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– Kente Scott is a very familiar face that audiences have seen on their favorite 90s and 2000s sitcoms, and now, he sits down with about his career and his recent life-changing experiences.
Thank you for joining us for Celebrating Black Excellence. Now, let’s start with your career. You are an actor and a comedian. Which one did you start with first: acting or comedy?
I got started with acting first. I tell people I didn’t choose it. Acting chose me. I was minding my own business as a freshman at UCLA, and a guy walked up and asked if I wanted to do a commercial. I was like, “Hey, I know how you L.A. folks do,” but he took a picture. Three days later, I was shooting a Cleveland Power Company commercial, and once those residual checks came in, that was my side job in school. So, while I was in college, I was doing commercials, plays, and things of that nature. Before I go into my senior year, my mom came out. She was like, “I’m tired of you giving away these jokes for free. I need you to be on stage somewhere, and I’m not leaving until you do.” A week after that, she came. After she was here, I went to the Comedy Store, did the 3 minutes, and they laughed enough for me to come back. So, that’s how it all started. But yes, to answer your question, acting was first, comedy was second, but I love them both equally now.
Now, from my comedian associates, I hear that being on the stage and doing comedy is “like a drug or is like an addiction.” How is that experience for you? Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
Well, they did not lie. I played football, and the only thing comparable to it is getting the interception and running it back 100 yards and that feeling of euphoria. You get that every time you get on stage, get the crowd laugh, and then, get that ovation at the end. It is definitely addictive. The stage is what gets us coming back now.
Have you ever experienced heckling? Have you ever been booed? How do you deal with that? How do you come back from that?
Well, I’ve had both and been heckled and been booed. What I tell people is if you get booed, that means you have struck a nerve. You just struck the wrong nerve. I did a Muhammad Ali joke, and at the time, I didn’t know that Muhammad Ali’s daughter was working at the Comedy Store. So, it was a wave of boos that came from the back of the club to the front, and you just got to sit up and take it. However, like Mike Tyson said, you’re not a real boxer ‘til you get punched in the mouth. Then, you figure out what you’re going to do next. So, I got booed, but people were like, “Oh, dead man walking. Your career is over” because it was for a big audition at the time. Then, I was like, “I’m not dead. It’s not over.” I came back the next day and did the same joke for another audience that wasn’t as affiliated with the Ali family, and it worked. So, you just get back on that horse. If you get kicked off, you get back on if you want to keep riding. Hecklers… I love hecklers. Hecklers are the best because that means you want to be the show, and I don’t have to do my sets. I’m going to do two things with a heckler. First, I’m going to get your friends around you to make you shut up because I’m going to make them be embarrassed to be sitting with you, and then, secondly, if you want to keep going, then I just make you the show. I come from a roasting family, so I can definitely tear a part a heckler. People say, “I will come to your show and heckle you.” Please do. Sit in the front. I will save you a seat.
Now, we’re in a new age with social media: TikTok and Instagram, and of course, you have the new wave of comedians. Sometimes, the old school comedians have an issue with that. What is your take on that as far as far as this new wave of comedians, and how they get and put on?
Well, it allows you to skip the steps of having to go out and build your audience because you build your audience through social media. So, it is a lot of people who have followings but don’t have the material? Now, I don’t have any problem with a social media comedian, but when you come to the club, and they say we need you to do 45 minutes because you’re the headliner, you’ve got to do more than just that 30 seconds of Tik Tok. You can’t just get up there and dance for 45 minutes. So there have been comedians like DC Young Fly, Ryan Davis, and Jess Hilarious, who have built their following and also built their comedy chops and can legitimately hold that 45 minutes that is asked to them as the headliner. That’s the only thing. You’re skipping steps and start in terms of building your fan base, but you can’t skip steps when it comes to building your material because at a certain point your fanbase is going to be in there like, “Wait, we paid $50 per person for this, and all they doing is dancing and doing Tik Toks.” So, my only thing is be prepared because the clubs are going to call you because you got fans. So, they’re going to call you. They’re going to ask you to tour, and they’re going to ask you to headline. So, be prepared when they ask you because 45 minutes is a long time if you only got 8 minutes of material.
We have to ask you this. Did you see the Katt Williams interview?
Who didn’t? How could you not see it? (Laughs)
Now, what were your thoughts on what Katt Williams had to say?
