Killer Mike Sweeps the Grammys with "Michael"| Cord Jefferson Unpacks "American Fiction"

Published Feb 18, 2024, 8:30 AM

Host Jordan Klepper chats with rapper Killer Mike about his recent sweep at the 2024 Grammys for his album "Michael," how working on this project brought him closer to God, and his efforts to encourage activists to take action in their communities. Plus, writer and director Cord Jefferson joins Klepper to discuss the success of his film, "American Fiction," and the power of leaning into art that makes us uncomfortable. 

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Another back of the Daily Show My guests tonight is a Grammy Award winning rapper whose latest album is called Michael.

Please Welcome Killer Mike.

Sure, congrats first time on sweeping all of the major rap categories at the Grammy. Now, I'm sure you can't talk about what else happened there, but I.

Did sweep them like like a new broomy your grandma's living room.

That's what it's there for. Grandma has it out to sweep up all those Grammys.

That's out the betting man, the feast of my girl.

Well, I have to ask the big question though, Yeah, the big question everybody had after the Grammys.

The Taylor snubs Lean.

Shouts out the tailor man. She she God, damn, she wanted the Grammys. Her boyfriend one of the chiefs. If she's if she's in the poly mean, my wife need a third?

Is that what Poward gives you?

Right now?

You feel like you can throw off polygamy?

Right now? I feel I could pull it off. Only problem is my wife's good with a gun. She doesn't agree. But but I'll keep trying for all the men out there.

Okay, that's good. Yeah. You see like you whatever you throw out there is gonna come back.

I mean, you are un quite the streak. I mean as well as winning the Grammys. Your your son after a three year search for a kidney, just got a kidney.

My holy boy got his holy boy a kit.

I had to talk with him about his kidney like you do a puppy, like this is your kidney. You're gonna take care of it. Marijuana, alcohol, no, you know, but his nurses. We were sitting there as the nurses were telling us, and I was like, God, damn, this was a lot for a twenty one year old kid to be taken on.

But my kids a warrior man. I just got to tell him he's my hero.

As I mean, frankly, it is legitimately wonderful to hear good news happening to a good person.

Thank you so much.

What Genie lamp did you rub? What is the what do you? What do you owe your success to?

I owe it to the fact that I was just too stubborn to give up. My manager, Will from Active Management, Will Bronson and my an rcuse like we're all friends, but we have it just saying just get up every day, put one foot in front of the other. So I have a lot of talent, but it took me twenty years to get here, and I was just too stubborn to quit. And I think that's that's half the battle, just being tenacious about it. And I want to take time to honestly thank my children because my children have lost so much time with their dad as I was doing it. We've had great quality time, but the quantity of time has been cut short. So Malik a Naya pony boy, Mikey, just thank you guys so much for allowing to had to do this.

You know, I love it.

I mean you've been you've been at this for a long time. And yeah, you famously said like, don't give.

Up, don't give up.

You're never too old.

You're never too old.

I'm forty five. Well could I could I win a best rap album?

That happened as long as you got a hairline? And you do and there we think that's it's great thing. It's great bit. It looks great though. Maybe we're too old for porn, but rap, we got rat We're saying for rap.

There was never an age where it would have been an appropriate choice in my life.

Eighteen years old listening to Lucan to two Loud Crew.

We could throw that, dude.

That was the end.

I want to talk a little bit about your album, a personal album, but I want to also look at like your reference Satan a lot on this album. Even on the cover right here we have you know, you have double horn porns and halo horns and halo right.

Uh. Spirituality is big part of this album. Yeah. We're an interesting time right now.

Yeah.

People seem to be moving away from spirituality.

Yeah.

Uh, and yet it feels like you fuse a lot of your work into it. I know you have a lot of respect for the craft of.

Hip hop right to do it?

Do you feel like that can serve as a conduit for people who are looking for spirituality, who are looking for something what do you see that role?

I came out of a rap album called rap Music twelve years ago and it was you know it was it titled Rebellious African that be me and in people's music for all the people.

And at that.

Time I realized that the only religious experiences I really had were when I listened to or was a part of music, and music is a very big part of the church.

I'm a Southern Black man.

