Speaker 1: Welcome to j dot IL, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hannah Loves How is everybody doing? Welcome, Welcome back to
Speaker 2: j dot IL the podcast. You already know. I'm sitting
Speaker 2: here with the lovely age of Graydon Danzla. That's Bob
Speaker 2: and the exquisite Lia Saint.
Speaker 3: Clair video cheeriold Jady, old good folks. I don't know
Speaker 3: that we'll find out. That's how they speak at them.
Speaker 2: What's the cheerio about it? Sit you home?
Speaker 3: No, the cheerio is because we have a woman king
Speaker 3: in the building, my friend. Uh, ladies and gentlemen, boys
Speaker 3: and girls, listen. You may see her on your TVs
Speaker 3: as a character on Bob Park's Aba Shola Honey. She
Speaker 3: is the co creighth more of Bob Parts Aba Shola.
Speaker 3: She is literally the woman king of comedy of Great Britain.
Speaker 4: It's kind of crazy.
Speaker 3: Y'all think I'm joking, but no, I'm talking about Gina YASCHERI.
Speaker 4: We can talk about all that.
Speaker 3: We are in a safe space of black red famous
Speaker 3: and I am here for all of it.
Speaker 4: Not to forget that she's also the daughter of loyalty.
Speaker 5: I'm from where the Bronxes came from. I am royalty.
Speaker 2: Let's give it.
Speaker 6: Okay, thank you guys, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: It's got to be something because that energy is just wow,
Speaker 2: I mean, shoots through whoever is listening, whoever's looking. Have
Speaker 2: you always been this way?
Speaker 5: Yes, my mother said in the womb, So when my
Speaker 5: mom was pregnant with me and I was born after twins,
Speaker 5: but so she says, she had a bit more room
Speaker 5: in there, and she had a bunch of student doctors
Speaker 5: walk in the room and they were saying, this is
Speaker 5: a pregnant woman, she's eight months and blah blah blah,
Speaker 5: and she goes to doctors couldn't find me because I
Speaker 5: was off during the space, having a good old time,
Speaker 5: and the doctors couldn't find me.
Speaker 6: So she was like, from that.
Speaker 5: Moment, I knew when you came out you were going
Speaker 5: to be crazy.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it, and it's like, but the thing about
Speaker 1: it is that you know, when like you were telling
Speaker 1: us about you and about doing comedy, you know, I
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, I hate this whole
Speaker 1: idea that women as comedians, that we don't get the
Speaker 1: energy that we should get and that you know, we
Speaker 1: have to try so hard to get this, to get
Speaker 1: the label of being funny, and it's just like, it
Speaker 1: just drives me nuts. And I'm just like, man, the
Speaker 1: fact that you're the queen of comedy and that you're
Speaker 1: ushering in such a you know, an underserved group of
Speaker 1: black women. Bravo and Bravo and Bravo's.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean comedy wise, Yeah, it's been hard in
Speaker 5: this industry. And I've always been like, listen, I'm as
Speaker 5: funny as any of you. Of you dudes, you know,
Speaker 5: all that rubbish about women women funny. I hate that
Speaker 5: interview question because I'm like, it's not that women are funny,
Speaker 5: it's there's less of us, and.
Speaker 6: So we get judged a lot more harshly.
Speaker 5: There's a million medio carassmen out there, millions I don't
Speaker 5: get just because there's so many, you know, And that's
Speaker 5: the difference.
Speaker 3: Now, Gina, can you see I remember you had you
Speaker 3: came back with a book a year ago about your life.
Speaker 4: And the beginning of your story.
Speaker 3: I just want you to share, please share with Jill
Speaker 3: or Asia the beginnings.
Speaker 4: Of the story of your father and your mother and
Speaker 4: all the other women.
Speaker 5: First, so as I said, my family from Ben in
Speaker 5: where the bronzes came from my grandmother. I'm actually a
Speaker 5: reincarnation of my grandmother. So Nigerians believe strongly in reincarnation.
Speaker 5: And my grandmother was one of many wives of a chief,
Speaker 5: so she was the second wife. There were many more wives,
Speaker 5: but she was kind of the favored wife and the
Speaker 5: otherwise were very jealous of her.
Speaker 6: She had a lot of kids.
Speaker 5: But she used to say to me, my mother all
Speaker 5: the time when she was a child, when I come back,
Speaker 5: I'm going to be British.
Speaker 6: I'm going to speak with a British accent.
Speaker 5: I'm going to I'm not going to have all of
Speaker 5: these children when I come back, I'm going to have
Speaker 5: I'm going to live a free life. I'm going to
Speaker 5: do a man's job. I'm going to do whatever they
Speaker 5: men do, I will do because I will be as
Speaker 5: strong as them. And she named all these things that
Speaker 5: she wanted to do. Now she ended up dying. She
Speaker 5: was poisoned by the other jel of sortives and she
Speaker 5: ended up being killed.
Speaker 6: It's a whole the whole story. That's the first chapter
Speaker 6: of my book. So she ended up being but when
Speaker 6: she died of poisoning, she died with a mark on
Speaker 6: her throat. And I was born.
Speaker 5: Fifteen years later, and when I came out the womb,
Speaker 5: I had this birthmark. And so as soon as I
Speaker 5: was born, my mother looked down at me and knew.
Speaker 5: She was like, oh my gosh, my mother has returned.
Speaker 5: And the whole family rejoiced because they were like, my
Speaker 5: mother has returned through my mum. And my nickname in
Speaker 5: the family is Granny because my mom calls me Granny
Speaker 5: because on my own grandmother. And basically I basically turned
Speaker 5: out exactly as my grandmother said she was going to be.
Speaker 6: She was like, I'm not gonna have all these kid children.
Speaker 6: I'm going to live a free life. I'm going to
Speaker 6: be I'm going.
Speaker 5: To do all the jobs because I used to be
Speaker 5: an engineer. Before I did comedy, I was an engineer.
Speaker 5: I built and repaired elevators. So everything that my grandmother
Speaker 5: said came to pass. I became that person this years
Speaker 5: and every time I've gone to a psychic or somebody spiritual,
Speaker 5: every time they always say the same thing. There's a
Speaker 5: woman guiding you through this life. There's a woman related
Speaker 5: to you who is following you and guiding your every move.
Speaker 5: So that's part of the story. And then obviously both
Speaker 5: my parents and I Jane Thombinin they met, they had
Speaker 5: me in England with all my brothers and sisters, and
Speaker 5: then obviously in England in the early sixties very racist.
