Redemption Song - Dave Chappelle

All power and glory go to God.

All greatness…

...is from God.

[loudly]
When a hero stumbles…

Well, the cowards rejoice.

Nothing feels better to a coward
than to watch a brave guy fall.

Now, you guys might’ve seen in the news

that I caught… coronavirus recently,

a— [stutters] and then I did. Whoops.

(Faint laughter from crowd)

I did.

Because in the beginning of the pandemic,

I talked to a guy in
the live entertainment business,

and I said, “When can we go back to work?”

He said, “Probably sometime in 2022,”

and I said, “there’s no fucking way
I can wait that long.”

And I just tried, to find
a way that I could work.

You see what we’ve been doing.

All of you who who had to... endure
this invasive test to wear these masks

just so we could be out
and hang out and be together. I tried.

And after all these months,
after doing all of these shows,

God damn it! My number was up,
and then I had the ‘rona.

Oh… merp merp.

(Crowd laughs)

(woman laughs)

Cowards rejoice at a time like this
because they’re so invested in being afraid,

and— when I said I had the coronavirus,

the overwhelming majority
of people wished me well.

Said, “We hope you get better’,
‘take care of yourself”,

“We don’t want anything
bad to happen to you”,

but there was a faction of people…

the cowards, who said,
‘You see that, Dave Chappelle?’

‘That’s why we stay
inside here it’s safe.’

‘And we never try anything!’

Well, enjoy yourselves,
motherfuckers, ‘cause I’m better now.

(applause, cheers, whistles)

[lighter clicks]

Years ago, a man named Edward Snowden
came to notoriety. Do you remember him?

Edward Snowden was a whistleblower,

how people feel about
him is a split decision.

Is he good or is he bad?
Was he right or was he wrong?

I don’t know.

What he did, was he did tell the
government program were—

—our government—the United States
government was spying on its own citizens.

And when he did that…

…people didn’t really care.

Do you remember that time
we were prosecuting a war on terror,

and my God, what if these
terrorists are living amongst us?

We have to do something,

if they spy on some of us, I mean,
who has anything to hide?

Remember that.

Years later, after Michael Brown got killed,
and riots broke out in American cities

and Fergusson and all these places,

you heard black Americans saying they’re
militarising our police departments.

And no one cared.

Because the unrest was so uncomfortable
and so daunting, and…

all these negros looked so angry.

And nobody said anything.

Remember that.

On January 6th...

well… American citizens stormed…

the Capitol.

You know, from Washington DC,
a lot of my friends were going up,

on Capitol Hill police officers.
I said, what did you do that day?

What did we do?

We were kicking crackers down the steps
like motherfucking 300, nigga.

(crowd laughs)

Trying to save our country.

(slight applause, cheers)

(applause continues)
(woman cheers)

Watch the tapes.

(last applause ends)

Watch that crowd that told Colin Kaepernick
he can’t kneel during a football game

try to beat a police officer to death
(cheers)

with an American flag.
(applause & cheers)

Look at that shit.

Take that nigga Lesin(?).

Take this nigga Lesin.

What was Edward Snowden talking about?

Who is the terrorist now,
that they’re looking for?

It’s you. Not me.

Not my black Muslim ass, it’s you.

Who are they militarizing the police for?

They didn’t call the
National Guard on my black ass!

It’s you.

That’s what white people did,

they felt what black people have been
feeling for 400 years, for 30 minutes,

storm the Capitol and
rub their shit on the walls!

They carry a fucking Confederate
flag to the rotunda!

The Confederate Army didn’t even do that!

Motherfuckers, you went very far.

It was a simple question,
do you have a country or not?

And you said no.

My God, man, we’re in quite the pickle.

Aren’t we?

If you could solve
a black American’s problems,

this country would have no problems.

You so busy talking about pronouns
and this that and the other,

but this is a very basic wrong.

They kidnapped us, they brought us here.
They treated us like shit,

and all the time they did that,
they were afraid…

that we would do what you would do
in the same situation.

But do we storm the halls of the Capitol
and rub our shit on the walls?

Well, of course not,
if that would have worked,

we would have tried it!

[chuckles]

I know how to solve my problems.

You need to know how
to solve your problems.

You need to know where your power lies.

You are Americans, so
your power lies in each other.

[slight applause]

[applause]

Few weeks ago, I put a special out.
I called it “Unforgiven”.

I told people what—
my beef was with Comedy Central.

I never talked about it.
I demanded that the network pay me.

Many of my peers laughed at me,

‘cause that’s a ridiculous thing to demand.

They said, ‘Well, you signed the
contracts, so what are you even mad about?’

Here’s the thing.

I’m very good at minding my own business.

And the trick to minding your own business
is knowing what is your business.

And these people that talk about me.

These cowards that rejoice…

Well, they don’t understand
what greatness looks like.

[faint laughter]

I never asked Comedy Central for anything.

If you remember, I said
I’m going to my real boss,

and I came to you.

Because I know where my power lies.

I asked you to stop watching the show,

and thank God Almighty for you, you did.

You made that show worthless,

because without your eyes, it’s nothing.

And when you stopped watching it,
[slight applause]

they called me.

And I got my name back.
And I got my license back.

[applause, cheers]
And I got my show back,

and they paid me millions of dollars.
Thank you very much.

When I took 12 years off, and you put me
right back on top when I came back,

I couldn’t thank you enough.

You have kept me free.

I have not had to do what
so many of my colleagues have to do,

because of you, have no
idea what dicks taste like.

[laughter]
[applause]

This is a very important moment.

I want to thank Ted Sarandos at Netflix,
the CEO who had the courage

to take my show off his platform and
financial detriment to his company,

just because I asked him.

[slight applause]

And I want to thank
Chris McCarthy of CBS Viacom.

This guy’s younger than me,

and like most people younger than me,
has an interest in making the past right,

and did something that
was very courageous,

and finally, after all these years,
I can finally say to Comedy Central,

♪ piano starts ♪
it’s been a pleasure doing business with you.

[cheers, applause]

[Happy Days Are Here Again,
singer Judy Garland]

♪ Happy days ♪

♪ are here again ♪

♪ The skies ♪

♪ above are clear, again ♪

♪ So, let’s sing a song of cheer, again ♪

♪ Happy days are here, again♪

♪ Your cares and troubles are gone ♪

♪ There’ll be no more ♪

♪ from now on ♪

♪ From now on ♪

♪ Happy days are here again ♪

♪ The skies above are clear again ♪

♪ So, let’s sing a song ♪

♪ of cheer, again ♪

♪ Happy times ♪

♪ Happy nights ♪

♪ Happy days are here a-gain ♪

Game.

[applause]

Blouses.

Cheers to you forever.
[crowd cheers]

I’m [???].

Thank you very much and goodnight.

[Judy Garland singing]

- [??]!

Dave Chappelle!