. Richard was trying to kill himself. Definitely.

34:32Emmanuel Dzotsi:Definitely. What makes you say that? because it was the way he was acting before he did it. He was trying to get out of here. I'm sure of it.

34:40Kai Wright:He told me straight out, I didn't have an accident, baby. I tried to kill myself. I wanted it to stop. He just couldn't take it. When you say couldn't take it, could you explain what you were talking about? Well, Mama had passed away. You know, Mama had passed away the thing that was his rock, his foundation. Now what? Who's going to tell you off? nobody in your life wants to tell you off why because you're rich or pride yeah that makes sense because when you told me the way in which you did i'm like oh this is that is a suicidal

35:12Emmanuel Dzotsi:act yeah yeah but at the time who knew you know like it was like also just the act of a deranged drug addict right right you know right um but you think about like this balancing act he had been doing with himself, right, of like chasing fame in this white space, you know, really wanting to be in these black spaces. And I can imagine mama, you know, his grandmother who raised him in a brothel was probably a lot of like what made the balance right.

35:44Kai Wright:Right. It's like he has this grounding presence in his life. Yeah. I could totally see a one in which his grandma is this grounding presence that reminds him where he comes from, that connects same took his childhood in that way. You know, so it's a horrible event.

36:00Emmanuel Dzotsi:But classic Richard Pryor. He turns this into comedy. When he comes back from this in 1982, he makes a comedy film, Richard Pryor, Live on Sunset Strip. It's his next concert film. And I would say it was my introduction to Richard Pryor. I remember watching that with my family, you know, And he tells the story of this moment as this long, drawn-out bit that becomes, like, one of his most famous bits. And I just remember watching my family, my father particularly, just tears crying, you know? Like, that tears, funny laugh you get when somebody's telling the truth that feels real to you.

36:46Kai Wright:Yeah, like that it hit close to home, actually, for your dad and for others, other people.

36:50Emmanuel Dzotsi:Yeah, of that generation of like they got it, you know, like why he would. And I don't get it to this day. I don't get it. Why this impulse to self-destruction, you know, my father absolutely. He wasn't a drug addict, but he self-destructed with like he was a surgeon who treated people for diabetes and heart disease and preventable illnesses. And he died at 58 of diabetes and heart disease. Right. And it just, you know, just constantly anything he could do to undermine his own health. Yeah. And every time I am in conversation with other Black Gen X people, we talk about this and that they've seen in their parents or someone in their family.

37:29Emmanuel Dzotsi:I don't understand it. I don't understand why it went to self-destruction. But I also want, you know, from someone from your generation, is this at all legible to you? Do you have any idea what I'm talking about?

37:41Kai Wright:I mean, it feels ridiculous to say this because it's so lower stakes than what we've talked about. But it's like, nobody wants to be the black guy at a white, like, dance party in the middle of the circle. You know what I mean?

37:56Emmanuel Dzotsi:In the middle of the circle.

37:57Kai Wright:In the middle of the circle of everyone looking on you and displaying that way. Like, there's something about that sort of experience, whether it's you're performing on stage, in front of millions of people, whether it's you're a, like, a doctor, like your father was. there's something about finding success and realizing that that success means that you have to exist in a society that your whole life has never wanted you still doesn't really want you now is being made to accept you and like facing a choice you either sort of uh fully embrace that you lean in and you end up changing yourself probably in ways that are so small right that you don't even necessarily notice them like to probably in your everyday life you're going about it and you're like i'm doing what i've always done doing the stuff that has gotten me to this place but you are probably on some level changing yourself in these small ways that maybe don't hurt you in the moment but harm you as time goes on and it becomes sort of like a stress fracture where like you're just like oh i can't i can't keep doing this i can't yeah like you need

39:05Emmanuel Dzotsi:to get into therapy. This is what you have found. It's a different calling for you. And so that is the crime of being Richard Pryor. Is those small changes to yourself that ultimately become a fracture.

39:21Kai Wright:Right. And it's one of those things for him too where probably the more he leaned into like the Richard Pryor Act, the stuff that at first had seemed maybe too risky to do in front of white people. Like if you lean back into the thing that brought you peace or brought you a sense of fulfillment. What worked in the late 60s to sort of like get rid of your white fans and to connect with black people, by the time of the 80s and the 70s, it's something that white people are eager to lap in. They want to be in on the joke.

39:53Emmanuel Dzotsi:They want to be in on the joke. And you got, you know, enough money to have a million dollar a year drug problem.

40:00Kai Wright:Right, right.

40:01Emmanuel Dzotsi:You might be losing track of who you are, period.

40:03Kai Wright:100 % there's no way you could possibly be who you are man

40:08Emmanuel Dzotsi:so you know I mean and from here it's interesting because like not long after that so this is 1982 by like I think it was like in the mid 80s we now know he got diagnosed with MS you know do you know the film Harlem Nights

40:23Kai Wright:yeah yeah I know Harlem Nights that is a wild film

40:27Emmanuel Dzotsi:it is a wild film I love this so this is Eddie Murphy's first directing opportunity This is like an all-star cast of black comedians in the 80s. You know, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Della Reese, Red Fox. Like all of these legends get together, make kind of slapstick comedy about like being gangsters in Harlem. It's a total bomb in the box office, but it's a cult classic amongst black people. And Richard Pryor in it is kind of not the funny one.