Speaker 5: My father was a qualified lawyer, my mother was a
Speaker 5: head head teacher, a school principle. They came over here
Speaker 5: as very high achieving people, but in England they were like, oh,
Speaker 5: you're a lawyer, are you You're a heir. Great, you
Speaker 5: can work in a post office and you can drive
Speaker 5: a bus. And my father was I'm not driving a bus.
Speaker 5: I'm a lawyer, and let's take our children and go
Speaker 5: back to Nigeria. And my mother was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 5: my children are British. I want them to have all
Speaker 5: the opportunities that be in British affords them. I'm staying
Speaker 5: here in England, even if I have to sacrificed my
Speaker 5: own career. And my dad was like, oh, okay then
Speaker 5: and then he went back to Nigeria and that was
Speaker 5: the end of that. I never saw him again until
Speaker 5: I was thirty eight. So basically, if you watch the
Speaker 5: show Bob Hart Savage Shara, that Abashalla story is based
Speaker 5: on my parents' story where she ends up in America
Speaker 5: with her child, raising her child as a single mother,
Speaker 5: and her husband has gone back to Nigeria to be
Speaker 5: an architect because he was like, I'm not going to
Speaker 5: be in America doing not doing what I'm qualified to do.
Speaker 6: So that's the story of me.
Speaker 7: Wow, this woman interesting from the beginning, Yes, from the
Speaker 7: very beginning there.
Speaker 4: That's why it's like all the things, y'all, all the things.
Speaker 1: That's an amazing origin story.
Speaker 2: Listen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so that's the first chatter of My book is
Speaker 5: called Candid. It's a memoir. It's literally just come out
Speaker 5: on paperback recently in England. It's out in America on paperback.
Speaker 5: And yeah, I wrote a book and it's a crazy
Speaker 5: story I've had. I've had a life. I've had a life.
Speaker 3: And you talk about the things that like a lot
Speaker 3: of black Brooks. I don't know, it just seems I
Speaker 3: think we had this conversation before too, like we feel
Speaker 3: like sometimes things are quiet, and like you said, what
Speaker 3: do you call it racism?
Speaker 2: Subtle?
Speaker 5: Subtle racism? Subtle, it ain't passive, it's just subtle. It's
Speaker 5: death by a thousand cuts. Racism well, you don't even
Speaker 5: know that, you just got to discriminate against. They're so
Speaker 5: clever about it. And you know, I do a routine
Speaker 5: on stage where I say that, yeah, American racism is
Speaker 5: in your face.
Speaker 6: The British racism.
Speaker 5: The Brits were the architects of racism, the architects savory
Speaker 5: the European the way that they just hid it from
Speaker 5: high society. Whereas do I say that Americans did the
Speaker 5: equivalent of you know, breaking into someone's house and keeping
Speaker 5: the stolen goods.
Speaker 6: In their own house.
Speaker 5: It was in America on plantations in America for every
Speaker 5: American to see, for everybody to see.
Speaker 6: It was in your face. Whereas the Brits did it differently.
Speaker 5: They stole the same amount of black people from Africa,
Speaker 5: but they put them on plantations in the Caribbean, mostly
Speaker 5: away from polite British society. It was in Jamaica and
Speaker 5: Trinidad and Barbados and all. So that is where the
Speaker 5: majority of their filthy deeds were done. So if you
Speaker 5: went to England and the eighteen hundreds and went, oh,
Speaker 5: in a minute, you stole black people, they'd be like,
Speaker 5: but where.
Speaker 6: Where is the evidence? I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 5: So they did the equivalent of breaking into someone's house
Speaker 5: stealing their goods, but keeping the goods in somebody else's house.
Speaker 5: So when you come to them, there's no evidence of
Speaker 5: what they've done, so, but it's no less heinous, you know.
Speaker 5: You know, there's been a lot of discussion amongst you know,
Speaker 5: African American actors saying the British actors playing American you
Speaker 5: know characters, you know, they haven't had the experiences, you know,
Speaker 5: they haven't suffered the levels of racism that we have.
Speaker 6: But that is not the case.
Speaker 5: We've had very black people in the UK and descendants
Speaker 5: of slaves in the UK and in Europe, France, Germany,
Speaker 5: Belgium have had very similar experiences. It's just that it's
Speaker 5: not being publicized. The British and the French and the
Speaker 5: Portuguese and the Spanish should be much better at hiding it.
Speaker 2: I think mostly too, that they can't necessarily pinpoint your
Speaker 2: anger or your quote unquote crazy. Yeah, you know, the
Speaker 2: argument has always been there, you know, about English actors,
Speaker 2: and my point of view is that the training is.
Speaker 6: Kind of bomb like.
Speaker 2: Honestly, the training is kind of it's not kind of
Speaker 2: it's next level. Okay, not that not to disregard our
Speaker 2: Juilliard grads or n y U grads or or Cornell
Speaker 2: or or Berkeley. I'm not trying to dismiss that. I'm
Speaker 2: just saying that's a that's a lot of schools, and
Speaker 2: that's a lot of really powerful work. I'm just saying
Speaker 2: that also, there's a combination of those things that one
Speaker 2: can't pinpoint. You're crazy, you know, can't pinpoint where your
Speaker 2: rage comes from, not necessarily because you're We have plantations
Speaker 2: here in this place, huh, and we could go visit
Speaker 2: them and feel the vibes, you know, at least are
Speaker 2: the same for you. I suppose that you're questioners are
Speaker 2: on our money and our streets and our schools.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I mean we've got you know, during the
Speaker 5: Black Lives Matter marches, a lot of statues of slave
Speaker 5: owners were being ripped down all over English that was
Speaker 5: still very much there and being revered by the people.
Speaker 6: So yeah, we have the similar age. And with the actors.
Speaker 5: The actor thing, just going back to it for a second,
Speaker 5: you know how many African American actors have played Nelson Mandela.
Speaker 6: You know, we it's stip for.
Speaker 3: You know what, But you know, I think the I
Speaker 3: think the argument comes in when we don't know if
Speaker 3: certain history is being taught over there and there may
Speaker 3: be a black brit playing a black historical character like
Speaker 3: that too, is a whole nother deep argument because I
Speaker 3: always wondered that. I was like, do they teach our
Speaker 3: history over there?
Speaker 6: Absolutely?
Speaker 1: I mean, to be fair, they don't teach it here,
Speaker 1: Harriet tell mean was I mean it doesn't get taught.
