It would be too reductive to label Paul Mooney as simply a “black comedian” as his range and audiences are broader than the term suggests, though it would be perfectly apt to do so.  He has been and remains a leading African-American satirical voice, and his career follows somewhat the evolution of modern black comedy as well. In the 1970s he wrote for Richard Pryor, helping craft some of his best known and most incendiary material and the use of a certain word that we all know and shouldn’t say. But in the wake of Michael Richard’s racially charged, epithet-laden meltdown at L.A.’s Laugh Factory, Mooney has a lot more to say on the subject. But even as his language has changed, his anti-authoritarian opinions –and his refusal to care what you may think of them–have not.

Paul Mooney’s conversation with Paul Provenza is in the book.