Lionel Richie

Not in a TED talk, but one-on-one with some of the greatest

people of our time.

Oh my God, man.

I mean, well, I mean, Paul Mooney, Richard Pryor, and I knew Mooney real well.

I mean, this is again, totally out of his mind, totally funny, but more importantly, totally in charge.

I mean, he knew his—I saw his frustration because they were trying to deal with him commercially.

They discovered that maybe he might be able to be on network television.

Wrong answer.

But he was so gifted in presenting the street struggle, and you laughed about it.

Miss Rudolph was Miss Rudolph, man.

I mean, when he said Miss Rudolph, everybody knew what you're talking about, you know.

Or, you know, they put me in jail for shooting my car.

I mean, you know, but to know him off camera, to know him off the stage, you know, what I found a lot about my comedian friends is, you know, to make things funny, you have to take dark things seriously.

and make them funny.

But they stay, most of the time, in darkness.

And Richard was in darkness a lot of time, a lot of time of his life.

Of course he did.

The book, the book that I just finished,

It's the struggle.

Everyone keeps saying, well, did you start off in the rural South?