I grew up in Baptists and Pentecostal churches, so music was a conduit to put everybody in.

The room on the same frequency and the same energy.

So I actually believe that people aren't away from spirituality as much as they're running from the institutions that promised them spirituality and just deliver things like give us money or we need tithing. I think that people are trying to find I think that they're trying to find God and spirituality, but they're finding it in places you wouldn't regularly find it. They're finding communing with one another, they're finding it away from church and out in nature, and not that nature becomes their God, as much as it gets a lot easier to talk to God when you're standing under a tree smoking a joint. You know, you know, I won't talk about my thing. But I was sitting in a jail cell and I didn't have anything to do, so I just prayed and I just thank God for three hours. I say, you know, just thank you for the blessings I've been bestowed upon me. Thank you for the life You've given me. I invoked the spirit of my mother and my grandmother and was like, I hope you guys see me, not the jail part, but the winning part. And after I got out the next morning, I got a call to my son and got a kidney. So I'm very much a more of believe. I have a white manager. Will's a white guy, and he said shit, for fifteen years, I thought you were an atheist. I was like, no, Will, I was more agnostic. But making this album brought me closer to God. It brought me closer to the grand being that is designed human beings to be here. So I'm thankful that music brings me closer to my career.

Well said.

Well said, I mean, it's it's interesting you talk about.

It like that, because I do think I spent a lot of time on the world.

Yeah.

I go to a lot of rallies, talk to a lot of people, and you know, it's very easy to otherwise the MAGA, cru the Trump Crew, or whatever side you're in. I think we are. We're on a search for something that makes us feel whole. It makes us feel part of a community and gives us a sense of meaning, and I think without that in our lives, we replace it with the quickest easiest, loudest thing, and so finding a conduit for potential good I think is is remarkable and to be commended, So kudos on this way tell me this.

I'm also a big fan of Run the Jewels. Yes, I love Run the Ji.

I felt like.

Running Jewels got snubbed a few years ago.

And one of the best parts about being one half of, to me, the greatest rap group going today is the fact that this album Michael also brought LP his first Grammy. Yes, so shouts out and congratulations to my partner Rhyme LP.

Hell Baby, I'm curious.

Actually, what it's fun is a fan of yours and a fan of LPs. You hear your influences in what you do on solo projects and what you bring to Run the Jewels project. I think when you are marinating on Michael and sitting down thinking about what is a Run the Jewels project and what is a Killer Mike project, how do you deling anything?

Well, it's all the same, so not that it's the same sound, the same thing, but so imagine Running Jewels the Uncanny x Men. And then if you've read if you're a careader of're about to nerd out on you guys.

Jewel so you can run polygamy into this well man.

Who boy, who wouldn't want to marry Storm? Yeah, there we go. So so Run the Jewels is don Canny x men. There's a lot of characters come in and out rest in peace to gangs, the Boozac Day, Larroca, you know, maybe the Staples, Josh Hamy, all these people have come in and what we have there at the university where you can find anybody, right, And Michael is just the prequel story to one half of the group Run the Jewels.

So Michael is an extension of the Run the Jewels world.

And you get to see the reason why I rap about my mother and Run the Jewels. You get to hear the whole story on Michael. So imagine Logan to Wolverine, and that's what this is. So this is an extension of Run the Jewels.

Here's the sum Let me switch gears a little bit. I will say I rewatched it recently after the George Floyd murder. You made an impromptu press conference in Atlanta. You're asked to make a press conference, which I think is if you haven't seen it, I think is not only the clarity of it, the catharsis within it, and the call to action I think is a pretty remarkable moment over the last decade.

Thank you.

Something you said there resonated with so many people. You asked people at a time of unrest. You said to focus on to plot, plan, strategize, optimize, organized and mobile mobilized. Absolutely, we're on that process right now. Yes, I know you were talking specifically about police brutality. Here we are three and a half years later. Yeah, where are we on that? How are you seeing that process on folds?

Well, I'll tell you this what I was saying at night, because there's a lot of misconstruing it and just I mean, be honest, people be lying.

They did right.

Some people haven't gendered you know. Some people are like you were defending the cops and crying. I'm like, no, it's not what I was doing. I was actually smoking blunts with Noriega, eating fish.

