Owning Your Craft: Ali Siddiq on Independent Comedy and Building an Audience

0:00Welcome to Karen Hunter is awesome. I am Karen Hunter and while yes I am awesome, this podcast is about people and the things that they have to offer to you I believe and speaking things into existence. So it is with that I offer you these amazing people, these awesome topics sit back and enjoy. My father is his latest comedy special. It's on YouTube. You can watch it. I watched it and it is one of the best comedy specials I've seen. I want to say in a decade. I don't think I've seen a comedy special like the old school storytelling like the actual belly labs like the physical comedy like everything is in this and the vulnerability. Lord, how mercy this was amazing. Let me welcome to the show. The man that did this. I'll be sedic. Welcome back. Hey, welcome. Thank you all for having me. Thank you. Thank you.

1:00Yes. Yes. So good. But you know, all of your specials are good because they come from the heart. You are telling stories about yourself and you made them funny. Your father taking you to your first concert in this. I wish we had played that. Well, I want people to hear that. The setup to that. Oh, my God. I'm still holding my belly. I said, yo. So so different from high songs. First concert. Yes. Yeah. Earth with a fire. I was like, man, this is, this is amazing. But I didn't want to come on to talk about your comedy special. And I do rock highly, highly, highly recommended. It already has 2.7 million views. I said, Oh, okay. Okay. You figured out something. And I've been talking about this since we're in this period of time and history where I think there's going to be a massive shift. And I think a lot of people are figuring some things out. And there are machines that will tell you you need to be in this machine in order to be successful. And Alisa Deek said, no, I can own myself. I can own myself and put it out to my people and be okay.

2:08How difficult the decision was that? And when did you know it was going to work? It wasn't difficult at all. It was, it was something happened like normal. When something happens to you, you pivot to something else. So you use your brain to go to another place. But so what happened was, I was on my first specials on Comedy Central. And I posted a clip of the special. And I got copywriting French for posting myself trying to just promote the special. And then we called and like, Hey, I posted special y'all copywriting French and they said, we own it. And I heard what they said, but it's more sounded like they owned me. So I was like, Oh, no, we're not doing this again. You know, so I just went my own route, you know, and I just figured, man, if I put it out there,

3:10and we first, we were just trying to get the people who've already seen me, you know, they y'all go watch it, you know, and hopefully they're passing on to somebody else. And then we said, well, maybe if we just market it, you know, we can get a lot of people to see it. And that worked out the best. You know, I got a marketing person. I'm being my manager, you know, figured out some things. And we just went full on with just that first special domino effect. And then people start asking, well, what else happened? You know, after that. And so then domino effect, too, then three and four. And then people try to put me in a box with the, well, all they talk about is prison. Like, no, I think most haven't seen all these specials. But so then we dropped my two sons. And then we dropped rugged. And then we dropped PTA. When I was a president of PTA, then we dropped on Don't Judge a book by his cover. So we just we job four. We job four specials. So then we came

4:19with, you know, I have six specials in the can. So we figured out, we figured out a way to, you know, shoot them and and boke almost, you know, we shoot. So this is Mondays. And my father was shot together in the same weekend. And we had one more that's coming out that was shot in that same weekend. Just like my two sons and rugged was shot in the same day. They were shot in Dallas. These, these three specials Mondays, the dog and my father was shot in Detroit. Then we just shot four specials in, you know, Virginia, Tyson's Virginia. So we, we, you know, I hired the same people, every, you know, for every special that that the network's higher. You know, so these are, these are network higher people. You know, it looks like everything. This is the lie, right? That

5:22somehow by being in these machines that you're going to be treated a certain kind of way. And I knew that that was a lie because I was inside and publishing. And I was like, oh, oh, they're not marketing. They're not doing any of the things, right? But you have the label, nobody ever looks at the label. We're going to follow Ali Sadek. So wherever he is, we're going to go where he is. That did that click to like, when did you know? No, okay, people are going to follow me. Yeah, that's when we, when we, after the first, the first one, we kind of figured out, people going to follow me. They, they're going to follow what I'm doing. They, it's not, it's not about, it's not about the, the label. Or if I'm on, or who I'm on, because you can get on these labels. And then they're not, they're not marketing anything. You know, they just, they just rely on what you do. So this is one of the things where people say, well, you got to get your numbers up. You know, I will say this and people get upset with me about this number thing. Well, when I, when I first did the first special, I had maybe 500 followers total, you know,

