Now what?
After experiencing the scale and energy of the Def Comedy Jam tour, it was hard going back to the same clubs, bars, and random Philadelphia spots. It started to feel like the top rung in town was a weekend headlining slot at the Laff House, but that wouldn’t get me to the place Earthquake and D. L. Hughley were at. I couldn’t understand how I was supposed to reach that level, or how anyone did. Was I supposed to just keep performing until the next contest came to town?
I was only twenty, and it felt like I was already peaking. I needed to figure out the next step.
“What did I tell you, stupid?”
That was when Keith Robinson came back into my life. I’d have recognized that voice anywhere. I’d just stepped off stage at the Laff House, closing with the usual “I’m Lil’ Kev the Bastard. Thank you, and good night!”
“Stop telling people you’re Lil’ Kev the Bastard!” A nasal voice drilled into my skull.
I told him that I’d taken his advice, but it wasn’t working for me. Audiences didn’t find Kevin Hart nearly as funny as Lil’ Kev the Bastard.
“Sit down.” He gestured. I sat down obediently. “Let me ask you a question: How many people do you think are gonna remember Lil’ Kev the Bastard?”
“Shit, my whole fan base, man!” My fan base was like twenty-seven people.
“Okay, then tell me some comedians with nicknames who are stars.”
“Earthquake, Cedric the Entertainer, Sinbad—”
“I said stars. People that are worldwide. People that are globally known household names for telling jokes. Name just four people.”
I thought of the legends: Eddie Murphy, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, George Carlin. None had stage names. “I don’t know,” I stammered.
“That’s my point. That name may work for you in the short term, but you’re cutting off an entire group of people that may not get Lil’ Kev the Bastard. If you wanted to be a wrestler or a rapper, Lil’ Kev the Bastard would be fine. However, you want to have a relationship with the audience, and the name you were born with is going to have more depth and authenticity than a character you made up.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. On an intuitive level, I knew that he was right. But I didn’t want to start all over as Kevin Hart and throw away the work I’d done so far.
“I can see the doubt in your eyes.” Keith grew more impassioned, leaning in a little too close. “Stop being a dummy. Your job as a person with talent is to make yourself interesting after the audience hears your name. Define the person who was just introduced.”
“How do you do that?”
“It’s simple, stupid. You be yourself. When they say Kevin Hart, your first words should be ‘Hey, what’s going on? My name is Kevin Hart. I’m happy to be here.’?”
It felt like he’d just told me to pull down my pants and take a crap on stage. In fact, taking an on-stage shit would have made more sense to me. At least that was interesting and memorable. Starting out by greeting the audience like I was at a job interview made absolutely no sense. But I was willing to try it again.
“Oh, man. I can do that, I guess.”
“It’s a long journey to finding yourself. Just go on that journey. It’s worth it.”
He advised me to stick around and watch him perform again. I paid attention as he did exactly what he’d suggested I do, and I noticed that because of it he was coming across more like the stars I’d seen at the Def Jam show than like me or Tommy Too Smoov with our gimmicks. And that’s when I got it: I could be funny for ten minutes at my best. Same with most of the other new guys on the scene. But when Keith started talking, you felt like you could listen to him for hours. He wasn’t delivering material or playing characters. He was just being himself—it was a radical concept.
After his set, he hung around talking to audience members and other comedians, then returned to the table where I was sitting. He slapped my head, then spoke the words that would change my life:
“If you’re really serious about this, you gotta get out of here. Philadelphia isn’t the place that’s gonna make you better. You gotta get to New York. It’s the comedy capital of the world. Your game has to seriously rise up to make it there.”
My eyes widened and my heart raced. “Man, I’d love to. How do I do that?”
He wrote down his phone number on a napkin, handed it me, and said, “If you’re serious about going to New York, you call me and I’ll take you there.”
I couldn’t believe this guy was inviting me to New York out of the blue. Either this was an opportunity to move toward the goal I’d set at the Def Jam show or a total scam. He could be a pervert, trying to get me alone on an isolated road. With his pulled-up-too-high dress slacks and creepy goatee, he kind of did look like a guy who hung around playgrounds pretending to read the newspaper.
I had to make a choice: Risk getting in the car with a stranger, or risk missing what could be the biggest opportunity of my career. There was only one path I could reasonably take. It wasn’t the one my mother would have approved of.
40
* * *
LIL’ KEV VS. BIG KEV
I called Keith the next day and told him I was ready to go to New York.
“You got a car?” he asked.
“No, but my friend does.”
“Meet me tomorrow at four at the 7-Eleven on City Line Avenue. Bring the car.”
I hung up and called Big Jay Oakerson: “Yo, we gotta go to New York! I just met this guy. He’s saying that’s where we need to be. He said to call him when I’m serious and I just called him.”
Jay agreed to come with, since it would be an opportunity for him as well. The next day, he picked me up and we drove to City Line Avenue.
Keith parked his car in a lot there and jumped into Jay’s car. As we drove to New York, Keith broke down the scene for us: “We’re going to the city where all the best comics are. This is the big league. The goal is to make everyone think you live there. You have to be the first one in and you gotta be the last one out. Got it, dummies?”
When we arrived, he directed us to a place called the New York Comedy Club in Gramercy Park. He ran inside while we found parking, then we met him at the club and watched his set. As soon as he finished, he had us drive him to the Boston Comedy Club in Greenwich Village and we did the same thing. Next, we drove him to the Gotham Comedy Club in Chelsea to watch him do the same jokes all over again.
“What about us?” I finally broke down and asked after the Gotham show. “Are we getting up anywhere?”
“Y’all need to see what this is first,” he responded.