Sound we're just trying not to.

Go and that's noe.

Yeah, yeah, shout south to North.

And my friend he I said, hey, the mayor called me, there's some unrest. I was like, she never called me, And he was like an hour after asking for about an hour. He says, well, if you're not gonna go, I'm not going to go. And you and everybody knows the rap rules. You can't leave your homies down. So I went with them and I so I'm pulling up to the jail with a quarter pound of marijuana, little Stone, a quarter public what I mean, I had just scored? And I HOLDO does that last about a couple of weeks?

Man?

So I'm there and I'm just like okay, and I see our mayor who's also from me and TIA's neighborhood, and she's doing a dynamic job of telling the police, hold off, don't make a move.

We're gonna talk to the public first.

And then Tip gets up to speak, and I'm just like, okay, I'm still in solidary, mahomie. And then he's like, and now kill a mike, and I'm like, oh shit. And I just simply told the truth. And the truth is what happened to George Floyd was a murder. It was evil, it was wrong. The truth is also that Atlanta has long been a fortress for the black civil rights movement in this country and civil rights period. And if we would have burned Atlanta down, we'd have burned down a fortress that people could use the plot, plan.

Strategize, organized, and mobilized.

So ultimately, all I was saying in that speech was use your homes, use your businesses, use your churches as centers to welcome people in and plan, plot out what are we going to do next, strategize, organized and mobilized, and then do the next thing.

I challenged them, and my city stepped up.

What I'm seeing in Atlanta now is organizers be supported.

I'm seeing more organizers come out.

My man row It down there just gave them to May they speech yesterday. Shouts out to him. He's an Indian American guy. He's in Atlanta. He's organizing constantly. We're organizing around the vote. I saw Atlanta's really welcome other people in to try to push back against the powers that be. That's what my city's always done. That's what we're doing now, and that's what I think we'll do going forward. We don't organizers do not have to agree with each other. We do not have to agree with methodology, but we must start to agree with is that there's a problem to be solved and if we waste too much time in fighting, the problems never get solved, and the oligarchs and corporations continue to run this country.

Kilor Mike, Welcome to Ladella's Child.

My guest today is a director an Emmy winning writer whose film American Fiction is currently nominated for five Academy Awards.

Pleads welcome for Jefferson.

A thank you Wow.

Feature film debut and you get five Academy Award nomination. Yes, I'm curious how you're feeling about it and how you're You're wielding that strength now.

I'm not wielding it too much. Unfortunately, I probably should be more demanding. Yeah, but I'm not.

I'm uh. I feel a little overwhelmed. You know. It is.

We made this movie with very little money and very little time. We didn't make under these great auspices, and so to be here right now, sitting with you is beyond my wild distress.

This must be your highlight.

Yeah, man, this is crazy, you know, truly.

I am I.

I don't really get nervous in interviews anymore, but I'm pretty nervous here right now.

The daily, yeah, man, daily shows a big deal.

Nothing to be nervous about it, all right, So I want to talk Palestine.

Okay, that's great, everybody, everybody get out your phone.

There you go, start putting.

This on the internet.

I'm happy to do.

Like my public is going to love.

This, Like, let's get into this.

Well.

I mean this movie.

It causes a ton of conversations. It feels very of the now. And when I watched this, I think what. I was surprised to find out that it's based on a book from twenty years ago. Yeah right, but it's still so relevant today. What did you see in that story that made you want to tell this story now?

Oh?

My god.

Man.

So three months before I found this novel Erasure by Percival Everett that I adapted, I sent in a script to some executives and they sent me back a note that a character and had a black character needed to be blacker. And I said, I said, I will indulge this note if whoever gave it is willing to sit down with me and tell me what it means to be blacker, tell me how to make somebody blacker. And of course that no went away because they probably knew they were setting themselves up for like a huge civil rights.

Lawsuit, and so they dropped it.

And you know, but that was just one of the many instances in my TV and film writing career where it's like, people just have this very limited perspective of what it means to be a black what it means to be a black writer. I have a very limited perspective of what black stories look like with what black life looks like. And so when I read this book that was published in two thousand and one, but it felt like it was written yesterday. Yeah, I just I was so overcome with sort of this idea that it felt like it was written specifically for me. I just understood the characters so well.

