Dave Chappelle: The Unstoppable (2025)
Release date: December 20, 2025 (Netflix)
Dave Chappelle: The Unstoppable is built around controversy rather than jokes in the traditional sense, and Chappelle leans into that expectation with little interest in softening the impact. Much of the set circles around speech boundaries, cultural taboos, and the pleasure he clearly takes in crossing lines that are supposed to be closed. His defense of performing in Saudi Arabia, paired with open contempt for American moral outrage, is one of the show’s pressure points: Chappelle frames U.S. criticism as selective, hypocritical, and opportunistic, especially when compared with domestic censorship, cancellation campaigns, and political intimidation at home.
Gender and transgender material reappears aggressively, treated less as satire than as a stress test for audience tolerance, culminating in grotesque exaggerations meant to provoke recoil rather than laughter. The same strategy applies to race and power, especially when Chappelle describes buying up large sections of his Ohio town and enjoying the reversal of gentrification rhetoric, exposing how quickly liberal goodwill collapses when Black wealth becomes dominant rather than symbolic.
The longest and most combustible section rewrites American history through Jack Johnson, linking racial panic, sexual transgression, and legal repression into a single narrative of control. Chappelle treats this as unfinished business, implicitly tying it to modern celebrity prosecutions, surveillance, and moral theater. The show closes with an intentionally inflammatory “code word,” designed to short-circuit interpretation and remind the audience that provocation, rather than reconciliation, remains his primary objective.
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Dave Chappelle: The Unstoppable (2025) | Transcript
This is protected by the red, the black, and the green at the crossroad with a key.
Roar the lions
OCTOBER 27, 2019
THE KENNEDY CENTER
MARK TWAIN PRIZE FOR AMERICAN HUMOR
I was a soft kid. I was sensitive, I’d cry easy, and I would be scared to fistfight. And my mother used to tell me this thing, I don’t know if you remember, but you said this to me more than once. You said, “Son, sometimes you have to be a lion so you can be the lamb you really are.” I talk this shit like a lion.
Come king, try and bask
Claw slash, lion sword
Bring war to your front door
Till we no see you no more
Kill or be killed is a skill
What we learn and master
Annihilate and decimate
Like a natural disaster
No doubt we’ve calmed the beast I warned you about
Bloody rain and thunder
Roar if we catching a drought
Mapogo lions on the concrete plain
Ni*gas running from our shadows
‘Cause we all spit flames
Lion heart we share upon
Why Babylon can’t breathe
Why we a village
They village with every step we take
Mapogo looks so deceptive
But my cause is perfected
A smile in your face
Then turn round and dissect it
From the fear and disrespect
The smoke hit different
When your screen is cigarettes
Big Ben, Queen Elizabeth
Get your rep up
I stepped up for the ones you ate
For then multiplied in snake form
Wait for ’em
We in hell boy, breathe ’em
Treason I believe in
How the jungle work
In order for you to live
You need young to murk
Tear through the ACL
The kidneys, organs, they all choose
You can keep the ruby chains
I don’t like y’all jewels
Wrapped around my neck
Squeezed tight, I bleed life
Scream light in this bitch
I’ve seen lightning get thick
Brain storm, it got heavy
My vision never cloudy
The form stay right, ni*ga howdy…
Yo, thank you. Thank you very much.
Please, everyone, have a seat. Be comfortable. We got a lot to talk about.
Now, I gotta tell you, I gotta tell you how this show came to be. You guys know I live in Ohio. In January, when this ni*ga, Trump and Elon… made this DOGE thing, and cut all those government jobs, the housing market in my hometown plunged 20% in the first quarter. And I don’t mean to talk like a white… but, boy, they did that, didn’t they?
And then when this ni*ga deployed the National Guard in my hometown and took the police department from the mayor, oh, D.C. ni*gas, we don’t like that.
But then my governor in Ohio sent our National Guard to police my hometown. And I called these ni*gas and said, “I’m pulling up.” Because these ni*gas is trying to take the chocolate out of Chocolate City.
I said, “I gotta go home while it’s still the city I remember.”
And then I went on Instagram and saw all the protests in D.C.
There was a bunch of white people like, “Not on our streets!”
I said, “Oh, no, it’s too late.”
These whites are entrenched.
“Not on our goddamn streets, you don’t.”
This ni*ga Trump was talking like he goes out to dinner. It’s not like that.
Yeah, and I gotta tell you the truth. This is not the only city this is happening in. It’s happening in California, it’s happening in Oregon, it’s happening in Illinois, and it’s happening in Memphis. And… and ni*gas in Memphis, they might need it. You got to be reasonable. I don’t know if you’ve been in Memphis recently, but them ni*gas already stole two tanks from the National Guard, so you already know. You already know, you know.
And I came here mad, ready to fight, but when I drove through the city, it looked clean, guys. I got to tell you. I got to tell you, it looked clean. A lot better than the last time I was here. Today I only saw one guy take a shit on the street. But you know what? He had a bag. That ni*ga picked it up.
