(upbeat music) - in the 1980s and 90s, black comedians have an extra burden. their comedy is judged through a different lens of authenticity versus, oh, i m just trying to placate mainstream audiences. - folks on madison avenue, the advertisers believed that black comedy is too raw and people don t want to hear it. - then the whole phenomenon that townsend, keenan, murphy and arsenio had helped push what i was able to do with def comedy jam. - this is where we, as black comedians, come together and unite as one. - the fact that he was on hbo, they didn t have to worry about sponsors. is ajax gonna pull back cause he said the n-word? and oh, my god, palmolive doesn t like when we say shit. don t say shit. like, he never deal with all that. - martin lawrence was the best host.
than def comedy jam. - tag was a game what we played at the mall. you know where you go to the mall, you see some shit you like. you notice that the price is way too (beep) high. (audience laughs) you find the tag appropriate to your financial needs. (audience laughs) canoe the rivers of shawnee try 17th street bbq in the middle of everything. .there s everything to dooooooooo!
that is not an easy thing to do. - when you get that nfl contract and you get that nba contract, who do you marry? you marry bambi, you run the other way, you should have been (beep) with a country hoe, such as myself, from arkansas. you woulda got your (beep) sucke and biscuits from scratch up in that mother. (audience laughing) - at about the same time as def comedy jam, snl was looking for another great black sketch artist because eddie murphy left and chris rock was super young and he wasn t quite ready at the time. he eventually left and became much bigger after snl. - honey, it ll be aight if you just say you did it. you start thinking, i guess it ll be aight. (audience laughing) honey, i did it. is it aight? no, it ain t aight! i can t believe you did that. i thought you said you knew. i didn t know til you told me! (audience laughing) - so after chris rock does bring the pain, it was an explosive moment for him and there was no going back.
black comedians have an extra burden. their comedy is judged through a different lens of authenticity versus, oh, i m just trying to placate mainstream audiences. - folks on madison avenue, the advertisers believed that black comedy is too raw and people don t want to hear it. - then the whole phenomenon that townsend, keenan, murphy and arsenio had helped push what i was able to do with def comedy jam. - this is where we, as black comedians, come together and unite as one. - the fact that he was on hbo, they didn t have to worry about sponsors. is ajax gonna pull back cause he said the n-word? and oh, my god, palmolive doesn t like when we say shit. don t say shit. like, he never deal with all that. - martin lawrence was the best host. - you come here. yes. - martin was good at being spontaneous. he could come off the cuff and when you look at some of those old def jam performances, a lot of what he did was improvised. i don t know that he ever went out there with a playbo
- i know big bird outta business, but what the (beep) is up? (audience laughs) - def comedy jam was a black comics paradise. - after decades of being told how to behave, what s appropriate, what s okay and what s not okay, black comedians had enough. you will no longer censor me. - we put on the acts that we wanted to see, edgy. - i m so broke, if a nigga robbed me, he ll just be practicing. (audience laughs) - def jam comes along and boom! now everybody knows bill bellamy, adele givens, bernie mac, steve harvey, eddie griffin. so i m grateful for it. how could you not be? - she said, does this (beep) taste like pumpkin pie? (audience laughing) made me mad as hell, i said, don t ask me no damn question like that! i ain t never had no pumpkin pie. kick it! (audience laughing) (upbeat music) - you know the women of def comedy jam hold a special place in my heart because they are like the women of gangster rap. they had to really make room in such a toxically masculine space.