6:28Instagram. And then I had, um, hold on one, say, baby girl, can you, um, can you go that way with that sound? Can you go that way with that sound or that the TV? Well, I need you to cut that off, baby, for me, cut it off for me. Yeah, you know, I got kids all over this place. Cut it off, cut it off. Thank you. We can't hear it though. I'm just letting you know, okay, y'all can hear it. Okay, cool. Um, so we, um, we started, you know, just marketing, like we would want the network to market. It was an, or, you know, we saw just doing everything on our own. They mean, what, what do they do? You know, let me just figure it out and go straight to consumer. And, um, and whatever, what, what platform that's a huge platform that we can get our thing out on our, on our own control. So we just, we went, we took it to YouTube. And I only had,

7:30my YouTube page was literally 300 people and I didn't own the page. So we had to get the page back. Um, start marketing to the 300. And in three years, we built the 300 up to a million plus people. Yeah. Um, but you know, it took, it took us to put in some groundwork to start doing our own thing. But I didn't have these social media numbers that they, that they handicapped people to now, I just started and started, and started building and started building. And people, it took some, it took some time because before we even dropped the special, we was working on, putting out the old content that we, that we owned. And, you know, even with the albums, we were the same route that we had with the, with the albums, you know, we, we released the albums independent. So I released the books independent, you know, everything that we, that we do is just a

8:31independent situation. Do we, do we want? Go ahead. So what, what did you learn? Because I, I feel like we're in a period where if we make just a minor adjustment, everything that we thought we wanted, we would have, right? Because it's all ready here. Like I look at, for example, this whole target boycott will have you. And this DEI stuff. The reality is if, if you tell us black people spend two trillion dollars, where are we spending it? Who's getting rich off of it? So if it's the, the brands, whether we're talking about it yesterday, I was talking about Gucci and LVMH and all these other places that don't put anything in our community, we can talk about the hair and nail folk that come into the community. We can talk about all the people that come into our community and take the dollars out. No disrespect. They're going to do what they need to do, but we need to do what we need to do, which is to circulate that dollar in our community. What if we redirected those dollars into the community? And it would take two to three years, like you're saying, to build it the way we want

9:31it. But I said, everybody lives somewhere. Walk the neighborhood. What do you need? And then let's start getting busy creating it. Do you see that being possible? You're going to be honest. You're going to be honest. Of course. I need you to be honest. I think that a large, a large majority of African-American community is caught up on still being approved by the others because I said from this point of view, I saw your Netflix expression. I'm not on Netflix. This man needs a Netflix special. I have my own self-independent. You say you want me to be independent, but you want me to be industry approved. You want me to be kind of like what I say, white approved. I'm saying even though you can look at me, but if I'm not stamped by them, then I'm still on the

10:35outside. You know, this is a blessing to come on your show because not a lot of black, not a lot of black places, houses, any content for me or bring me on. Let's talk about anything. And especially if I'm not befalling. So you want certain things. I read this book called a blue ocean period. I only read the first chapter and understood what the book was saying. I see in the community, are you walking the community looking at what we need? Not what we want, but what we actually need. And then not competing against each other and what we need to make more divisive things amongst us. If we need this, then we let's do one of those until we get to another until we can enter this one as full and then we can house another one. You know, I come in the neighborhood. It's 10 bars in neighborhood. Why do we need this much

11:41liquor? Correct. But no, but no, but no Spanish school, no, no, no language school, no, but what we need language for what is proven kids who speak multiple languages, they get in less trouble because they can change their narrative. They do more things. They're more active. If we only push in one sport, you know, just like with, with AAU. And I know people are going to get mad about this. So AAU is this. If I have four sons and only one is interested in playing basketball, so then you bring him to AAU. But is that the only job in basketball? So we don't want, we don't want to ref. We don't want to, we don't want to coach. We don't want to train her. We don't want, we don't want to nutritionist. Why is AAU not how, why is the basketball camp not housing those people to what about what about teaching a commentator and to teach somebody to commentate the games? Right. It's a lot of things. It's a lot of things that can be done in there. But then you get mad because somebody say something. And so you most, most people get tired of being of fighting against