I was waiting for somebody to do something about the homeless. You know what’s fucked up about D.C.? We the nation’s capital and nobody even gives a fuck about the homeless. I’m gonna tell you the truth. I feel like I’m the only one that does. Now, y’all don’t know this, but quietly for the last two years, I have been secretly working with Washington’s homeless, and I have spent two million dollars already on my homeless project.
No, no, no, don’t clap for me. I didn’t give ’em food or anything like that. I just taught these ni*gas the “Thriller” dance. And you got a big treat coming up on Halloween, you’ll see.
And I’m sorry I didn’t come home sooner, but I’ve been very busy in Ohio. And a lot of people say, “What are you doing out there?” And I don’t know if you know this, but this is true. I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing. The town that I’ve been living in for the last 25 years, I bought most of it. I like it there. Ohio loves Trump, but this town I live in is like a little itty-bitty Bernie Sanders Island in the Trump Sea.
All the whites are poor out there, but these are like the dirty hippie whites, and I like them. I like these whites. And they like me too.
But you know what I learned about liberal white people? Liberal white people let Black people do whatever fuck they want until you buy most of their town. Oh, they frowned on that. Them whites got real suspicious, but you know what? I don’t blame them. Because… No, for real, because look, if I was white and the people in this town were Black, you know what they’d say? They would say I was gentrifying the town. But there’s no word for what I’m doing to these people. I own everything, ni*ga, everything.
I used to be mad at white people when I was young because I thought they were unfair. But now that I have all this property, I understand them. It’s fun. Feels good to walk up to white people like, “Are you supposed to be here?” “Calling the police.” It’s fun.
I own so much property in this town, and this is true, these white people think I’m responsible for their wellbeing. That’s ridiculous. Ni*ga, I’m not no public servant. I’m a capitalist. I be walking down the street minding my own business, and they come up to me with their concerns. “Dave!” “Congratulations on buying the whole goddamn town. But you need to start thinking about some affordable housing around here.”
And I’ll be like, “Well, actually, champ, I can afford my house.”
“That sounds like some shit you need to worry about. Because if I think about it, I can afford your house too. So if you want to sell, come holler at your boy. I’m collecting the whole town. I’m collecting the whole goddamn town.”
You know, I don’t know where these poor whites got the money. But not long ago, these motherfuckers built a brand-new fire station out of the blue. Where the fuck they get this money from? I was like, “What the fuck is this?”
And then you know what they did? They… This is some real racist shit. They tried to sell the old fire station at an auction when they knew I was gonna be out of town. It’s fucked up. But it’s far too late for that. I got that whole town rigged with snitches. Them ni*gas couldn’t wait to tell me. They was running up. “My lord, my lord, I have news, my lord!” I was like, “What’s going on? What is this you say? A firehouse?”
Ni*ga, I bought the firehouse. I turned that motherfucker into a comedy and music club. We be rocking in there. Clipse been there. We all be out there rocking. Every famous person I’ve ever met, I asked them to play that club.
I seen Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones at a party. I sat down and said, “Yo, Mick.” I said, “Mick, you gotta come to Ohio and play in my club.” And he was into it.
He was like, “All right.”
He said, “All right, I like playing clubs.”
He said, “But tell me about the town.”
I said, “Well, what do you want to know?”
And that ni*ga looked at me like… like, you know, the Mick Jagger look. He said… “Are there girls there?”
I… I lied right in his face. I was like, “Yeah.”
He knew something was wrong. He’s like… “No, no, no. Come on, Dave. You know, like the kind of girls that I like.”
I said, “Mick, I… I don’t know… I don’t… I don’t know what kind of girls you like.”
Then he said… “You know. You’ve heard my music. Are there white bitches with dirty feet?”
I said, “Mick, you are going to love this place. Mick, these bitches will put a ring around a public pool.” Dirty hippie pussy, that’s what I’m dealing with.
I’m not a drug guy at all, right? But… But I am in show business, you know what I mean? So, I’ve been to every kind of party. Now… Now, I’m gonna be honest with you, I smoke weed, but I don’t consider weed a drug. But you know how show business is. I’ve been to cocaine parties, I’ve been to weed parties, I’ve been to all the parties, and I’m just telling you the truth of what I’ve seen. Coke bitches are way prettier than weed bitches are. I be looking at weed bitches like, “Damn, bitch, did you sleep in those clothes? The fuck’s going on with you?” No energy in the face. They don’t wear their bra all the time so their titties be sagging.
“Get your dick out of my face, man.”
That’s how a weed girl sounds.
“I’m not gonna suck your cock, man. My mouth is dry as a bone.”
You ever get some weed head? Feels gross, doesn’t it? Feels like a cat sucking your dick. Like, what kind of… How do you not have any moisture in your mouth? Bitch, go wet your whistle and try again, would you? Go drink some water. Yuck. Yuck.
Recently in the news… I’ve been getting a lot of grief, again… because I did a comedy festival in Saudi Arabia. And you hear those cheers, that’s Black people. America’s whites, they’re furious. Boy, I gotta tell you something, I’ve never not felt guilty about something. Like, I’ve never felt… I don’t feel… I don’t feel… I don’t feel guilty at all.