Yeah.

I think one of the targets of this film is white liberal audiences.

And first off, how dare.

You do you get exhausted talking to white liberals about this movie and having to explain race to them over and over again, to be like, what is the deal with race in America?

No?

Actually, I mean, I mean, I mean maybe a little bit. But I've set myself up for this.

This is like, this is what I This is the work that I put into the world, so I'm happy to chat about it.

I mean, I think what's interesting about this movie too, is that it's not only it's a satire, it's a political satire, but it's also really heartfelt. I was surprised by that it really follows a family. Yeah, it follows the strugg that they have.

Why was that.

Important for you to tell and to marry with it? It seems like those don't always go together when you see satirical films.

Yeah, and that's you know.

I wanted the movie to be satirical but never farcical, and so sort of the clip that you played right there, I think is more is one of the grounding moments of the film. I didn't want it to feel like it was so funny or got so silly that it became slapsticky. I always wanted it to feel because I feel like when when satire gets kind of slapsticky, it sort of it lets people off the hook. It sort of like says like, this entire thing is a joke that you can laugh at. You don't need to take it seriously. And I think that this movie sort of makes some people uncomfortable sometimes, and I'm okay with that. I think that I think that every time I'm experiencing a piece of art and it makes me uncomfortable. I kind of lean in because I think that sort of wisdom is on the other side of that discomfort.

Well, I want to talk a little bit about the ending. I don't want to give it away, but this movie ends and you sort of there's a meta ending, and I wonder if that comes out of Network notes wanting you to end this movie for a certain audience, if that comes out with you either not knowing how you wanted to end it or wanting to end it in a way that leaves people with their own ways in which they can end the story, Like how did you approach wrapping this thing up?

Yeah?

So, so the novel that I adapted is very mettextual. It's sort of and and and the epilogue of the novel is this Latin phrase that translates to I offer no hypothesis and so.

To me, that that meant that.

It was Latin phrase used with mathematics.

People love that I and so and so. I didn't want the ending to be didactic. I wanted that.

I wanted the ending to feel audacious and so I I wanted I was trying to figure out what the ending was going to be, and one of the producers called me and said, the movie is a big swing. Try to write an ending that feels like a big swing too, because I was kind of stuck as to what the ending would be, and so I wrote an ending that feels as audacious as the rest of the movie. And yeah, I think that I didn't want to spoon feed people lessons like it said, I offer no hypothesis. I'm giving you some scenarios and some characters. It sort of offers you an opportunity to think for yourself and decide how you want to think about things.

I mean, I do think this movie also asks a lot of questions about about what Hollywood wants in movies from black filmmakers and what a white audience will respond to. And you make this film, yeah, and then primarily white Oscar public is like, we love this, And I wonder how you is that a sweet revenge? Is that an extension of the meta story that you're telling And it feels like there's a conversation about people enjoying your film that's already happening within your film.

Yeah, So, I mean, look it is use I'm basically slowly cosplaying as Jeffrey Wright. I'm looking at myself right now, and I'm becoming Jeffrey Wright normally.

Wait these glasses tho are Jeffrey Wright, jeff this is a Jeffrey Wright suit. I'm going great like Jeffrey right. So it's getting more and more minute. I'll tell you how mendte it's gotten. The other day, Percival Everett, the author of the novel Erasure, was stopped in a coffee shop in La This is a true story and as somebody asked him if he was Jeffrey Wray, and he said, no, I'm not Jeffrey Wright, but I wrote the book that Jeffrey Wright is now in the movie based on.

So it is all. It is all.

Uh, you know, I like to maybe think that maybe this will all be maybe after the Oscars all revealed that I'm a white guy.

I know we will know. You guys don't know I've been here.

Maybe I'll tell you what.

Maybe I've been in blackface this whole time, and it's just a big trip.

That would supersed the ending of seven four me. So I would appreciate if you did that.

I'm just Toby maguire. I'm Toby McGuire.

You were telling me, McGuire, this the whole time.

Court Jefferson is not real.

American fiction is now playing in theaters everywhere.

Corn Jefferson explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts. Watch The Daily Show week nights at eleven ten Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast