8 Ways Being a Stand-Up Comedian is A Lot Like Being a Rapper

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Damien Lemon: "Whether you're a rapper or a comic, you gotta put yourself out there. If you want to be a rapper, you just start spitting; you get some instrumentals and you go for yours. If you want to be a comedian, you start with the open mic circuit.

"At that point, you see what resonates with audiences. In comedy, you’ll know immediately. I think the feedback in comedy is a little faster than in hip-hop, shit is faster than the Internet. You can be a struggle rapper for years and be fooling yourself. Not that you can’t be a struggle comic and be delusional, but you’ll know immediately because people will laugh or they won’t."

Damien Lemon: "Open mics, that’s where you start. That’s like the mixtape circuit, that’s when you first try to find your voice and get your name out there. You build a fan base and get your bearings.

"If you’re a rapper, you start to understand what your flow is, start to understand what you like to talk about, what [listeners] respond to. Whereas with a comedian, you start to get a grasp of your voice—how to write jokes, how to approach jokes, how to structure jokes.

"Being on Guy Code was a great look for me. That was like a feature verse. That’s like Capadonna on 'Winter Warz' or Nas on 'Live at the Barbeque.' You’re like, 'Who that? Where else did I see him?' It starts the buzz going. Damn, I gave a Capadonna 'Winter Warz' and Nas 'Live at the Barbecue' reference, those are both old as shit.

"My first Comedy Central special is kind of like my first album. It’s 30 minutes, it’s not the hour—it might be the EP. That’s 22 minutes of me doing me. That’s going to give them the Damien Lemon experience and hopefully mobilize an audience and then they’ll continue to grow with me. It’s my intro to the game.

"Your first hour is like your first album, that’s like the Illmatic, the good kid, m.A.A.d city. That’s the one where you had your whole life to own that. Getting an HBO special is like a Gangsta Grillz."

Damien Lemon: "Both struggle rappers and comics on-the-rise, they get groupies on every level. If you know how to sell the dream and sell your potential, you can get groupies. Obviously when you're famous you get groupies, but even if you’re an open mic cat or if a mixtape rapper, you might have a couple girls coming through to show love."

Damien Lemon: "Comedy and rap are honest art forms. You’re talking about your life and your world as you see it. So if the intent is to entertain or to make people move, and the intent isn’t to offend, then I don’t really think you need to be running behind everything and apologizing. That’s how you develop your voice and your point of view. That becomes your distinction. 

"You don’t want to see Cam’ron apologize. That would take away from Cam. That’s why you love Cam: because Cam will say some wild shit, just like comedians—Louis CK will say some wild shit, Chris Rock will say some wild shit. You gotta appreciate that because that’s what you come to them for.

"I don’t believe in apologizing if the intent was to be funny. Especially if it’s a joke that me or another comic has been doing for a while and somebody gets offended. If it’s a personal attack or it’s something where you slander somebody, then you may want to apologize. But if you apologize just for offending people then you kind of open the door to continue to apologize.

"I feel like right now, a lot of people are getting outraged for attention. There’s a lot of blog rage. Not to give license to hurt anybody to just tear people down maliciously—but when you come into a comedy club, you got to understand that you’re making an informal agreement that you’re up for just about anything. In the name of comedy, we’re just trying to make you laugh. We might say things that are uncomfortable, but there may be a point to it.

"Sometimes people got to apologize because they don’t want to fuck their money up. Sometimes you gotta look at it and say, 'Will this derail my career?' I think if you stand tall and stick to it, people will respect that.

"Look at Natasha Leggero, recently they wanted her to apologize because she said a joke about some veterans and how they can only eat Spaghettios. She was basically making an old joke, about gumming it or whatever, but people were like, 'I can’t believe you insulted the troops!' But she stood tall and was like, 'No I’m not going to apologize for that. You understood what I was going for.'"

Damien Lemon: "In comedy, you can’t be afraid to take risks. Same [goes for] hip-hop—that’s what separates the good from the great. There are certain rappers that get popular, find their lane, and stay in that lane. Their reign will be a couple summers, but if they would just go a little further and maybe do something different or something the fans don’t expect, that might separate them from the pack. So you shouldn’t play it safe."

Damien Lemon: "There’s a lot of so-called 'hypebeast' rappers that are popping right now and people feel a certain way about them. There are supposedly overrated comedians out there right now that people might feel a certain way about, but if they can deliver then it’s gotta be real. It’s only when you can't meet the challenge or you can't step up and deliver, then whatever you have is undeserved. If you can stand behind the hype then it’s not hype anymore, it’s just the real deal."

Damien Lemon: "You just need to know who you are because that’s the most interesting thing anyway. It’s very much about your life, your story at the moment. I think that’s the beautiful thing about both rap and comedy, you can kind of narrate your existence.

"I definitely think you need to be honest in both. Like Jay Z could talk that money talk and it sounds amazing because we all know Jay Z is rich as fuck. But then you got broke rappers trying to do the same thing and it’s just a disconnect, you know that they couldn't afford the beat that they're rhyming on."

Damien Lemon: "Your act is not always going to be 100% accurate because of the stage, so you got to heighten it. You can be dishonest. Like, your wife may not really be your wife, or the stuff that you’re saying about your wife might not really be, that’s like your comedy wife.

"So there are the characters. Rick Ross is the bawse. Andrew Dice Clay is just a persona. You see people become characters, they sell more as the persona. Look at Rodney Dangerfield saying 'I get no respect.' In all honesty, Rodney Dangerfield was one of the most respected in the game, but that became his shtick.

"Some people lock into a character. Carrot Top is a character. It would probably blow people’s minds if Carrot Top broke down and just got real about shit. You wouldn’t be expecting that. Like, 'Wait a minute? Where the props?' And he's like, 'Fuck the props, I’m going to tell you about my divorce.' You’d be like 'Whoa.'"

Damien Lemon: "I do think one of the big differences between comedy and rap is that comedy you can do to the death. George Burns did it until he died. George Carlin did it until he was basically about to die. Dick Gregory is still out there.

"You don't really see too much of that in rap, you get a four to five year window, unless you're an anomaly like a Jay Z. We're starting to see certain rappers become multigenerational, so we're going to start to see adult contemporary rap or Vegas circuit rap. In a few years, you might see Snoop and Jay Z at the Copacabana somewhere. But typically, it’s kind of youth-oriented."