40:57Kai Wright:Yeah.

40:57Emmanuel Dzotsi:You know, he kind of plays it straight. and Eddie Murphy has said in public that like he was frustrated by that in the filming oh like

41:08Kai Wright:Eddie was frustrated yeah he's like oh I want you to be the Richard Pryor I grew up with who is my legend you know and he blamed like the film not you know when it didn't get the kind of critical

41:19Emmanuel Dzotsi:response that it was supposed to get he's like part of it he's riffing on why one of the things is like I thought me and Richard were going to be on set yucking it up figuring things out but Richard was just kind of clocking it in. And then Eddie says, like, I later discovered, like, he had just been diagnosed with MS.

41:37Kai Wright:Oh.

41:37Emmanuel Dzotsi:And we didn't know that, but he knew that.

41:40Kai Wright:Mm-hmm.

41:40Emmanuel Dzotsi:And so he was, his decline was beginning. And so, you know, he continued to be in the culture for a bit. But I, you know, I don't remember when his last film was, but he starts to fade away. and it's just a tragedy, you know, because I just think he would have still been such a great...

42:01Kai Wright:Because you're saying he was born in 1940? Yeah. So he's only five years older than George W. Bush.

42:09Emmanuel Dzotsi:Yeah, or take another example, Steve Martin. Right, right, right. He's five years older than Steve Martin, who has got a hit TV show right now, right? You know, and is still actively making things. I think Richard Pryor would still be making things and I wonder what he'd be doing, you know, to push us, you know, what kind of truths he'd be telling that we don't get, you know. And that is also a little bit of the tragedy for me of that generation. There's so many of them, you know.

42:38Kai Wright:Yeah, who burn out so young.

42:39Emmanuel Dzotsi:Who burnt out, you know.

42:40Kai Wright:Yeah. Wow.

42:42Emmanuel Dzotsi:Thank you for processing this with me.

42:44Kai Wright:Of course, of course. It's interesting because where we're going next is, I think, kind of related. It speaks to a lot of similar ideas that we talked to today, but I think through a very different lens. OK. And so I'm going to play a couple of clips for you. I'm curious if you know who we're going to talk about. Let's do it.

43:03Emmanuel Dzotsi:Let's do it. I'm ready.

43:05Kai Wright:All right. So this first one is from 2003. I don't necessarily think it's specific to England. I think everywhere there's going to be people that are talented that can really rhyme or can really make a beat. And then not necessarily in the forefront of the music industry. You know, it's just about who the record company is going to put out. You know, there's a lot of talented people everywhere. Do you have any idea who this might be?

43:29Emmanuel Dzotsi:I recognise the voice and I'm trying to, like, put the person with it, but I'm like, I know that person.

43:35Kai Wright:Oh, all right. Well, we have another one this time a couple of years later from 2006. I mean, when I go on stage, I like to dress as slutty as possible because it makes me dance better for some reason. But I do it because I'm an assertive young woman and I'm not trying to sell records based on the way I look. And that's why I do it, apart from the fact that I like dressing like a star.

43:54Emmanuel Dzotsi:I like her. I like her, whoever she is. I don't know. Now I've actually lost my way.

44:01Kai Wright:Listen, what you are having right now is the experience that millions of people around the world had when they first heard her, which was, I don't know who this is, but I love this woman and I want to hear more. Okay. I'll play one more clip. I'm lucky that I can sing songs that make me happy that I wrote about stuff that, you know, I'm lucky that I get to give myself therapy every day by singing songs about a really tough time in my life. Not everyone can do that. Everyone's got to go and talk about other people. I'm very lucky. Yeah, yeah. All right, so don't tell me now after these, but do you feel like you have an idea?

44:32Kai Wright:I don't. Wow. All right, well, we'll have to wait and see.

44:35Emmanuel Dzotsi:But I am very excited to find out. Big Lives is a production of BBC Studios and Pushkin Industries. It's hosted by me, Kai Wright, and Emmanuel Jochi. From BBC Studios, our producer is Emma Wetherill. Our archive producer is Samira Chowdhury. The sound designer is Melvin Rickaby. Executive producer is Annie Brown. Production coordinator is Galen Davis Connolly. And production manager is Mabel Finnegan-Wright. From Pushkin Industries, our executive producer is Constanza Gallardo. Producer Daphne Chen. Legal advisor Jake Flanagan. And marketing by Morgan Ratner and Jordan McMillan.

45:22Kai Wright:I'm C. Fishman from Orbit Media, and I want to tell you about our new series, Lives of Crime, the most intimate stories imaginable of life as an outlaw, because they're told by the outlaws themselves. Where's this day going to end? Will I be in prison, or will I make a million dollars? I would go to a Chipotle and meet up to get$20 ,000 in cash.

45:45Emmanuel Dzotsi:I put the shotgun right behind his ear. He stiffens up, and I pull the trigger.

45:52Kai Wright:Lives of Crime from Orbit Media drops March 24th on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.