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Mike Epps, an Indiana native
who has been steadily climbing his way up the
stand-up comedy ranks for the last five years,
made his feature film debut co-starring with
Ice Cube in New Line Cinema's “Next
Friday”. A sequel to the 1995 hit comedy “Friday” about
an eventful day in the life in the hood, “Next
Friday” takes up where “Friday” left off, only
Ice Cube has moved into the burbs with his cousin
Day-Day, a record store clerk played by Epps,
and finds that the pitfalls of growing up in
South Central LA are a little different from
the misadventures that await him in Ranch Cucamonga.
Epps grew up between Gary,
Indiana where he would spend summers with his
grandparents and Indianapolis where he shared
a house with eight siblings and his mother. “I competed a lot to
get my mother's attention,” recalls Epps, “so
I've always been an entertainer. That's what
I did – make people laugh.” Like every other
kid raised in the basketball state, Epps had
NBA aspirations, but his interests changed in
high school. After an aborted plan to enter the
service, Epps decided to enter a stand-up contest
at an Indiana club called Seville's. His success
on stage gave him the courage to strike out on
his own, heading to Atlanta with $80 in his pocket
and dreams of comedy stardom.
By day Epps worked in a manhole,
by night he frequented the Comedy Act Theater,
where they held Tuesday amateur night. “I used to go up
last, after16 comedians,” says Epps. “They'd
boo everybody: it was the most hideous crowd
you ever saw. And I'd go up last and make them
laugh.” The owner of the club suggested Epps
move to New York to build his act, and within
a week, Epps caught a Greyhound to the Big Apple.
He was 21 years old.
He stayed at a lower Westside
hotel for $35 a night. “There was nothing but bums and drug
addicts,” recalls Epps. “The room was shoebox.
When you came in, you had to throw your bag on
the bed and lay down, it was that big.” Undeterred,
Epps immediately scouted out all the comedy clubs
in the city, with the singular goal of getting
on stage. While the conventional venues proved
difficult, the Def Comedy Jam phenomenon stimulated
an underground black comedy scene in which Epps
excelled. Within six months he made a name for
himself. “I was different,” says Epps, “I was
from the south, with these little country jokes,
so I stuck out like a sore thumb.”
By 1995, Epps ended up on
the Def Comedy Jam Tour, and has starred in
two of HBO's Def Comedy Jam broadcasts. He
describes his humor as rooted in everyday situations. “My life's experiences
are the source of my humor,” says Epps. “I don't
work off of a script or a set lest, I try to
be spontaneous. I deal with characters and emotional
content.” While he admires many to today's comedians,
his heroes are the ones he grew up with, namely
Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, and Redd Foxx
He does point to Chris Tucker,
however, as an inspiration. “He's naturally gifted,” says Epps
of his “Next Friday” predecessor. “He's got the
wit and the look. He paved the way for me. If
he didn't do the job that he did, there wouldn't
be a “Next Friday.”
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