Well, Katt Williams, like I said, spoke his truth. He told his story, which comedians of a certain era knew. He told some truth, and then, that brown liquor started getting to him, and he started embellishing some truths. You can’t be in your second movie, and then, you have in your contract that you can have another actor wear a dress. That was your second movie, Katt. I love you, and that’s my dude. He’s good people, but that brown liquor kind of embellished some of those stories. I mean, he told the truth about the comedy game. He shook some folks up, which was good because when you get to a certain level, they tend to get complacent. So, if you shake up the room a little bit, then you got to figure out, am I a comedian? Am I an actor? Am I a host? Do I want to get back in it? Like Eddie Murphy said years ago, I can’t get back in the comedy game because I don’t have that hunger. I don’t have that drive to get back on stage and fight through building another 45-minute set. The ones who do are legendary: Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Katt Williams. Katt Williams does a new 45-minute set every year. So, what he said has some truth to it, but after about 75-90 minutes into that interview that brown liquor kicked in. (Laughs)
Now, let’s get into your acting. Now, like every time we watch the shows we grew up on, you were on there, i.e. Family matters, The Parent’Hood, Smart Guy, Moesha, Half And Half, The Parkers, etc. How does that make you feel like seeing that your legacy is still seen on television to this day?
It feels great. It’s good to have longevity and still be relevant if that makes sense in this business from the 90s when I started at 2½ old to now. It is great because my daughter’s friends are like, “Wait, your daddy was in this?” She was like, “Yeah, I met Brandy.” Only to say that she was just two, but she was on the set. However, it is a great feeling to still be around, still be available, and still have people calling and be like, “Hey man, you act, and we want to put you in this one.” I’m like, “Yes, let’s talk about it.”
One of your most memorable roles was on The Parkers, when the original Allen character went off to camp, and then you played his character come back on with a new healthier lifestyle. You were also on Moesha: two iconic shows. How was it working on those sets?
They were both great. In that era of Black sitcoms, in Hollywood, there was a network of sets you would really go to: a network of shows. “Have you been on Smart Guy? Have you been on The Parent’Hood?” “No, I’m going there next week.” But going in next week, you got smart guy. So, it was a circuit basically of Black sitcoms. Moesha was amazing because you had Sheryl Lee Ralph, Brandy, Countess Vaughn, my boy [the late] Lamont Bentley, and so many young actors in there. So, it was just like family. So, when I went to the Parkers, and they were like, “Oh, this is Andre with the press and curl without the ponytail.” (Laughs) They just accepted me as family. So then, it became Mo’Nique, who was a great person to work with, Dorian Wilson, the late Yvette Wilson. You left like, “I don’t have a part, but I would like to hang out with you again.” “Yeah, come on back! We taping again next Friday.” It was like going on from your mama’s house to your aunt’s house. It was like Thanksgiving and Christmas, and they just welcome you in. So, it was a great experience. The fact that people really think that I was [the original] Allen and lost all that weight is hilarious because out of five people who say, “You were Skinny Allen,” one of those people are like, “How did you lose all that weight because I’m trying to drop a few pounds.” I was like, “I wasn’t him.” (Laughs)
Now, you also were on this webseries, Class Dismissed, which turned into a film that you can see on Peacock starring Nakia Burrise (Power Rangers Zeo, Power Rangers Turbo). How did you connect with her and how did you get the role of B.J.?
I’ve known Nakia for years, and I knew her from auditioning for Power Rangers back in the day. Then, we were in a media ministry at our church, Faithful Central in Inglewood. We did plays and acting workshops for years. So, when we did Class Dismissed, like the bulk of the initial cast were friends. So, you know, she was like, “Kente, you want to play B.J.? He’s a PE teacher, who’s trying to be a stand-up comedian.” I was like, “Oh, I can do that. I took P.E. in school, and I do comedy.” So, it was great. It was fun. It taught me – I should say – how to improv better with a group of actors on the fly. We filmed the first two seasons of Class Dismissed, I want to say, in about three weeks and on weekends because we all had in regular jobs and other commitments. So, we filmed it on the weekends, but we filmed four or five episodes a day, turn around, and do it again. So, you had to know your lines. You had to be able to improv with Nakia, who’s sharp as a tack. She’s like, “This is the joke. I’m gonna hit it right back to you. What’s next?” So, it was great working with her. Sonya Leslie-Shepherd was amazing, so just keeping up with them was so much fun. So, when they called me to reprise my role as B.J. in the movie, I was like, “Well, let me dust off my P.E. whistle, and I’m there.”
Now, I should have introduced you as Dr. Kente Scott because I see that you have your honorary doctorate now. So, congratulations on that, Dr. Scott. Can you please tell us a little bit more about that?
