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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Ira Glass.
On This American Life, one thing we like is a good mystery. Sometimes about really big things, but most times, the little mysteries are the best.
Our lost and found is currently filled with pants. I don't know, I've never seen this happen.
Wait, this is true?
This is true. Mysteries of every size, each week. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. And my guest today is Ali Sadiq. He's a comedian, but that word undersells it. What he really does is tell stories, true ones, from his own life. And he's told so many of them that while watching his specials, I realize Sadiq is giving us a memoir delivered one set at a time.
For instance, a few years back, he went viral with a story about surviving a prison riot. Sadiq served six years for cocaine trafficking, arrested four days after his 19th birthday. He started doing stand-up after he got out, and nearly 30 years later, he's got more than a dozen specials, most of them independent, on YouTube, with millions of views.
In his 2022 series, Domino Effect, he traces his life growing up in Houston, starting at 10, the year he went to live with his father and first got into trouble, all the way through the choices that landed him in prison. This month, he has a new special called My Father. It's about everything that passed between Sadiq and his dad before his father died in 2018. It premieres on YouTube June 21st.
Here's a clip.
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Chapter 2: What was Ali Sadiq's upbringing like in Houston?
Because it's not a lot of men can say how they felt about their pops. I really wanted to look like this man. He was tall, dark, jet black, had a lot of charisma by himself. But he just wasn't an ideal father. My dad asked me one time, I'm sitting at his house, and my daddy said, man, why you don't never say nothing bad about your mama on stage?
Ali Sadiq, welcome to Fresh Air.
thank you for having me man your timing is great and I was thinking when I was watching this that there is really nothing like remembering something funny about somebody after they're gone it's like the truest way the most purest way to grieve them but I was just wondering watching this if your dad felt some kind of way about being in your act what do you think he'd say about you doing this entire special about him
He never actually felt any type of way about being in my act. He just wanted to know when I was going to say something negative about somebody else and not just him. You know, I get a lot of views, but it's definitely... 10 views, 15 views that I missed because my dad would go to the library and he would look me up on the computer and watch all of my stuff.
And he would call and tell me, I just seen something else. I watched about 15, 10, 15 times. So I'm always missing those 10 or 15 views that I know that I would get from him.
You say straight up, I'm a responsible man because of my mother, but I'm a good man because of my daddy. Explain that.
Um... My mom, she would think that it was her, but it's really him. Because for some time, I felt a certain type of way about him not being there or the things that I would see from other people's fathers or what I viewed from TV. I was judging him based upon that and what I thought. And I had certain feelings towards him. And I didn't want my kids to ever feel like that about me.
I don't want my kids to think that anything else was more important than them. Not being in the streets, not women, not gambling, not hustling, not anything. I didn't want them to ever think that anything that I was doing was more important than them. And my father... made me at times feel unimportant to him. You know, I played sports. He went to one game.
Out of all the sports that I played, he went to one game. You know, he came to one basketball game. You know, I don't remember ever doing anything father and son with my dad. So that's another thing. I just knew... Becoming a father, I would never be like that. Like my kids are going to see me actively at their games or at their recitals or at their.
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Chapter 3: How did Ali Sadiq's father influence his life and comedy?
But then around 10, he comes back into your life. You went to live with him. And it seems like he was very much do as I say, not as I do. When did you first understand that contradiction?
Oh, man. Probably the first year I lived with him. My dad was, like I say, I don't think he was ready. I don't think he was ready to have his son with him.
But yet he asked for you to live with him.
He asked, but I don't think he was ready. You know, people ask for a lot of things they're not ready for. And I'm like, not a human, though. I didn't think a human was a part of that, but he definitely wasn't ready yet. You know, because he couldn't have been. Like, when I look back at it, I'm like, yo, bro, there's no way that you was ready for me to come live with you.
Chapter 4: What experiences led Ali Sadiq to prison and how did he transition to comedy?
Because you hadn't calmed down yet. You know, just the story of him waking me up, saying that he was getting ready to go to San Antonio. And I'm 10, I got to go to school tomorrow.
Chapter 5: What themes are explored in Ali Sadiq's special 'My Father'?
I'm like, yo, bro, like... Like, what do you think? What am I supposed to do that you finna go to San Antonio? He's like, just do what you've been doing. Get yourself up, get ready to go to school. Hey, bro, that's not how this go, man. I've never been in a house by myself before. What's wrong with you?
Ali, I mean, is it true that, okay, you tell this story about him putting cocaine on a sore wisdom tooth. And I was wondering, is this true or is this just for laughs?