Speaker 1: I think I think for I think for me, it's
Speaker 1: more like I think for me, it's more that. Okay,
Speaker 1: So when people with black people, people of African descent
Speaker 1: all over this world, right, America has a particular kind
Speaker 1: of nasty little rule that if you are an African
Speaker 1: of the diaspora and you come to America, you get
Speaker 1: othered in a in a very specific way that pits
Speaker 1: you against African American list that that little that that
Speaker 1: piece is I feel like, what fuels this more than
Speaker 1: any of this other stuff.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it is the classic divide and concotic and the
Speaker 5: same thing happened in England when Africans came to England.
Speaker 5: We were pitted against Caribbeans, black people from the Caribbean.
Speaker 6: You know, as a kid.
Speaker 5: Growing up, I was getting abused, not just by white kids,
Speaker 5: but at the black kids ifact take on even more
Speaker 5: abuse from other black children. The white children. The white
Speaker 5: kids were confused. They looked the same, why are they fighting?
Speaker 5: They I don't get it. And I used to get
Speaker 5: abused by cabrin because we you know, they they weren't
Speaker 5: taught proper British history. So at the time when I
Speaker 5: was going the Caribecans, kids had no idea that they
Speaker 5: were descendants of African people who'd been in slave They
Speaker 5: hadn't been taught that. They thought the black people had
Speaker 5: originated in the Caribbean. So I'd have arguments, you're Jamaican kids,
Speaker 5: you came from us. The people were stolen from Africa
Speaker 5: and that's how you ended up in Jamaica. And they
Speaker 5: were like, no, MA mean not to African Yamican. I mean,
Speaker 5: I know what you mean. They weren't taught the history.
Speaker 5: It wasn't until Roots, when Roots came to England. That
Speaker 5: is the only then that they started to realize, oh,
Speaker 5: there's something that we haven't been taught. They had no
Speaker 5: idea of the history. They didn't not no idea and
Speaker 5: so I had a lot. I had so many fights
Speaker 5: in my youth because my mom obviously know a history.
Speaker 5: My family are from Benin, so my family, yeah you know,
Speaker 5: I'm from Nigeren so our family were not enslaves, so
Speaker 5: my mother knew the history. My mother would say, these
Speaker 5: kids laughing at you and calling you names, it's because
Speaker 5: they've not been educated properly in England.
Speaker 6: They don't know their history.
Speaker 5: They don't know that they are in fact our family
Speaker 5: that were taken from us.
Speaker 6: They don't know it. So just don't worry about it.
Speaker 6: One day they will learn, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: There had to be a mind screwed. Yeah, every day
Speaker 2: you're fighting your own.
Speaker 6: People every day. It was crazy.
Speaker 1: Well, to be honest, I've heard this same you know,
Speaker 1: uh we're not saying, but a similar story with some
Speaker 1: kids who are first generation in America whose parents are
Speaker 1: are are from the continent and they come to America
Speaker 1: and African American kids are like you African booty snatcher,
Speaker 1: saying everything I mean, this is And it's so bad
Speaker 1: that that particular insult it survived a whole generation that
Speaker 1: this same thing that I heard kids call kids when
Speaker 1: I was, you know, kindergarten in the eighties they were
Speaker 1: calling kids when my kids were in kindergarten.
Speaker 4: I said, now, how on that because the boys in
Speaker 4: the hood.
Speaker 1: But yeah, my kids, them kids ain't seen I got kids.
Speaker 4: They seen that movie.
Speaker 6: They's tossed down.
Speaker 1: The fact that that slur seriously though, that it survived,
Speaker 1: it's crazy.
Speaker 4: I mean, the fact that the sentiment has survived.
Speaker 8: More real talk after the break.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm here to tell you. Definitely proud of you.
Speaker 2: I mean it feels like you've had your dukes up
Speaker 2: the whole time. Oh yeah, we thought for any young folks,
Speaker 2: dukes up. Just mean to hear you prepared and ready
Speaker 2: to fight this whole time. But with this level of knowledge,
Speaker 2: you know who you are. We were talking about genealogy
Speaker 2: earlier and just the privilege and power of knowing who
Speaker 2: you are. And man, what's your what was your grandmother's name?
Speaker 5: Patients are bussy and yeah she's She's been guiding me
Speaker 5: my entire life.
Speaker 6: And you know, I've.
Speaker 5: Made history on many occasions, like when I became an
Speaker 5: engineer for Otis. I was their first human engineer in
Speaker 5: their one hundred year history in the UK.
Speaker 6: Ever, yeah, I mean it sounds good, but it was.
Speaker 6: It was terrible.
Speaker 5: I got I can imagine the N word every day
Speaker 5: at work. I'd come into work and these white dudes
Speaker 5: would hang pictures of monkeys and put banana skins in
Speaker 5: my own They tried to drive me out the job,
Speaker 5: and I was like, now you're not driving out. I'll
Speaker 5: prove that I can do this job back than all
Speaker 5: of you. And so yeah, it was a yeah. I
Speaker 5: was getting into a fight with white dudes every day.
Speaker 5: In fact, had to pull do, decide and fight. If
Speaker 5: you call me nigga one more time, I got two
Speaker 5: brothers dukes up. I will send them to your house.
Speaker 5: And then he never spoke to me again. And then,
Speaker 5: funnily enough, my one of my first ever stand up shows,
Speaker 5: he was.
Speaker 6: In the audience.
Speaker 1: So help us, help us walk through. We fix the elevators.
Speaker 1: We fight, and we're fighting racist making, designing building, elevating
Speaker 1: the building. We're doing this and then we get to comedy.
Speaker 1: How take us on? Now take us on that pathway?
Speaker 6: Okay. So obviously I'm from a very academic.
Speaker 5: Family, so there was no way my mom was gonna
Speaker 5: let me go into the arts, even though as a kid.
Speaker 6: You know. Teachers used to say to my mom.
Speaker 5: You know, Genus, she has a personality. You know, maybe
Speaker 5: she should get into acting and the arts. You know,
Speaker 5: I think she could be an actor. And my mom
Speaker 5: was like, yes, well she can act like a doctor
Speaker 5: until she become doctor. That was the yeah, I do
Speaker 5: joke what I'm saying. An African family, there's only a
Speaker 5: few choices of Korea, doctor, lawyer, engineer, accountant, or displaced
Speaker 5: to the family.
Speaker 6: Those are the choices.
Speaker 5: And I found out quite early that I couldn't stand
Speaker 5: the sight of blood, so doctor was not going to happen.
Speaker 5: So I switched to engineering, and I studied in engineering
Speaker 5: and I got my degree in electrical and electronics engineering.