So, my sister and I, Shonda Scott, have a podcast called What Sibling Rivalry The Podcast. We’ve been doing it for years; we started it right before the pandemic and kept it going since then. So, this Christian college in Houston reached out to us and asked if we would like to be honored with the honorary doctorate for our Humanitarianism work in through our podcast, and I was like, “Yeah.” It was great because when I was growing up, my father wanted me to be a doctor, and I wanted to be a fireman. He was like, “You’ll be the only fireman on the truck with a doctorate.” So now, he’s got two doctors in the family. So, I’m like, “You got two for the price of one.” God said, “I don’t come when you want me to, but I’m always right on time.” (Laughs)
You recently went to Africa. Can you please talk about that life-changing experience?
So, my name Kente is Ghanaian in root. So, I’ve always wanted to go to Ghana because that’s where my name is from. So, I’ve been trying to get there, and I’ve been trying to rally my family to get there since 2019. Then, of course, the pandemic shut down a lot of traveling. So, this year I was like, “We’re celebrating Christmas, New Year’s, or something in Ghana.” So, I got all of the family together, went to Ghana, and I will say this… Anybody who has 1/32 of Black African blood in them should and must touch the continent of Africa. I’m not saying go to Ghana, but go somewhere in Africa because just going home and seeing us and seeing where you where we came from was life-changing. It was so moving. You hear so many myths that “Africans don’t like African Americans” and this, that and the third. You also hear that “Africans don’t hustle” and “Africans are lazy.” All lies. When I tell you, when we got off the plane to the time we left, we were embraced as family. […] We’re going back. We’re going back at least once a year. We made a commitment to that, and we’re going to buy some property over there because the other thing that African-Americans don’t know, when you go to Africa, you can ball out here. You will be a thousand-naire in America, but you will be a millionaire in Africa. I went over there with $35, and I had $35,000 in Ghanaian money. (Laughs) But it was amazing. Especially with it being Black History Month, I learned more about where we came from and how we were disconnected from our and why we’re disconnected from what our homeland and the ancestry of who we are in those ten days than I did in a whole 12-18 years of schooling. I joke about it by saying, “The ticket to Africa is so expensive because they don’t want you to go. Because once you go, you can’t come back and be like, ‘Wait a minute. Oh, so we’re supposed to be treated like this?’” No, no. It is different when you see who you came from, how they kidnaped us, basically stole us from there, and brought us here and keep us. That’s why they want to keep that history out of the school because we are dangerous people when we have intelligence. When that ignorance is gone, and we have the knowledge, we are dangerous people, and they know that. That’s why they were like, “Slaves can’t read because if they find out who they are…” It’s like The Lion King, “Remember who you are.” That’s it. When you go to Africa, you can’t deny who you are.
So, what is next for you?
2024 has been off to a wonderfully blessed start for me professionally. The day I got back from Africa, I started on a cruise line. So, I’ve been doing comedy on cruises. I go back out again later this month in February for two weeks and getting booked with that. I’m also taping my comedy set in a show called West Comedy Jam. So, that would be coming to a streaming service near you that is produced by the people that brought you Laugh-A-Palooza. Marcus King is the Executive Producer of Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper, The Jamie Foxx Show, and so many other great shows, but I’m going to be a part of that. I do my monthly comedy show at Faithful Central here in Los Angeles every 4th Friday. We have on our eight-year anniversary in April. If you have not been to a clean comedy show, you need to come to this one because it’s not the clean that you think of, but it is the clean that will make your whole family laugh. Like, we have all of the comics. We’ve had Tony Baker, we’re going to get Kym Whitley, we’ve had Chris Spencer, we’ve had Buddy Lewis, and the list goes on and on. People you see at the regular comedy club come to our church show, rock the church stage, and the audience loves it. Also, it is only $10 every 4th Friday. So, you ain’t got no excuse because I know you got $10 somewhere in your pocket. I got a new agent, so back out auditioning. I just took some new headshots with my goatee and fade tight. So back out on the audition circuit. So, look for me on another TV show, another series, and movies real soon. Also, I’m writing. My sister and I have a production company called What’s Sibling Rivalry Productions. So, we’re writing scripts. We got a couple of Christmas movies that we are working on right now because you got to get them out in March, so they can be on your TV on Christmas time. So, I got a lot of irons in the fire, and I’m very happy about it and very excited about what 2024 and beyond is going to bring for myself, the Scott family, and all my friends and folks that want to get some work out here.
Well, congratulations again on everything you have going on. If people want to reach out to you or they want to follow your journey, how can I do so?
On social media, @Kentagious on everything. If that’s too hard, just put Kente Scott in Google. I’m the only one will pop up. I tell people I don’t get a lot of callbacks for corporate job interviews, but I get every email. Even if there’s some numbers on the end of Kente Scott at a GMail, it’s because I forgot the password. So, you can also go to my website, kentescott.com and check out what I got coming up, and yeah, just follow me. Come on this journey. We’re going to have some fun.