100% true. 100% true. That's why I described it so vividly. See, that's the thing about when I tell a story, I want people to understand. I describe all the even little things so people understand that this is a true story because you can't it's hard to make up little things.
You know, you can make up big things, but little intricate details about something like, you know who was there, James and Ivory. And James was the one that saw me sitting on the step. And he was like, what's up? Because my dad's name is Lindbergh. And he called me little bird. Little bird, what's going on? And I said, I told him about my tooth.
And then my daddy called me over and said, let me see. And put that cocaine on my on my tooth. I said, this man, I don't even know that's what it was. I just know it was the stuff that was in the cool whip tub that was in the refrigerator.
Wait, he kept the cocaine in a cool whip tub in the refrigerator.
And the big cool whip thing, you know, how cool it was coming in that little container, that big container.
Oh, yeah. And you reuse them.
Yeah, and he put it in. That's where the cocaine was at, inside the refrigerator. And then as I thought about that earlier, like I told the story, and I never even realized how super irresponsible he was. I am 10. You don't think I like Cool Whip?
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Chapter 6: How does Ali Sadiq reflect on fatherhood and his own parenting?
Ali, when do you think that you're going to blow up? And my honest answer was, when I pay back, I owe this world something.
Because you sold drugs. You owe back because of that harm you did. That's interesting.
When I pay back society for the destruction, and I think that When you are a person that has really done things and you have really changed your life and you think back on these things, you can't help but to have a heavy heart. I remember I was in San Francisco. The homeless population is so crazy.
And I'm at this Comedy Central Festival, it's a comedy festival, and I'm walking from my hotel to the festival. And I'm there for days and I keep trying to find different ways to get there, not to run into homeless people. And I didn't walk five blocks down, 10 blocks down, 10 blocks this way. I walked every which way and couldn't.
And I remember it was in the morning and I was on my way to prayer and I just stopped in the streets and I just started sobbing. And I remember saying, how much of this is my fault? Because I have been so destructive and reckless in my behavior. I just don't understand. Like, obviously, this is not the first generation.
This is the generation that was affected by the first generation of what I did. You can't conceive the magnitude of destruction that you do when you sell drugs in a community. You know, it's people doing things that they would probably never do in order to ruin their relationships. What child didn't get fed because their mom or their father decided to do this?
And what uncle or aunt stole something? Like, what did I do?
Did you and your dad ever talk about this? Because, you know, I mean, he sold drugs. And then you went on to sell drugs. Yes.
We never talked about it because my dad ended up using drugs. That was the lick that society took back. I remember a story that I told about some young guys that come on the block and they had told me that they had robbed these old guys. And I looked at the stuff that they had and I made them put it in a bag. Because I recognized the stuff.
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Chapter 7: What regrets does Ali Sadiq have regarding his relationship with his father?
So my dad just had a heart attack out of nowhere.
Our guest today is comedian Ali Sadiq. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.
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We'll talk about it on the NPR Politics Podcast. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Every episode of It's Been a Minute, NPR's What's Happening in Culture podcast starts by asking three questions. Who? How? Why now? If the culture's asking it, we're talking about it. At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and indulge your cultural curiosity. Follow It's Been a Minute wherever you get your podcasts, and we'll break down the zeitgeisty topics that are filling your feed.
Your favorite toys are back in Toy Story 5, and they're facing some new competition, the dreaded tablet. How will Buzz and Woody handle kids glued to screens? And how does this new movie compare to others in the franchise? We get into it on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. Listen via the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. My guest today is comedian Ali Sadiq.
His new stand-up special, My Father, explores his relationship with his dad, who died in 2018. Sadiq has released more than a dozen specials on YouTube, including two filmed inside of jails. He himself was arrested at 19 for selling cocaine and served six years of a 15-year sentence. Part of his work includes talking with prisoners about accountability and the realities of recidivism.
This past spring, he released Ali Sadiq from inside, shot in a county jail in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he talks to inmates for almost two hours straight about the experiences of being locked up and its lasting psychological effects. Here he recalls his inmate number, which he calls a spin number.
Ask the old heads that been here before. Ask them, do they remember they were original inmates? Spin number. This the that haunts me. I've been out for 25 years, almost 26 years. 679346. I can't forget this number. It's ingrained in my head like my social security number. It's my slavery number. 679346.
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Chapter 8: How does Ali Sadiq's comedy serve as a form of healing?
And then probably a couple of years later, I started drawing them having sex.
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