Dave Chappelle and Donnell Rawlings appeared together on Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club Friday morning to promote Chappelle’s upcoming Live Residency at Radio City in August, and spent almost 40 minutes talking bout Charlie Murphy, cultural appropriation and more.
When asked about the impact of his friend’s death, Chappelle talked about his reaction as well as how Murphy helped bring him up.
“It was a reality check,” Chappelle said. “I feel very lucky that I got to know him. I feel like he’s a very large part of the reason I got to be successful. Like literally, he changed my life just by saying ‘I fought Rick James many times’.”
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Donnell Rawlings touched briefly on Murphy’s role as a prison guard on the TV show Power — a part that, according to Rawlings, was originally his.
“When other people get stuff away from yourself, it’s hard to celebrate that,” Rawlings said. “But when I found out that Charlie was doing the role I realized that he was probably the perfect person for them and then in hindsight, as far as with him passing or whatever, I just think it’s nice for people to see him getting to be a part of a great body of work like that and he did a good job.”
Later, Dave Chappelle talked about cultural appropriation when asked how he felt about Kendall and Kylie Jenner placing images of their own faces over iconic pictures of Tupac and Biggie.
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“ At a certain point, I feel like no one is going to feel that way more than African Americans. We create so much culture and often times it’s siphoned from us. And it’s almost all we’ve ever had. But it is American culture too.” He later continued, talking about Kendall and Kylie directly. “They don’t understand what they are tapping into. I don’t think they were doing that maliciously, I just think they’re never gonna be a black dude.”
Watch the full interview above.