Speaker 5: And that's how I ended up in engineering as a
Speaker 5: living did I worked to Otis for four years. I
Speaker 5: stuck it out as long as I could, and then eventually,
Speaker 5: because I was the first woman, then didn't I want
Speaker 5: to do with me. I'd say, well, I'm supposed to
Speaker 5: get this promotion, I've qualified for this, I've I've jumped
Speaker 5: through all the hoops and I'm supposed to be this grade.
Speaker 6: And they'd be like, yeah, what was you know?
Speaker 5: If we send you out on your own on this job.
Speaker 5: You know, the men there won't They're not going.
Speaker 6: To listen to girl.
Speaker 5: So I was supposed to be in a supervisor posian,
Speaker 5: you know, and they wouldn't give it to me because
Speaker 5: they were worried that the guys wouldn't listen to me
Speaker 5: and all this kind of stuff. So in the end,
Speaker 5: I was like, well, I'm never going to have the
Speaker 5: career progression I'm supposed to have. So I, you know,
Speaker 5: I left in the mid nineties. The building industry was
Speaker 5: going through a slump. They were laying people off. I
Speaker 5: knew they weren't going to lay me off because they
Speaker 5: had me on the all their magazines and posters getting
Speaker 5: look at us, We've got a black down and I'd
Speaker 5: be like, there was just so they were never going
Speaker 5: to let me go because I was their little poster girl.
Speaker 5: But I marched into my manager's office and I was like,
Speaker 5: you're going to let me go if you don't want
Speaker 5: me to go public about what has been going on
Speaker 5: in this company, give me my money, let.
Speaker 6: Me bounce, and they were like all right, So they
Speaker 6: let me go, and so I.
Speaker 5: Decided to take the summer off enjoy the summer until
Speaker 5: it was time to get another engineering job. And it
Speaker 5: was in that time I decided to try different things.
Speaker 5: I joined the Nation of Islam for about twelve minutes.
Speaker 5: I did that for a while. I see that, you know,
Speaker 5: I came out of Oti's.
Speaker 6: Very angry, very angry at white people.
Speaker 5: So I was like, I need I'm going to learn
Speaker 5: my history and I need a group of people that
Speaker 5: feel my pain.
Speaker 6: And Nation of this line just drew me in.
Speaker 5: And then from there I went off and started doing
Speaker 5: stuff in the community, you know, helping out with you know,
Speaker 5: seat kitchens and things like that for black people in
Speaker 5: the community. And then one day they were doing a
Speaker 5: fundraiser and they were like, we need poets, singers, dancers
Speaker 5: for this fundraiser would doing.
Speaker 6: And so I wrote.
Speaker 5: Me and two of my friends were always messing around,
Speaker 5: you know, cracking jokes about our parents, and I wrote
Speaker 5: what I.
Speaker 6: Thought was a play for us to perform. And then
Speaker 6: we performed this play and it.
Speaker 5: Turned out it wasn't a play because people laughed their
Speaker 5: asses off through the entire thing.
Speaker 6: And I was like, oh, this is comedy.
Speaker 5: This is a comedy skit I've written, And so we
Speaker 5: took that one skit, and we kept winning all these
Speaker 5: talent competitions all around England with this one skit. But
Speaker 5: the other two girls weren't that serious. And one day
Speaker 5: we were through to the semi finals of another talent competition.
Speaker 5: The other two girls just didn't turn up. They just
Speaker 5: didn't feel like it whatever, it just didn't turn up.
Speaker 5: And I was there and they were like, you guys
Speaker 5: are up next. Where's your girls? And I was like,
Speaker 5: I don't know, I'll just go up on stage and
Speaker 5: talk for a few minutes and just you know. And
Speaker 5: I went up stage on stage and talked for ten minutes,
Speaker 5: and one that night the heat and got us through
Speaker 5: to the finals. So then people were coming up to
Speaker 5: me and oh, yeah, I need those.
Speaker 6: Two other girls.
Speaker 5: You're a stand up comic, that's what you are, and
Speaker 5: that's how I discovered stand up And then I was like, well,
Speaker 5: I'll do this for a while, see how it works out,
Speaker 5: and then you know, have a little bit of fun
Speaker 5: over the summer, and then get another engineering job at
Speaker 5: the end of summer. And I just ended up never
Speaker 5: going back to engineering.
Speaker 6: The comedy just.
Speaker 5: Kept building and building, and then I was like, you know,
Speaker 5: people are coming up to me and I'll give you
Speaker 5: fifty bucks to come and do ten minutes here. And
Speaker 5: I was like, fifty fifty bucks for ten minutes. Oh
Speaker 5: this is this is great and I just never went back.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 2: Everybody always talks about it, how the best comedians are
Speaker 2: like super intelligent. Would it have to be right? Because
Speaker 2: you have to come from you know, I have to
Speaker 2: have a real perspective, a ground perspective in what it
Speaker 2: is that you're talking about in a vocabulary vocabulary tour,
Speaker 2: and also the imagination to tell the story so that
Speaker 2: everybody in your audience can see. But now you got
Speaker 2: your own TV show? Did you create it? So you know,
Speaker 2: people are getting an opportunity to see your vision and
Speaker 2: hear your comedy all the time.
Speaker 3: That means and see what's Africans in a different way
Speaker 3: to stand an authentic way from a West African woman's
Speaker 3: like boys.
Speaker 5: You know, I was a vited to help Chuck Glory
Speaker 5: create this show. And I was like, well, if you
Speaker 5: want my help, here's the thing. If I say that,
Speaker 5: I wouldna, people don't do this. We don't do this
Speaker 5: and it's okay in the show. Yeah, you have to
Speaker 5: listen to me and and I have to be involved
Speaker 5: in the constant. I know that you have your Hollywood
Speaker 5: beauty ideals, but here's the thing. The actor who's going
Speaker 5: to play every show is going to be a dark
Speaker 5: skinned woman. No no, if no butts, it's going to
Speaker 5: be a dark skinned woman, preferably Nigerian. But whoever comes
Speaker 5: for the audition, if they got it, they got it
Speaker 5: with it, you know.
Speaker 6: And so I made sure I was.
Speaker 5: Always in the room when these black actors came in.
Speaker 5: So when they came in, they'd see me sitting there,
Speaker 5: and their shoulders would just relax immediately because they know
Speaker 5: they're not going to be asked to do any kind
Speaker 5: of buffoonery because there's a black woman sitting in the
Speaker 5: room who has some power.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 5: A lot of the actors afterwards would come out to
Speaker 5: me and go When we walked into the room and
Speaker 5: we saw you there, Gina, that's when we knew this
Speaker 5: show was legit.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like a lot of black women
Speaker 1: writers need to understand what it is they have in
Speaker 1: front of them, if there's this is the trajectory that
Speaker 1: they want to go on, and just the difficulty around
Speaker 1: telling these stories because this has been the conversation, Oh,
Speaker 1: our stories need to be told. Oh, our stories need
Speaker 1: to be told, you know, But once you get into
Speaker 1: their space to be able to tell them, you know,
Speaker 1: to say, these are the things you need to be saying.
