Neal Brennan interviews W. Kamau Bell (We Need to Talk About Cosby, United Shades of America, Who's With Me? 2025 standup tour) about the things that make him feel lonely, isolated, and like something's wrong - and how he is persevering despite these blocks. ---------------------------------------------------------- 00:00 Intro 9:20 We Need to Talk About Cosby 14:19 Sponsor: Huel 17:01 Sponsor: BetterHelp 18:25 Who Defines What's Black? 50:42 Sponsor: Aura 52:16 Sponsor: Tushy 53:48 Smart for a Comedian 1:05:31 America ---------------------------------------------------------- Follow Neal Brennan: https://www.instagram.com/nealbrennan https://twitter.com/nealbrennan https://www.tiktok.com/@mrnealbrennan Watch Neal Brennan: Crazy Good on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81728557 Watch Neal Brennan: Blocks on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81036234 Theme music by Electric Guest (unreleased). Edited by Will Hagle ([email protected]) Sponsors: New customers visit https://www.Huel.com/NEAL today and use my code NEAL to get 15% off your first order plus a Free Gift. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://www.betterhelp.com/neal and get on your way to being your best self. Exclusive $35-off Carver Mat at https://www.AuraFrames.com. Promo Code [NEAL] Over 2 Million Butts Love TUSHY. Get 10% off TUSHY with the code [NEAL] at https://hellotushy.com/[NEAL] Sponsor Blocks: https://public.liveread.io/media-kit/blocks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is W. Kamau Bell and what is his background?
Hey, before you watch this thing, hit subscribe, would you? Hi, Neil Brennan here. It's the Blocks Podcast. My guest today is a guy I've known vaguely, not vaguely, I don't know what the right word is, vaguely insulting.
But it was better than vague. It was
A little better than Vague Plus. Yeah, Vague Plus. For, I don't know, 12, 15 years. And he had a show on FX. And he made an excellent Bill Cosby documentary that we'll talk about. He's on tour. He's on a tour called Who's With Me? Yeah. And he's wearing the merch and not for sale. Don't look for it. And he's in part of a new book called Who Is Government?
It's about, it's the untold story of public service edited by Michael Lewis. And his name is W. Kamau Bell.
Yay.
I feel like vague is totally accurate. And I think it's been longer than 15 years. It's just we didn't. That's how vague it is. Yeah, no one knows how. At some point, we were in the same place, but we weren't like, ah, we didn't.
We rode in a van together. I remember that.
That's probably the first time you remember me.
Oh, that's funny. Anyhow, nice to see you. Good to see you, man. How's life? You live in Berkeley? I live in Oakland, yeah. Oakland. Even blacker.
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Chapter 2: What inspired W. Kamau Bell to create 'We Need to Talk About Cosby'?
I've deleted this. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, the whole way through. It's on, where is it now?
I think it's on Paramount+. It was on Showtime, but I don't think Showtime exists, but it's on Paramount+, and you can buy it on all the things.
And we need to talk about Cosby.
So yeah, so it all started as like, I mean, for years, I'll say this, like, you know, like... come up with a generation where Bill Cosby's the guy, Cosby Show, I'm the same age as those kids. So I would sort of track all the parts of him and like, oh, what happened when he did the pound cake speech?
So then after all the crimes came out, after I believed them and realized I did believe them, I don't know at what point I did, but at some point I was like, yeah, this should happen.
have the same thing where you hear a lot of rumors. I remember when DiCaprio was gay. I remember hearing that rumor all the time, being like, I don't know, man. I've heard so many people, this person does this.
It's hard to track. In the doc, I say that. I remember when I got into comedy, the two things I heard, the gossip was that Robin Williams steals material and Bill Cosby's a philanderer. Like that was the, that's what I heard. But I mean, I'm an open mic comedian. It's like, well, I guess now that I'm a comedian, I get to know the secrets.
Yes.
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