12:43the common sense. It's like I got to fight you on, I got to fight you to help you. It was then, I put out a, I put out a thing. No, that I was talking. I said, the depression, it's a lot of depression in comedy. There's a lot of comics depressed in comedy because they are looking at other people thing and they are judging themselves in comparison to things that's really not happening. And I said, well, people put on these schedule, they're, they're listed schedule on it and it be, it'll be bars and open mics and what they feature for people. That's not the goal in comedy. And the goal in comedy is to be a headline and be your own person. We understand that you, that's just, it's just steps, I can't do the same steps, but I didn't post those steps. When I was at, when I was doing an open mic, I wasn't posting an open mic like that. Like, hey, y'all come see me at the open mic because I'm not getting paid to be there. I'm just trying to get the audience, you know what I'm saying? I'm not telling my audience to come there. I'm trying to get other people. I'm not, I'm not going to the same open mic. I'm going to different open mics trying to gain fans.

13:48So I'm not telling, hey, come out your house and go come watch me practice. I'm not, I'm not telling nobody, I'm not telling nobody to do that. I'm going to the place where, hey, I got up next. You know what they're already hooping. I got up next and saying and people going to see me playing then somebody else will pick me the next time. So they got upset. Oh, you don't, you don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, I say, like I don't have a right to say after 29 years of walking this road, I don't have the right and being successful in this. I don't have the right to say anything. He was in. I don't have the right to tell you to read. So you're telling, um, Alisa Deac is here 866 8 018 255 people want to talk to you so we'll get to the calls, but I, I was so, I was so impressed. Not just with the comedy, but with the model and I wanted to know if it was duplicatable. Is this a blueprint? Is this something that other people can do? And if so, like, why, why is everybody doing it? Because it's not, um, I don't,

14:52let me, let me say this. People, it's people who are calling me and ask how to do it, but don't really want to do the groundwork that it takes to do it. It's a lot of people that call, this, I'm talking to a lot of people that call. And then there's the other people that I'm not going to ask him, I'm, um, I'm on the same level as him or I hit on him deserve what he getting because he's not, he's not, he's not should, he's not should pay. Oh, so I'm not for the listen to what he got to say. He's not this person. He, oh, he doesn't have movies and sitcoms. So that's not, that's not what I wanted to, but and I figured out a lot of people don't want to do stand up. They want to use stand up as a gateway to something else. You want to be a movie star or you want to be on a sitcom. It's not that I wanted to do stand up. I never told nobody I wanted to do a movie or I wanted to do a sitcom. I want to do stand up and I want to be a great stand up first before I did anything else. So me working in the craft for wanting to be a stand up. It's other, it's these

15:55other things that I figured out just in stand up to do. So me being independent was the only other road for me because I know and people that well, you just went, you went independent because it is. No, you wouldn't even got this volume of work for me if I would have been on a network. That's right. I don't want to dictate. Yeah. And they're not even going to put this much money behind you to do all of these specials with you, you know, and they're not going to let you create. You know, it's never been a, it's never been a four-part series. They're not going to let you do a four-part series. Well, four-part series for what? I told you, I told you my life from 10 to 25 in four parts. And what I want to create is the things that I want, the next special is called the dog. And it's me wanting to create something different, but they're not going to try with me. You know, you got one, you got your one or two shots. So, you know, this is the other thing. The world is run by

16:57people who are not creative, who siphon off creativity from other people and come out of five their lives or benefit, you know, from their, they take 15, 10% off of somebody else's creativity. And then tell them how to be creative. You know, we see it in publishing. You know, when they're going to tell you how to write your book, we see it in music, when they're going to tell you how to sing your song and they can't do it. We see it in even in sport. When you have coaches and GMs making decisions, they just traded Jalen Brown, the WNBA is a mess right now because not a whole mess, but there's a mess right now because you have people sitting in offices that don't understand the basketball, but they're making decisions that will impact the whole entire game. And it's the same. I'm sure in comedy as well where people don't have the talent, but they want to tell you what you can and cannot do when creativity happens through trial and error. You know, it's, you got to be out there doing. You got to be out there doing, you got to be out there doing it. We haven't succeeded in everything that we tried, but the perfection isn't the try. And when you