Speaker 1: I want to be a part of the casting. I
Speaker 1: want to be you know, I want to be able
Speaker 1: to have the last word about these cultural references, like
Speaker 1: any other things, like with black writers, black women writers
Speaker 1: that are listening that they need to that they need
Speaker 1: to put their foot down about I mean, is there yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 5: Mean it's always difficult because it's spent such a hard
Speaker 5: road for black writers, especially black women writers, getting into
Speaker 5: those rooms, and they usually kept at a level, you know,
Speaker 5: they'd hire them a staff rights, which is kind of
Speaker 5: the lowest level of writer, and then they let them go.
Speaker 5: They'd never got the chance to ascend through the ranks.
Speaker 5: So it's always difficult to have a voice when you're
Speaker 5: at the lower end of the ranks and knowing that
Speaker 5: if you speak up in a way that you know,
Speaker 5: the white exec producer may feel threatened by you being
Speaker 5: a little bit too outspoken.
Speaker 6: And we're a little too smart and they don't like it.
Speaker 5: Then you know that you're not going to have a
Speaker 5: job the next season, So I understand the difficulty For me.
Speaker 5: In a way, it worked out in a way that
Speaker 5: when I came in, I came in as a co creator.
Speaker 5: I immediately came in as a creator of the show.
Speaker 5: They were asking me to help them create the show.
Speaker 5: And because of that, I felt I had the power
Speaker 5: to speak and I was able to say, this is
Speaker 5: what's going to happen, whereas not many.
Speaker 6: Of us have had that opportunity.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and so now I'm trying to make sure that
Speaker 5: I pull that door open and provide more opportunities for
Speaker 5: other people. So I've got you know, I've got other
Speaker 5: black women writers in the room. I was like, you know,
Speaker 5: I said to them, you guys found me, you know,
Speaker 5: but there are plenty of mes out there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what did your room look like?
Speaker 5: Janis curious African American writers male and female, my black,
Speaker 5: young black Nigerian writer.
Speaker 6: What I did?
Speaker 5: I didn't want to scare these workmen, So I just went,
Speaker 5: I'm doing a comedy show. Why don't you come and
Speaker 5: see me doing my comedy show? And then I called
Speaker 5: my friends to a comedians, I was like, come on
Speaker 5: the show and open for me. I didn't tell them
Speaker 5: what was about. I didn't want them to be nervous,
Speaker 5: so I said, come, I'm doing this show, I'm headlining,
Speaker 5: Come and open for me. They came and open for me.
Speaker 5: And then this is how one of writers, Gloria, got
Speaker 5: on the show. A friend of mine stand up comment
Speaker 5: Gloria Pingler, so I got her to open for me.
Speaker 5: And then afterwards two of the exec producers who worked
Speaker 5: with Chuck were like, we like that woman, Glory, and
Speaker 5: I was like, you did because she writes too.
Speaker 1: You know what I see now why you were lie
Speaker 1: you get along? No, because you think very similarly. Your
Speaker 1: ideas around putting people in the right places, connecting people
Speaker 1: who you feel should be connected, who are bringing something
Speaker 1: into the world like this is like like a grand
Speaker 1: orchestrator of synergy, you.
Speaker 3: Know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like uh, and I think that that's an amazing thing
Speaker 1: to pull into what you do. It's one thing to
Speaker 1: open up a door, but it's another thing to help
Speaker 1: to understand how people will be connected to others. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: let me let you tell let me let her tell
Speaker 1: her story in front of you, so that I don't
Speaker 1: have to sell it as, Hey, I'm a black person here.
Speaker 1: I want to get other black people in here. You know,
Speaker 1: I just think that that's amazing, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: even though you shouldn't have to.
Speaker 3: But literally, that's why I wanted her to come on
Speaker 3: this show because I was like, I need Gina. Gena's
Speaker 3: already has no fear, but I need her in a
Speaker 3: super safe black woman's space. I want her in a
Speaker 3: super staf Black women's space. And I wanted y'all to
Speaker 3: build his energy and be able to have these hard
Speaker 3: conversations sometimes, you know, even from the acting conversation to
Speaker 3: these continental you know, versus Black American conversations.
Speaker 4: I need Gina. He has no fears. He literally is
Speaker 4: the woman's been.
Speaker 6: Around a long time. I've been around a long time.
Speaker 5: And it took a lot longer for me to make
Speaker 5: it because I've always known my wife and I've never
Speaker 5: you know, I just never compromised, and it took me
Speaker 5: a lot longer than At one point, I was like,
Speaker 5: I'm not even sure it's going to happen for me,
Speaker 5: but at least, you know, I don't feel like I've
Speaker 5: sold my soul in order to do it.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 5: When it did eventually happen, I was like, great, now
Speaker 5: I want to help other people.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 5: Chut Lolly was because I was pitching shows featuring my
Speaker 5: African family for years and nobody wanted it. Nobody wanted
Speaker 5: but it took a wealthy, white, well known man in
Speaker 5: the industry to go, I.
Speaker 6: Want to make a show with Africans.
Speaker 5: And then suddenly everybody was like, oh my god, that's
Speaker 5: a great idea.
Speaker 6: Let's make a show with Africans.
Speaker 5: And I've been pitching this as an African for years
Speaker 5: and nobody was interested. But I was like, I'm going
Speaker 5: to get bitter about that. You know, I'm going to
Speaker 5: take that opportunity and then I'm going to turn around
Speaker 5: and try and be that wealthy, well known white person
Speaker 5: man for other black artists. So I'm trying to get
Speaker 5: as many of us in and get as many of
Speaker 5: us working in.
Speaker 6: You see, it's possible, you know.
Speaker 5: I'm just trying to do with other people, for other
Speaker 5: people what I wish that someone had been there to
Speaker 5: do for me.
Speaker 6: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: For you? Yes, it's interesting that that's the exact same
Speaker 2: way the Number One Ladies Detective Agency happened that it
Speaker 2: was a white writer and it was a white director,
Speaker 2: Italian authentically not from the United States at all, living
Speaker 2: in England. That was like, Yeah, I want to do
Speaker 2: this story about these beautiful people with these these generous
Speaker 2: hearts and these intelligent spirits. I want to find out
Speaker 2: about these people. I want to create a story. It's like,
Speaker 2: you need that to get the damn door open. No
Speaker 2: matter how many times you pitched, and it seems like
Speaker 2: you pitched a lot, well.
Speaker 5: Oh, I pitched a lot, and I'm a performer. I
Speaker 5: come pitch in a room. I'd have these executives laughing
Speaker 5: and going, oh my god, this is so great, and
Speaker 5: then I'd walk out in the room and they'd be like, oh,
Speaker 5: it's like that. I've always been ahead of my time,
Speaker 5: is my problem. I've always been slightly ahead of my time,
Speaker 5: and I picked stuff and go people go, oh, we
Speaker 5: don't know what to do. And then five years later
Speaker 5: I'd see my ideas being done with somebody else and
Speaker 5: I'm like, I putched that shit five years ago. So
Speaker 5: it was always happening to me. So it got to
Speaker 5: a point about five years ago when I was like,
Speaker 5: you know what I might be one of those people
Speaker 5: that after I'm dead, they'll go look at my work
Speaker 5: and go, oh my god.
Speaker 6: She was brilliant. Why didn't we?
Speaker 5: And I was like, you know, maybe I'll be one
Speaker 5: of those people. Maybe I just have to settle for that,
Speaker 5: because I'm always slightly.
Speaker 6: Ahead of my time.
Speaker 5: And then Chuck came along and gave me the opportunity
Speaker 5: and I just grabbed it, and I was like, I'm
Speaker 5: going to run with this. You know, this might be
Speaker 5: the only TV show I ever get because you know,
Speaker 5: as it is for black women, we do well for
Speaker 5: one show and then they go thanks for that sea
Speaker 5: and then it doesn't become and it doesn't lead on
Speaker 5: to anything else.
Speaker 6: But I'm hoping it does.
Speaker 5: I'm hoping to, you know, get some sort of overall
Speaker 5: deal where I can then call my friends and go,
Speaker 5: bring this scripts. I've got the soveral deal. Let's bring
Speaker 5: the scripts. Let's bring your projects. I'll exact produce your projects.
Speaker 5: Let's get all our stories told. That is what I'm
Speaker 5: trying to do. That's my next part of the journey.
Speaker 5: I think hopefully, let's get rhymes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look at this woman, the highest pain writer of
Speaker 2: a producer in in all of television. Yeah, yep, like
Speaker 2: there are the doors are are beautifully gently opening, and
Speaker 2: sometimes you gotta stick a foot in crack at the
Speaker 2: time or titty, you gotta get in there.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna toe and I'm gonna I'm gonna towe and
Speaker 5: I don't think I can get the whole foot, but
Speaker 5: the toe is in there.
Speaker 6: The toe is in there.
Speaker 8: We're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be
Speaker 8: right back.
Speaker 1: You know. One of the things I've noticed is that
Speaker 1: just in general, like black brit culture, I see so
Speaker 1: much more on like social media. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's maybe some mixture of the popularity with like afrobeats
Speaker 1: and then some of the artists coming from from you know,
Speaker 1: from Britain, but then also even like people who are
Speaker 1: like they're like a lot of the hip hop dancing actors,
Speaker 1: but from that lens, not where it's like, oh I
Speaker 1: gotta take away my accent or pretend to be American
Speaker 1: or anything like that. I feel like we're in the
Speaker 1: middle of a bit of a renaissance with that right
Speaker 1: now period. Is that like is the presence of that
Speaker 1: do you feel like that's making things a little easier
Speaker 1: for you or are you more so like, look, I've
Speaker 1: been on I'm just happy y'all caught up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I came to America in two thousand
Speaker 5: and seven, so then sixteen sixteen years or something, and
Speaker 5: when I came out here, people didn't understand, you know,
Speaker 5: they didn't understand. And then Indriks and then all these
Speaker 5: British hads start blumbing up, and then there are black
Speaker 5: people in England. We thought it was just you, you know. So,
Speaker 5: and I think with the way the industry is changing,
Speaker 5: streaming the Internet, people making their own content, it's open
Speaker 5: the world up in a way that was never open before.
Speaker 5: And so now there's a cross pollination of cultures.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 5: And so now you know, I can go into a
Speaker 5: meeting and go, you know, and talk about my book
Speaker 5: and go, yeah, I want to make that a serialized thing,
Speaker 5: and I want it to be like a gritty version
Speaker 5: of Everybody Hates Chris Everybody hates Chris Cross with MICHAELA.
Speaker 5: Coel's I May Destroy You, you know, that kind of Chris.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: So whereby I've got a young actor playing myself as
Speaker 5: a youngster going for all these things, and I'm doing
Speaker 5: the voice of a bit. It's a bit more gritty
Speaker 5: where I'm going. Yeah, and this is the moment when
Speaker 5: I decided to punch the bitch in.
Speaker 6: The throat, you know.
Speaker 5: So it makes it a little bit so and I
Speaker 5: can have those meetings and people are getting it now
Speaker 5: because because they've seen these other shows and the way
Speaker 5: that boy is so huge over here, which is a
Speaker 5: very British, very British show. The language is don't bridge like, yeah, man,
Speaker 5: what you're saying, bro?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 5: And Americans, my children, my children, literally, I'm like, y'all
Speaker 5: in this black Bridge link y'all, y'all, not y'all from
Speaker 5: West Philly.
Speaker 1: Come down Like literally, my daughter says bro so much,
Speaker 1: I'll be cracking up. It's just likely always saying men,
Speaker 1: men's afroget she demands the demands them.
Speaker 6: And that's the thing.
Speaker 5: And so because this whole thing is happening, Yeah, now
Speaker 5: I can be in meetings and talk about my Britishness
Speaker 5: without them get her. I don't know, we don't understand
Speaker 5: because now they've seen the shows and they've seen how
Speaker 5: these shows are doing very well hit yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: And so yeah, it's definitely opened a lot more doors.
Speaker 1: It's a game recognizers game as a culture recognizers culture thing,
Speaker 1: and it makes me happy because, to be honest, it's
Speaker 1: like we feed off of one another, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, the fashion, the music, the dancing, and to
Speaker 1: see it, to get to see it is everything because
Speaker 1: so much of that again ties us all back to
Speaker 1: the continent, and it's like it is the Pan African
Speaker 1: vision that so many of our fore mothers and fathers
Speaker 1: wanted to see happen. But the fact that it's happening
Speaker 1: through art, culture and technology is also the opposite of
Speaker 1: what some of these dinos think that we shouldn't be doing.
Speaker 1: But this revolution is happening on an artistic level because
Speaker 1: of these things. It's because of that. So you know,
Speaker 1: you hear it's unfortunate. You're going to hear some nasty
Speaker 1: comments from one person or this person, and it upsets you, like, well,
Speaker 1: why would that person have a platform and then say
Speaker 1: something foul? You know, there was you know, there have
Speaker 1: been some you know, black content creators, some actresses, actress
Speaker 1: singer types who have said things that are just not cool.
Speaker 1: If we're gonna all feel each other and feed off
Speaker 1: each other, but the vast majority. What I've seen, especially
Speaker 1: with these young people, is that.
Speaker 6: They are on it.
Speaker 2: What's saying.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm like, I don't want to know.
Speaker 1: I'm like, who's but we But I'm just saying, like
Speaker 1: most people will figure it out anyway.
Speaker 6: Just what they said, Just what they said.
Speaker 1: You know what, I'm not going to say what they said.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to even put up.
Speaker 1: What I am going to say is this, I do think,
Speaker 1: and we talked about this earlier in the podcast. It's
Speaker 1: a result of hurt. It's a result of life experience
Speaker 1: and not being accepted by other black people who are
Speaker 1: black just like you, whose descendants are from the same
Speaker 1: continent as you, that will come out of their mouth
Speaker 1: and say things and treat you in a certain way.
Speaker 1: And the clap back is from pain. It's from an
Speaker 1: exchange of pain.
Speaker 3: I don't even know which side you're talking about attacked
Speaker 3: first on that one both ways.
Speaker 1: That's why I said, I'm not going to say who
Speaker 1: it was. I'm gonna say that the activities are happening
Speaker 1: between us, and that these young people, as they always do,
Speaker 1: they come out and they bust everything out of the
Speaker 1: water and they make it okay. They say, look y'all, but.
Speaker 4: For our generation, we still got some work to do.
Speaker 3: And I feel like sometimes that comes from conversation because remember,
Speaker 3: we still come from a place where sometimes people would
Speaker 3: think that others from the other time, from other places
Speaker 3: would look at us as being lazy, right, you know
Speaker 3: what I think it's.
Speaker 6: Also a part of the conditioning.
Speaker 5: You know, when I my family came to to England,
Speaker 5: the Caribbean people have been fed all these Tarzan movies
Speaker 5: of black people being primitive in Africa and running around
Speaker 5: and cooking white people in parts. So they thought that
Speaker 5: we were cannibals, that we were primitive, that we were animalistic,
Speaker 5: that we were violent. And then on the other hand,
Speaker 5: Africans have been fed these images of African Americans has
Speaker 5: been lazy and not working hard and hate, you know,
Speaker 5: And so we've been on fed these mistruths about each other.
Speaker 4: That's so crazy.
Speaker 6: Divide and concotect me.
Speaker 5: It's ain't been using the same technique for hundreds.
Speaker 6: Of hundreds of years.
Speaker 1: Still works, same playbook, it still.
Speaker 2: Works, it works well. So the whole time, while Jeffrey
Speaker 2: Dahmer just child down.
Speaker 1: Girl in Town on back down on freaking checks, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I just wish we could place gives him back to him.
Speaker 6: This is the privilege.
Speaker 3: That's why I said, I just wish we could all
Speaker 3: just take a class trip to the Black sony in
Speaker 3: and just stay in the basement for a minute.
Speaker 4: That's just all see abasement and just just get the knowledge.
Speaker 2: That's all I'm saying this.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say this. You know, I actually always hate
Speaker 1: this question just because I know that your life is
Speaker 1: your influence. But you know, I can't and forgive me
Speaker 1: and this might be this is crazy, but I can't
Speaker 1: pinpoint in my mind and not saying that that's specifically
Speaker 1: who would influence you, but like I can't pinpoint in
Speaker 1: my mind a black woman British comedian that I could think,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, that person must have influenced She.
Speaker 6: Is Gina, She's the First's why she's the woman.
Speaker 1: But that's what I'm saying. So I need to understand,
Speaker 1: like who are your influences? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And I hate that question, but it's I'm curious.
Speaker 5: I mean, there were black women comedians who came before me.
Speaker 5: I'm the first one that kind of crossed over. Was like,
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna perform to whoever. I'm not going to
Speaker 5: change a thing about myself because it was very segregated
Speaker 5: in English as it is it when I came to Americans,
Speaker 5: like it's the urban comedy right then, and I was like,
Speaker 5: comedy's comedy.
Speaker 6: If you're funny, you should need to make anybody like Yes.
Speaker 5: When I go in front of my people, my black audience,
Speaker 5: then I have specific things that I talk about are
Speaker 5: shared experience, right, and I will touch on that and
Speaker 5: I liked it. But I also come but I'll tell
Speaker 5: white people about this and you don't know this, but
Speaker 5: this is you know. So I've never changed a lot
Speaker 5: about myself. So but there are there other black woman.
Speaker 5: There's a comedian called Angela mar who was going before
Speaker 5: when I started. But funnily enough, because I never saw
Speaker 5: comedy as a career. Yeah, I was an engineer and
Speaker 5: I fell into comedy by accident. And then when I
Speaker 5: started doing comedy, I didn't want to go back and
Speaker 5: watch too much comedy because I didn't want.
Speaker 6: I didn't want to be influenced.
Speaker 5: You know, because you watch some comedians in your Yeah,
Speaker 5: I see you watched a lot of it prior because
Speaker 5: I could see, oh, I can see my Lawrence was
Speaker 5: your favorite comedian because I see you.
Speaker 6: I didn't want that.
Speaker 5: So I didn't watch a lot of comedy because I
Speaker 5: was like, I want to keep what is quintessentially Gina.
Speaker 5: I don't want anybody to watch me and go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 5: she she watched a lot of Whoopy Goldberger, or she
Speaker 5: loves a bit of wonder Side she can see.
Speaker 6: So I never watched The Lost.
Speaker 5: I didn't have influences as such because I tried to
Speaker 5: be very myself and being my own life. So I've
Speaker 5: not watched a lot of comedy. Like you know, some
Speaker 5: comedians have an encyclopedic knowledge of comedy.
Speaker 2: Yeah I do not, so so the Netlix special Quintessentially Gina,
Speaker 2: I'm just the one. I just want to throw that
Speaker 2: on that. Now take that, take that.
Speaker 6: Thank you. I love listen.
Speaker 2: There's times when I speak for for all of us.
Speaker 2: Since you get it. I hope everybody that's listening you
Speaker 2: feel in big rated. I hope that you you want
Speaker 2: to find out about yourself, like your the history of yourself,
Speaker 2: of your focuses. I hope you pay attention to your
Speaker 2: ancestors that are guiding and moving through you right now,
Speaker 2: right in this moment, because it's real, baby, It's real.
Speaker 2: It's not a game, okay. And the fact of this woman.
Speaker 6: Gina, you you don't play around as fair.
Speaker 2: You said, I'm going to do I'm going to do
Speaker 2: everything that I want to do, and I'm going to
Speaker 2: do it boldly and quintessentially myself.
Speaker 6: Brah.
Speaker 2: Vote okay, and you're.
Speaker 3: Gonna add the gay black woman too much?
Speaker 6: Much?
Speaker 2: Were much more success?
Speaker 6: Are you?
Speaker 2: Do you feel joyful?
Speaker 6: You know what I do? I mean joy life.
Speaker 5: I've had to learn because I'm super competitive and I'm
Speaker 5: always you know, I had to learn to feel the
Speaker 5: joy and enjoy my experience of what I'm doing in
Speaker 5: life and not I had to learn to put blinkers
Speaker 5: on and just look forward and go enjoy what you did.
Speaker 5: Don't look out for people and go but what they
Speaker 5: got that I'm glad of. That I should have because
Speaker 5: I spent a lot of time doing that because I
Speaker 5: was very competitive. And the day that I stopped doing that.
Speaker 5: And just when Gina, you're doing something for living that
Speaker 5: you love doing, you're living your best life. Stop worrying
Speaker 5: about what this person's gone. Why having you got it?
Speaker 5: When you're better. Just enjoy your own journey. And the
Speaker 5: moment I started doing that, I feel like the universe
Speaker 5: cracked open and more abundance came to me. So every
Speaker 5: once in a while, I find myself doing it. You know,
Speaker 5: you can't help it. In the days of social media,
Speaker 5: you on Instagram, game but they're doing well, well I
Speaker 5: should And then I have to stop myself and go, Gina,
Speaker 5: you're doing great right now. You're living your best life.
Speaker 5: Ten years ago you would have dreamed to have what
Speaker 5: you have now.
Speaker 6: Enjoy it.
Speaker 5: So I have to remind myself every once in a while,
Speaker 5: but I really do. I'm enjoying life right now.
Speaker 6: I don't know. Nobody knows. Tomorrow is not promising.
Speaker 5: Nobody knows, and how long you've got left tomorrow I
Speaker 5: might not wake up, but I'm going to enjoy every
Speaker 5: moment up until that point.
Speaker 1: I love this.
Speaker 6: I love this.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't know how to say Helen's last
Speaker 2: name quite frankly, I was probably Williams at this time,
Speaker 2: but Pharrell Williams his wife from Helen. I saw her
Speaker 2: recently and it was it was a beautiful moment. Just
Speaker 2: we were in Paris on a on a balcony looking
Speaker 2: out over Paris. It was just like fly and she
Speaker 2: said this, She said, our grass is green as fuck.
Speaker 2: And I was like, you know what, attention to your
Speaker 2: own grass.
Speaker 1: Baby, because because that.
Speaker 2: Shade of green is unlike you know, anybody else's. Don't
Speaker 2: even worry about what shade of green there's is. Our
Speaker 2: grass is green as fuck. For having me today, it
Speaker 2: has been a privilege, for real, for real.
Speaker 6: So proud of you.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I want to.
Speaker 5: I tried to get tickets for you at the boat
Speaker 5: that ships so that so quick. So when you come
Speaker 5: to l A, just drop me a little text before
Speaker 5: you release the announcements so I could get in there quick.
Speaker 5: Just give me a little Textlet just let.
Speaker 2: Me know you want to come. You're more than welcome.
Speaker 6: Listen, don't say I'm saying it.
Speaker 5: Don't say don't just if if she.
Speaker 3: Says, you mean it, and then I can sneak in
Speaker 3: on your coatails because I live at l A too.
Speaker 6: So no, we're gonna listen.
Speaker 2: I don't have any comp tickets anymore. They don't exist,
Speaker 2: so I have.
Speaker 6: I have no interesting comp I wanted to.
Speaker 1: Tell you, but there was not, no none.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 6: I was your stuff gone nothing. I don't need comps.
Speaker 5: Just tell me, just give me a little heads up,
Speaker 5: just say they're gonna be yourself tomorrow.
Speaker 6: He's a little sneaky link.
Speaker 5: That's all I want. I like to pay and support
Speaker 5: my family.
Speaker 6: I like to pay.
Speaker 2: Then we just had this conversation, y'all. Yeah, we just
Speaker 2: had this conversation about being supportive of one another.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: But Gina, for real, for real, high let your girl.
Speaker 2: I'll get your number from Layah. You're more than welcome.
Speaker 2: I'm super proud of you.
Speaker 6: Bravo, thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Patience, Thank you so much you Patience.
Speaker 6: I don't know where she is, but she's here somewhat.
Speaker 6: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: Yes, how do you eat an elephant?
Speaker 2: One by time? Our grass is green as fuck?
Speaker 9: Can we just take us a love for that and
Speaker 9: just soak in that wisdom?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 9: Jda l fam it's Amber the producer here. Gina is fascinating,
Speaker 9: like truly fascinating, and we all eat more of her energy.
Speaker 9: I hope this episode left you with the inspiration to
Speaker 9: boldly be yourself in every way and to remember how
Speaker 9: dynamic you are, and how dynamic we all are, I mean,
Speaker 9: an engineer and a comedian like what. There are so
Speaker 9: many lives to live in this lifetime, and I hope
Speaker 9: you embrace all of yours. And uh, let's add some
Speaker 9: more Gina to our lives. I will leave a link
Speaker 9: to get tickets to her show in the show notes.
Speaker 9: Go see our good says, get a laughing, and get inspired.
Speaker 9: For more GENA content, be sure to check out Bob
Speaker 9: Loves Alba Sola on CBS and her comedy specials streaming
Speaker 9: on Netflix.
Speaker 6: Love you.
Speaker 10: Yeah, Hi if you have comments on something he said
Speaker 10: in this episodpisode called eight six six, Hey.
Speaker 2: Jill, if you want to add to this conversation, that's
Speaker 2: eight six six four three nine five four five five.
Speaker 2: Don't forget to tell us your name and the episode
Speaker 2: you're referring to. You might just hear your message on
Speaker 2: a future episode.
Speaker 9: Thank you for listening to Jill Scott presents Jay dot lthepodcast.
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