Richard Pryor: The Story We Got Wrong | From Big Lives
episode
Revisionist History: The Staten Island Problem
46 min
7 speakers
6 chapters
transcribed 5 months ago
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What defining moments shaped Richard Pryor's early life?
I'm C. Fishman from Orbit Media, and I want to tell you about our new series, Lives of Crime, the most intimate stories imaginable of life as an outlaw, because they're told by the outlaws themselves.
Where's this day going to end? Will I be in prison or will I make a million dollars? I would go to a Chipotle and meet up to get $20,000 in cash. I put the shotgun right behind his ear.
He stiffens up, and I pull the trigger. Lives of Crime from Orbit Media drops March 24th on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
Pushkin. The most powerful thing a person can do is tell the truth in a room that isn't ready for it. Comedic legend Richard Pryor did just that. We talk a lot on Revisionist History about moments that get misrepresented. Richard Pryor had many of those moments. He's called one of the greatest comedians who ever lived, as if what he was doing was simply funny. But it was more than that. It was a confession. It was a man standing on a stage and saying things that people were not prepared to reckon with about race, about pain, about desire, about what it costs to be honest in a dishonest world. Today, I'm sharing a preview of a new podcast that reexamines the icons we think we understand, including Richard Pryor.
It's called Big Lives, hosted by journalists Kai Wright and Emmanuel Josie. They dig into the BBC archives to explore the story behind the icons who shape our culture. Trailblazers like David Bowie, George Michael, Muhammad Ali, and Tina Turner to better understand how each legend set the stage for our contemporary cultural landscape. Their episode on Richard Pryor refuses the easy version of the story. Kai and Emmanuel trace Pryor's life from a childhood in a Peoria brothel to his complex rise to fame, and they don't flinch from any of it. The racism he survived, the self-destruction, the volcanic honesty that cost him everything. Here's a preview. If you like what you hear, find more episodes of Big Lives wherever you get podcasts.
Just to let you know, there's discriminatory language and content in this episode. Okay, Emmanuel. Yes, Kai? What is the first image that comes to mind, first sort of caricature even that you have when I bring up Richard Pryor?
Oh, man. Can I just say, I feel like the image that was fed to me is of this comedian who is really funny, but kind of just...
Kind of like a hot mess. Yeah. Well, the thing is, though, Emmanuel, you're not wrong. I snorted cocaine for about 15 years with my dumb ass.
I started off snorting little tiny pinches. I said, I know I ain't going to get hooked. I don't know coke, you can't get hooked. My friends have been snorting 15 years, they ain't hooked. I started off snorting little tiny, didn't even make noise. Coke etiquette, Jackman. Pass the album, please. No more for me.
Six months later. I mean, that is like a meaningful part of what happened in Richard Pryor's life. You know, I think there's more to that story and particularly the questions around why. From BBC Studios and Pushkin Industries, this is Big Lives. I'm Kai Wright.
I'm Emmanuel Jochi.
We are both journalists and cultural obsessives who love trying to understand the world through an individual person's life. These are architects of our culture, people who have just had a huge impact on the way we live, the way we take in art, the way we think of ourselves, but who have been flattened over the years. And so we want to bring them back to life, look into their complicated, big lives. And we're using the treasure trove of the BBC archive to do that. There is over 100 years of tape of some of the biggest cultural figures in our world. The BBC's got it. And so we're digging through it. So, listen, first off, the basics of Richard Pryor, if you don't know who he is, he is a genre-defining comedian.
Just if you talk to almost any comedian today, certainly of his era, they would say he's the GOAT, you know. He just had a titanic career, five Grammys. He was the first Black person to host SNL. He was the first Black person to make a million dollars in a movie.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What defining moments shaped Richard Pryor's early life?
0:01–8:31
2
How did Richard Pryor's comedy challenge societal norms?
8:31–16:42
3
How did Richard Pryor's childhood in a brothel influence his career?
16:42–22:13
4
What struggles did Richard Pryor face with fame and self-destruction?
22:13–26:47
5
What impact did Richard Pryor have on the comedy landscape?
26:47–36:53
6
How did Richard Pryor's approach to comedy evolve over time?
36:53–45:59