17:59and when you had when you were an artist, you are trying different, you're trying different things. And you have a team around you that that you handpicked as your people that's saying, hey, let's do this. Let's do that. You know, but you don't have anybody, I don't have anybody telling me no to something when I'm creating something. I have somebody telling me that's going to be difficult to pull off, but we don't see what we can do, how close we can get. Or this is going to cost this this much, you know, and I appreciate that process, you know, and being the boss is different, you know, even with in production, like I have a little I have my little production company I produce other people's specials. Yes, people who have sent me specials and I understand the difficulty. Miss Hannah, if you would if you would know the people who I've had to say no to

19:01and then I'm saying and not only am I saying I'm not saying no like the industry says no, I say no with notes to say if we do this, I'm saying we can achieve this, it'll be better. And you get you rather get mad at me because I'm putting you through the same exact process that I go through on my own with my own company. When I put something on the table, it's four other people that vote on it. I'm saying when we put something on the table and this is why because my my leadership and my motto is like this, I want all five of us because it's five people that did you got to go through. I want all five of us to want to do your project. I don't want nobody on my team having to have to do your project because we own the company because you're not going to get the best from us. I'm saying so it's we have a director. We want him to want to direct us. We have a lighting trader. We want him to want to make your set beautiful. We have a line producer that

20:06wants to produce this and get it and we have the we have a marketing person and then we have the finances, which is me. I want to when he when the production person come to me and say, man, it's going to cost 100,000 to 100,000. I want to want to pay that knowing that we're going to we're going to recoup this from you back from you and then I'm a hand you your project. Once we recoup your project is back to you. You do what you do with it what you choose to. I love this and it's smooth and it's so the biggest lesson that you learned through this last these last several years of producing biggest lesson. Mental for the two. You have to be you have to be persevering in your in your approach and no only means not right now. It doesn't it doesn't mean that it's just this is not right now because of the perseverance and everybody's not going to

21:07work as hard as you and nobody and some people don't even want to work that hard. They want to be given to them and you and you have to move on past that and go to people who really see the vision. Well, I saw it immediately I smiled. I looked at the numbers. I smiled again because I said Ali were we or we I can't tell you how proud I am because I know that this this is the way forward for a lot of you know and to your point now a lot of people are going to be willing to do the work that's okay. This is the way forward though. Great time for cause. Before you go when you when you call when you text me or when y'all reached out I said I turned this it she must know I'm listening to urban right now because I was just I was just I was I was on 126 on my on my accent but I was I had all the family in the morning I said there's no morning show that I can listen to with my family I say you know something's urban that work so that's the one two six I was

22:09and I was listening and then I look at the phone I said she knows that I'm listening. Now you know what I was just telling somebody that story this morning about urban view mornings which which is incredible and I'm so grateful that I had the opportunity but again that's that goes back to their ownership right it if I had not made that first deal with serious to not be employed by them but to have ownership of the shows wouldn't have been able to go to them and say hey you know if we're going to honor Joe Joe Madison we cannot do it outside of the framework of this audience right so we got to put a show in that makes sense so we got Sean of a day who's legacy and we got Dr. Gray Carve we got Lamont who you know we got comedy and mental you know and for some reason it absolutely works but you know that's trial and error I didn't know if it was going to work we had a couple other hosts in it didn't necessarily keep you know keep with it or stay with it or work with the with the vibe but it works and to be able to have that latitude the

23:12the space to make it to see it work couldn't have never happened if we didn't have ownership you know if we didn't have the you know the way to see if it's and that's and that's who we listen to Sean of a name yeah we definitely listen because it was a lady on that it was so that was funny to be when she was talking about um these people showing up with these who is on uh at the fourth the count the bus they count the bus and now I was like the Metro the Metro the people got all the yeah I hope you enjoyed what you just listened to and if you did enjoy it please go and hit the like button or the give it the stars or whatever they ask you for on these podcast platforms give it all and leave a comment leave a comment there because I do go into all of these different platforms and read okay and you can follow me directly at caran hunter show dot com click the contact page send me an email as well I appreciate you I love you till next time