You know, and… and Bill Maher, the famous comedian, I’ve known Bill since I was, like, 18, 19 years old, and I’ve never said this publicly, but fuck that guy. I’m so fucking tired of his little smug, cracker-ass commentary.
These motherfuckers act like because I did a comedy festival in Saudi Arabia, I somehow betrayed my principles.
You didn’t!
Well… No, no, I know I didn’t, I know. No, no, no. No, let me… Come on, everybody, let me do this. And I’m sure… No. All right, now everybody calm down. No, I’m sure I’m right. First of all, what… what did they say? They said… They said, “Well…” They said, “Well…” They said, “Well, Saudi Arabia killed a journalist.” And rest in peace, Jamal Khashoggi. I’m sorry that he got murdered in such a heinous fashion. But… And no “buts,” like, you know, period. And also… I mean, look, bro, Israel’s killed 240 journalists… in the last three months. So, I didn’t know y’all was still counting.
These ni*gas clowned me because I was on stage in Saudi Arabia. I didn’t tell them to put this in the paper. I just said it on stage. I said, “It’s easier to talk in Saudi Arabia for me than it… than it is in America.” And… And ni*gas felt some kind of way. Oh, I stand ten toes on that.
Don’t forget what I just went through. Two years ago, I almost got canceled right here in the United States for transgender jokes. But I gotta tell you something. Transgender jokes went over very well in Saudi Arabia. Them ni*gas couldn’t get enough of that shit. I was in the pocket, ni*ga. I was like, “Where have you been?”
Every article said that comedians whored themselves out to a dictator. But… But all the articles have my picture on it. And you know what? I can’t even get mad. ‘Cause, you know, to be fair, I did make more money than all of those comedians. I don’t even work at Netflix no more, ni*ga. You know what my new job is? I sit by the phone and wait for them Arabs to call me. “Can I help you guys? What do you need?”
I love working in the Middle East. That’s my second show I did over there. I did a show three months before that. That was in Abu Dhabi. Them ni*gas had a… a… a comedy festival too. And let me tell you something. Now, y’all never been in the Middle East. Here’s some wild shit about them you might not know. You know how everybody got, like, a dog around here? Out there, they don’t fuck with dogs. You know what they do? They got… They got birds, falcons, ni*ga. These ni*gas have as pets, they have falcons. I couldn’t believe it. I went to the mall, I saw these ni*gas with falcons. I’m like, “This shit is dope.”
And, you know, here in D.C., we might see, like, a pimp here or there. And that’s… But I’ve never seen a ni*ga pimp a bird. That ni*ga just had the bird like, “Bring me a rabbit.” And that motherfucking bird would just bring this ni*ga a rabbit. And he’d just give the bird a piece and eat the rest himself.
So, I saw a guy at the mall with one of these falcons. We were just talking about bullshit. And I don’t know what… I don’t know why I even thought to do this. Something just came over me. I said… I said, “Yo…” I said, “Yo, ni*ga, let me borrow that falcon.”
He did it. He gave me the mitten, and he gave me the falcon. Now, I’ve done a lot of fly shit in my life, but the most rock star shit I’ve ever done, you’d never know what this feels like. I walked into an arena this size, 20,000 people screaming. I had a live falcon on my arm. Ni*gas went crazy. Crowd was going nuts. This is their national bird.
Now, I don’t know shit about the bird. Turns out, this species of falcon that was on my arm is the single fastest creature on earth. I didn’t know that. Apparently when it hunts, it flies straight up and then it dives down at 240 miles an hour, they’ve clocked it at. It strikes its prey dead and then flies off and comes back, and gets whatever it killed. I didn’t know that.
And when I was walking through the arena, the crowd was screaming, but the falcon didn’t panic, ’cause it had some kind of mask on, and that ni*ga was just looking like… But it didn’t trip. Now, I didn’t know, this mask is part of the falcon’s training. If you take the mask off the falcon, it will think that it’s time to hunt. Boy, I wish he’d told me that. ‘Cause I was on the stage killing it, and the falcon was just looking all stupid like this. And I’m like, “Oh, man, this ni*ga can’t even see the show.” So, I took the mask off.
Man, this falcon lost his goddamn mind. Mayhem ensued. That motherfucker fluttered like this and flew off my arm. And at first, everybody was clapping, “Yeah!” And that ni*ga dove down, 240 miles an hour. Killed a bitch in the third row. And it was a transgender bitch. When it hit her, her dick popped out. Everybody screamed. I was like, “Oh, shit.” I didn’t know what to do.
Next thing I know, the police, the Arab police came and these ni*gas just ushered me off stage. I didn’t realize that I was under arrest. I said, “What’s the meaning of this?” Clearly, these guys know it was an accident. And the next thing I know, they charged me with murder. I said, “Murder?” The fuck? It was an accident. And then they had me in a court, and these ni*gas started reading transcripts of all my transgender jokes. Trying to act like I killed this bitch on purpose. I said, “I didn’t even know this bitch was trans until her dick popped out. This is a goddamn outrage. I’m an American!”
I still didn’t think I was gonna get in trouble, but at the end of the case, this is the only word in the whole trial I understood. That ni*ga said, “Guilty.” I said, “What?” And my whole life flashed before my eyes. I said, “I wish I never came out here.”
You’re probably wondering how I’m here tonight. Well, I didn’t know this at the time, but I found out, lucky for me, killing a transgender in the Middle East, misdemeanor. Phew!
Yeah, it’s way easier to talk… in Saudi Arabia…
Jimmy Kimmel got canceled.
Let me tell you something too. Not only did they cancel Jimmy Kimmel, this guy Carr that runs the FCC had the nerve to say that Kimmel, if he wanted to get back on television… I don’t know if Carr said this, but somebody said this. They said this ni*ga has to pay Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA Foundation money to get back on.
Now, think about that. No, think about it. Elon Musk bought the election for Trump because the Supreme Court said that money was free speech. So, you can spend your money however you want to speak, but if they make this ni*ga pay some money for some shit he doesn’t believe in, well then they’re compelling him to say something that he does not mean.
And six million… Oh, excuse me. Listen, I made a lot of money. But I’ll take money from Saudi Arabia any day, just so I can say no over here. It feels good to be free. And I know that the people in Saudi Arabia can’t say all the things that I was allowed to say. But a deal’s a deal, and the king said that I could say these things. So, I looked at it like I was on a diplomatic mission. I gotta bring pussy jokes to the Middle East. ‘Cause they got all that pussy over there and they can’t even talk about it. I said, “I’ll do it.”
Shit ain’t what it used to be, is it? This ni*ga Puff got 50 months.
I don’t like talking about this, but I’m gonna do it.
Here’s my thing about Puffy, and I gotta state my bias.
Years ago, I got attacked on stage… in… in California at the Hollywood Bowl. Now, this was a long time ago.
At this time, Charlie Kirk was alive and well. This is another reason it’s hard to talk in America, ’cause, you know, if you talk for a living and see Charlie Kirk get murdered that way, I’m gonna be honest, ni*ga, I was shook. I mean, Charlie Kirk is the wholesome white guy, and they killed this motherfucker. I said, “These whites…”
“You’ve never seen them like this.”
“They’re playing for keeps.”
And then remember, the next day in the news, when all the information was still shoddy, they came out and they were like, “Apparently there were transgender messages inscribed on the bullets.”
I was at home like, “Oh, no! I’m dead as fried chicken!”
And then weeks later they said what was written on the bullets. One of the bullets had “Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao, Bella, Bella, Bella Ciao” written on it. Another bullet had written on it, “If you’re reading this, you’re gay.”
I was at home like, “Ni*ga, I’m gonna need to see these bullets.” How the fuck is this ni*ga writing whole paragraphs on bullets? How big are these bullets? What is this ni*ga, a watchmaker? He can inscribe all this shit on a bullet?
I’m not making light of Charlie Kirk dying, but I’m not sure what it means, and I’m not sure I believe what they say it means. I’ll tell you what I don’t believe, and the whites were quick to say this. They said, “Charlie Kirk is this generation’s Martin Luther King.”
No, he’s not. Yeah, that’s a… that’s a reach. You know, they both got murdered in a terrible fashion. They both got shot in the neck, but that’s about where those similarities end. ‘Cause Charlie Kirk is a motherfucking… internet personality. No, by design. Fundamentally, he can’t function like Dr. King.
Internet ni*gas are negative because they have to be. ‘Cause nobody will engage them unless they say shit that makes them upset. That’s Charlie Kirk.
Could you imagine Dr. King was behaving like Charlie Kirk?
“Smash that like button and subscribe.”
“Follow me for more content like this.”
“I believe all Black people should be free. Change my mind.”
The Congress took a vote… that October 14th would be Charlie Kirk Remembrance Day, and everybody voted for it.
No, no, no, I’m not going to boo it. You can reme… Hey, hey, hey, no, no. Remember that ni*ga if you want to. And remember him however you want to. But I do know that most of those congresspeople voted for that ’cause they’re afraid of political violence. I’m telling you, it’s easier to talk in Saudi Arabia.
I was on stage not long ago in the States and ni*gas got mad ’cause I said, “Well, you know, maybe Puff will get off.”
And I said, “I hope so.”
And the crowd was like, “Boo.”
Okay, look, it’s not that I think Puff is right, but when I got attacked in L.A. at the Hollywood Bowl, people forget Puff was the guy that tackled my attacker. He saved my life. That’s a hard ni*ga to be mad at after that. I had security that night, but you know what I mean? Them ni*gas… They just wasn’t ready. Them ni*gas had some slippery shoes on or something. They ran out. All them ni*gas slipped and fell. And Puffy got my attacker and tackled him. And then years later, when I heard about that baby oil, I was like, “What did those ni*gas slip on?” A thousand bottles of baby oil, that’s a lot.
Remember, he wasn’t on trial for having a thousand bottles of baby oil because it’s not a crime to have a thousand bottles of baby oil. It’s gross. It’s not illegal.
And I’m going to tell you something else I haven’t said… but this is true. In L.A. one night… I shouldn’t even tell… Fuck it. I’ve been to Puffy’s house.
No, I didn’t see… Look, no, I didn’t see none of the stuff they said in that trial. I walked through that ni*ga’s living room, house was clean, traction on the floor, nothing slippery, walked right through. Perfectly normal evening. The only thing… the only thing, in hindsight, but at the time it didn’t mean nothing to me… I didn’t think about it until after I found all that stuff out. But in hindsight, it was fucked up, but we was on his back patio, and we was drinking and laughing, talking, and then Puff starts swirling his drink like this, and he goes… He goes, “So, Dave.” He goes, “What are you into?”
You know me, I didn’t… I was like, “I don’t know, ni*ga, books, video games, um…”
I didn’t know that was my big chance to fuck Cassie… God bless her.
I’m not making light of her. What she went through was terrible. But remember… But remember, ’cause they kept showing this video of him beating her up in a hotel hallway. It was a terrible video. Uh, but he wasn’t on trial for that.! If you remember, he paid her for that before the federal charges ever came up. He paid her 35 million dollars, is what I heard. Which doesn’t make it right, but I mean, come on, ni*ga. I do know ni*gas that have fought Floyd Mayweather for less money than that. And them ni*gas had to fight for 36 minutes.
But Cassie is a gangster. She did something that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. She had to testify about her sex life. Boy, that’s tough. God save us all from that. Anything you say about sex publicly is gonna sound bad. Even if you’re talking about fucking your wife face-to-face.
The judge is like, “Tell me about when you… Did you fuck your wife face-to-face?”
“Yes, Your Honor, I did.”
“Well, could you describe the…”
“Well, yes, I looked at her in her cold, bored eyes, and then I… Then I pulled those big panties aside, and it’s like a bush that just screams, ‘I don’t give a fuck, ‘ and I just… You know what I mean? Just powered through it, you know what I mean?”
Cassie had to do way harder than that.
Them questions… They was like, they was asking her all kinds…
“Did Sean Combs pee in your mouth?”
I was like, “Oh my God.”
She didn’t hesitate.
“Yes, Your Honor, he did. He peed…”
I’m sorry…
Tonight, I had done something, I had, like, prepared something that I wanted to try. It was hard though, but I really wanted…
Whoo!
It’s the longest closer in the history of my career. I’m gonna do it, but, boy, this is gonna take a lot of focus, so please don’t yell out and distract me, just enjoy it.
No, it’s hard, you know, like… Look, man, closing the show… closing the show is everything, and closing the show in D.C. is very important. So tonight, I’m gonna do two different closers.
I’ll do my closer for D.C., and then after that…
This bitch scream like a car alarm, did you hear that? Did everybody else hear that? Jesus Christ!
All right, and then after that, if I can get to it, I’ll do my closer from Saudi Arabia.
All right, this is the tough one.
Hey, do me a favor, production, sex it up, give me, like, comedy club lights.
We love you, Dave!
I love you too.
All right, let me concentrate. This is… When you see it, you’ll understand this is harder than it… It’s harder to do this than you think. Hold on. Go ahead, keep screaming.
Give me a drink.
I love you, Dave!
I love you too, homie.
Listen, I say this… hoping that this brings somebody in this audience peace. I really do mean what I’m about to say.
I love you.
I know how it is right now. I understand how a lot of people feel.
Turn your walkie down, champ.
I know how a lot of you guys are feeling right now. You can’t hear me? Can you hear me?
Got that Bill Cosby. It’s not gonna give me much time.
I know how people are feeling right now, and I hope that this brings you peace. I feel that way too. Without question, 1,000% without question, all of us, individually and collectively, are living through some sort of a conspiracy, I’m sure. That feeling you have that something is wrong, or you might feel like, “Hey, am I right about this? Am I crazy?” No, ni*ga. No, you’re not crazy. This thing you’re feeling, I’m telling you, I feel it too. But here’s what I suggest.
If you don’t know what the conspiracy is, then just say that. “I don’t know” is an acceptable answer. In fact, if you don’t know, it is the best answer. But all this fucking guessing out loud about what the conspiracy is, I’m begging you, please, shut the fuck up. You’re gonna make everybody sick that way.
You can say “I feel,” you can say “I think” or “I suspect,” or, “It looks to me like,” but please, please stop saying you know. Because in times like this, the last person I trust is the ni*ga that’s sure. This is madness.
But here’s what I think.
Somehow this country went wrong… in 1910. I… I narrowed it down to a specific dude. It has… It has something to do… And think about what I say later, not now.
It has something to do with Jack Johnson.
Whoo!
Jack Johnson… was the first Black heavyweight champion of the world. And the heavyweight championship to this day is the most prestigious title in sports. But in 1908… only white fighters had that distinction. Not because Black fighters weren’t good enough, but because no white fighter would give any Black person the opportunity to lay their hands on them.
And a guy named Tommy Burns became heavyweight champion. And Tommy Burns was an anomaly.
He was Canadian. And he said, “I am the heavyweight champion of the world.”
He’s Canadian. You know how, you know, faggy they are. He was like…
He said, “I am not the champion of Canada, I am not the champion of white men. I am the heavyweight champion of the world, and I will defend my championship against all comers.”
And boy… Jack Johnson got the opportunity to fight for the heavyweight championship of the world not from an American, like he was, but from a Canadian.
Now, you think that Americans would root for Jack Johnson because he was an American. No, this ni*ga was blacker than Wesley Snipes.
Tommy Burns was at that time the shortest person to ever be heavyweight champion of the world. And Jack Johnson stepped in the ring and towered above him. And… And… And… And, you know, he beat his… He beat the fuck out of Tommy Burns. In Sydney, Australia.
And all the white fighters in America were like, “You see what we mean? Fighting those goddamn dirty fighting monkeys.”
Before Tommy Burns, the heavyweight champion had retired. It was a man named Jim Jeffries.
And everyone said, “Jack Johnson’s not the real champion.”
They said, “Jim Jeffries is the real champion, and it’s a good thing he’s not fighting, or he’d beat your Black ass, Jack Johnson.”
So, Jack Johnson… Jack Johnson called out Jim Jeffries. It happened first in London. Jim Jeffries was in a parade in London, and Jack Johnson’s Black ass stepped out of the crowd. This ni*ga was dressed to the nines. He was very articulate.
He said, “I say, old boy, I sure would like to give you a wallop.”
Jim Jeffries was just looking at him. “What the fuck?”
And then Jim Jeffries was in a parade in Sydney, Australia, and Jack Johnson stepped out of the crowd again.
“I say, old boy, I sure do want to give you the old one, two.”
Jim Jeffries was looking like, “How does this ni*ga have a passport?”
Again, this was 1910. The hallmark of Jack Johnson’s character was audacity. There’s a story about him that’s a legend that says that one night he was caught speeding down a country road south of the Mason-Dixon line, and the police pulled Jack Johnson’s Black ass over.
You know, this was 1910. He must have been flying, 13, 14 miles an hour…
The police stopped him. The police said, “It cost 200 dollars for a nigger to speed on our roads down here.”
Back then, 200 dollars was like getting a 50,000-dollar ticket.
This ni*ga Jack Johnson didn’t hesitate. He gave him 400 dollars and said, “I’m coming back this way.”
After months of persistence… Jim Jeffries relented. And Jack Johnson defended his title against Jim Jeffries on the Fourth of July.
This is where the phrase “The Great White Hope” came from. They were dying to find any white man that could put this ni*ga in his place.
I’ll tell you what, on the Fourth of July, Jim Jeffries was not the guy. Jack Johnson fucked his ass up.
And Jack Johnson did what they call in boxing, “Carried the fight,” which means he could have knocked him out in the early rounds, but he didn’t wanna die. He wanted to make it look good. But when he got sick of it, ’cause back then it wasn’t no, like, 15-round fights, ni*gas just fought till they couldn’t fight anymore. And when Jack Johnson got bored… put him away with a vicious right hook, and you see Jim Jefferies in the footage start to fall, but then the film cuts off. ‘Cause they didn’t want any imagery… of this ni*ga knocking out their hope.
And on July 5th, all over the United States, there were riots, white riots, where they killed many Black people to make sure that the rest of these ni*gas knew their place. Because Jack Johnson was the first Black person to physically confront the color line and win. And here’s the punchline. He didn’t just leave the arena with his life. Jack Johnson had a very particular proclivity. He left the arena with his life and a white bitch. Let’s talk about it.
You see, Jack Johnson loved fucking white women. Almost exclusively, he would fuck white women. And, man, the audacity of this ni*ga beating white men up and fucking their bitches.
The Black boxing world was elated. And every great Black fighter celebrated Jack Johnson. And they came to Jack Johnson, they said, “Jack, congratulations. Can I get a title fight?”
And Jack Johnson, just like his white predecessors, said, “Well, I don’t fight Black fighters. I’m in the business of beating up white guys and fucking their bitches.”
And one after another… they lined up the Great White Hopes, and Jack Johnson would vanquish them all. In fact… In fact, it took an act of Congress… to stop him.
Congressman named Mann from Illinois came up with an act called the “Mann Act.” The Mann Act is the law that says it is illegal to take a woman across state lines for the purposes of debauchery. In my line of work, got to know shit like that.
Jack Johnson got tried, prosecuted, convicted of the Mann Act, fled the country, was on the run for years, and it ruined his life.
And then finally in 1946, he died in the United States in a car crash.
But before he died, and this is one of my favorite quotes that any American ever said, he said, “I risked everything… for my pleasure.”
You know, having freedom is one thing. Not having freedom is another thing. But using freedom that you don’t have takes an enormous amount of courage, no matter how selfish you are with it. And Jack Johnson… is an American riddle… that we’ve gotta solve.
Not too long ago, but some years ago, I was here in Washington. I was at… I was at the MGM… at the… at the National Harbor, and I wasn’t performing. I was at… I was at a Stevie Wonder show. And Stevie Wonder didn’t know I was there. I was on the side stage. I got there late, he was already doing the show.
And this was a very special night. It… It was the night… It was the night before… Aretha Franklin’s funeral. And… And Aretha Franklin was a very special person to me. The first time I ever played Radio City, she gave me a job as her opening act. Mean boss, but great, great, great, great, great, great artist.
And Steve was on stage, killing it. And then in the middle of his set… he started to sing a medley of all the songs that he had ever written for Aretha Franklin. And, man, I gotta tell you, it was a lot. Huge hits that I didn’t even know he wrote. And the crowd was grooving and celebrating her life.
And just suddenly, in the middle of it… Stevie broke down crying. Put his head down on the piano, and I could hear him sob.
And I was drunk. And it hurts a man to hear another man cry. And I didn’t even think about it. I was like, “I must go to him.”
And I just walked down on stage.
And, you know, it’s home.
When the crowd saw me, they started cheering.
But Stevie didn’t know it was me. That ni*ga was looking like that falcon.
And I sat down next to him at the piano, and I go, “Steve, it’s me.”
And then he smiled real big, and we started cracking jokes and singing songs. And… And then after the show, we were backstage, and he asked me… he said, “What are you doing tomorrow?”
I said, “I’m gonna fly to Detroit with you… pay my respects to Ms. Franklin.”
And he said, “No.”
At that time… a senator had just passed away. The late, great John McCain had passed away. And Stevie said, “I need you to do me a favor.”
He said, “John McCain is laying in state at the Capitol.”
He said, “I want you to go pay… our respects to him.”
And I said, “Ni*ga, I would much rather go to Detroit with you.”
And then Stevie gave me that look. He just looked like this, like… He didn’t even know I was all the way over here.
So, I went. The next day, I went to the Capitol. I… I… I don’t do this for anyone but Stevie Wonder. He can tell me to do anything within reason. The only thing he’s told me to do that I won’t do is stop smoking. That I won’t do yet.
But I did it. I waited in line, and then I got all the way up to Senator McCain’s casket, and I was just like, “Uh, Stevie Wonder sent me. Goodbye, ni*ga.” And I just walked off. But I… But that’s what he wanted, and so I did it.
A lot of people don’t know this, but people from Washington know this, who are my age. A lot of people don’t know that Martin Luther King, unlike Charlie Kirk, had a harder time being remembered.
That… the only reason that Martin Luther King’s birthday is a holiday is because the King family and Stevie Wonder lobbied very hard and very long for that holiday.
People forget.
That what they call “Black Happy Birthday, the Stevie Wonder “Happy Birthday,” was a protest song about making the King holiday a reality.
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday
And it was so effective. Finally, the Senate voted on it. Ninety-nine out of 100 senators agreed to make that birthday a holiday. Except for one… John McCain. The guy that Stevie sent me to say goodbye to.
What a great man Stevie Wonder is. How much this country could learn… from a man like that.
John McCain, God bless him… he got himself in a pickle for that vote, but it came back to get his ass years later. Years later, he was running for president and had to run against the first ni*ga to ever get a party nomination. And Barack Obama got that nomination on the anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. And of all the votes in McCain’s long career as a senator, that vote against that King holiday had never haunted him like it did at that time.
So, how did he counter that? I’ll tell you what he did. If you remember, John McCain sponsored a bill to pardon Jack Johnson posthumously of the Mann Act.
Yes, he did sponsor that bill to pardon Jack Johnson of the Mann Act. The Mann Act is precisely the law that Sean “Puffy” Combs was convicted of just recently. America’s Unstoppable Ni*ga Act.
Yeah, something else is going on, but I don’t know. Are you guys bored?
No!
Okay, I’m gonna keep going. There’s more.
I hate conspiracy theories, but I’ll tell you one about… well… and this is not even a theory. This part I know is a fact.
Did you know… when I left D.C. and moved to New York in the ’90s, that New York City Police Department had a hip-hop police task force? Did you know that? And this task force would follow anybody that was involved in hip-hop culture around. Not just rappers, drug dealers, ’cause they thought that it was connected somehow. Even young comedians like me. Anybody that was just on that scene, they knew who everybody was and what everybody was doing.
And back in those days, I used to go to nightclubs, but sometimes I’d go to a club and the lights would be a little bit different.
And I didn’t notice, but the O.G.s would pull me aside and be like, “Careful in the club, ni*ga. They got the FBI lights up.”
Which meant that the lighting was strange ’cause the party was under surveillance and they were just telling me to watch my back. And, you know, I wasn’t doing anything wrong anyway, ni*ga, just having a good time.
Now, did you know that that task force was invented originally to follow just two people around? Those people was a guy named Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. the Notorious B.I.G., and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs.
Now, why is that? That this ni*ga has been under surveillance for at least 30 years, but just now, just now they noticed that he racketeers and beats up bitches? I bet you, I bet you, if he was doing all that, I bet you they seen him doing it for a long time.
But why now?
I don’t know.
It was strange, in this case, nobody called the police, except for Kid Cudi. And everybody called Kid Cudi a snitch. But he wasn’t a snitch. A snitch is when two ni*gas do crime together and one of them gets caught and tells on the other one to get himself out of the trouble. Kid Cudi was violated by Puff. He alleged that Puff blew up his motherfucking Porsche with a Molotov cocktail and didn’t stop there. He said… He then alleged that Puff broke into his house… and opened this ni*ga’s Christmas gifts.
Oh, ni*ga, I’d have been furious.
Kid Cudi said, “I can’t prove that he opened the gifts or nothing, but I came in the house and he was in there and the gifts was open and that ni*ga was just like, ‘Merry Christmas, playboy.’ “
So what was Kid Cudi supposed to do?
He only got two choices. Either A, you’re going to have to do some gangster shit to this ni*ga that he’s going to have a hard time proving. Or if you’re not built like that… and I do not believe that Kid Cudi is built like that… your last option is B… you gotta call the police. And good for Kid Cudi. He did the right thing.
I, on the other hand, oh, I’m built like that. If this ni*ga fuck my family’s Christmas up, you better believe I’m gonna make him suffer for that shit. A ni*ga’s gonna come up to me and tell me all about it and not even know I did it.
“Oh, my God, Dave! Did you hear what happened to Puffy?”
“Oh, my God, no. What happened?”
“He was jogging by himself in Topanga Canyon. A falcon came out of nowhere and killed this ni*ga!”
“Oh, my God.”
I love hip-hop music. I love many of the people that make that music. They taught me things and showed me things that I’d never seen for myself, good things.
For example, I was in Atlanta once. I’m almost done. Hang in there, champ…
I was in Atlanta… and a rapper named T.I… called me up. Now, at this time, I didn’t know him well, I know him better now, but I knew him well enough that he’d had my phone number.
And the ni*ga called me up, he was like, “Dave, I heard you was in my city.”
He said, “I want to show you the real Atlanta.”
I said, “Fuck yeah, ni*ga, let’s go.”
He said, “Meet me downstairs in your hotel valet.”
So I went downstairs. I thought he was fucking around, but when I went down there, he was outside in the valet, sitting in a purple Phantom. This car must have been a million and a half dollars. Beautiful purple color with ivory-white seats. It’s the kind of car that you gotta have a chauffeur to drive, but for some reason, this ni*ga was driving it himself.
And I didn’t ask no questions. I just jumped in the car and, man, he showed me Atlanta, everything.
“Outkast and them started rapping over there and Future used to play in the playground over here.”
And then he slowed the car up and he pointed to a house and he goes…
“And Martin Luther King grew up in that house right there. And he raised his children over here. And that’s the church he preached in over there.”
And then… we stopped at a red light, and these little Black kids rushed the car from either side of the intersection with water bottles.
These kids in Atlanta, if you know, they’re called the Water Boys. Their whole hustle is they sell water to people who are stuck in that hot Atlanta traffic. I didn’t know that. I just saw these young ni*gas running up on the car, so I locked the door like, “Fuck that.”
But T.I. rolled his window down, started giving the kids orders.
“Slow down, don’t just run up on somebody’s car. You don’t know what they got in there.”
“And smile so you look less threatening. And remember your manners. ‘Yes, sir. No, ma’am. Please, thank you.'”
“That’ll keep you alive.”
“And keep that condensation on that water so it looks refreshing and delicious.”
And then that kid realized that he was talking to a legend.
He said, “Oh, my God.”
He said, “Thanks, T.I.”
And held his hand out for some money.
And that ni*ga T.I. looked at him and said, “I done gave you the game,” and rolled up the window and drove away.
That night… I did my show… and when I got off stage, T.I. was backstage with a friend of his that I didn’t know. I just knew his friend was somebody, because everyone was acting all excited that he was back there. So I asked him, I go, “Yo, Tip, who’s your man?”
And he’s like, “Oh, that right there?”
He goes, “That there is the future of hip-hop.”
And I was like, “Ni*ga, will you just calm down?”
So then I asked the dude.
I say, “Yo, my man.”
I said, “What’s your name?”
And the dude looked over, he said… he said, “I’m Nipsey.”
And this was Nipsey Hussle. Not gonna go all into it, but I gotta tell you, that night… that night, me and T.I. and Nipsey went out… and we had a fucking blast. Good time, not freak-off fun, but fun. So much so that when I got home from the road, and my wife always asks me, she goes, “Dave, how was your trip?”
Normally I’m just like, “It was good.”
But this time I was like, “Babe, babe, I met the coolest ni*ga.”
I said, “This ni*ga’s younger than me, but it’s like he’s older than me.”
And she’s like, “Wha… What?”
She goes, “What does that mean?”
And I was like, “I don’t know, bitch. He’s like… It’s like hanging out with a fortune cookie. This ni*ga just had an answer for everything.”
I told her all about Nipsey. What was funny about it is years later, I saw Nipsey’s widow and she pulled me aside. I’d never met her.
And she said, “I just want to tell you that my husband loved you.”
She said, “He said he met you in Atlanta and you had a wonderful time.”
I said, “Boy, that’s fucking crazy. We sure did.”
Not long after I met Nipsey, I was in L.A. doing a show. And then after the show, I got a text from a guy that says, “I’m at a party you need to be at.”
And I was like, “I’m gonna go to bed.”
And he’s like, “No, ni*ga, you have to come to this party.”
So I’m thinking this must be the freak-off, finally.
And the party was at a place that I’d been to a million times. So I wasn’t excited about being in that place. But when I walked in, it just was different. It was popping. And it turns out that the party was for Nipsey. Nipsey had been nominated for Rap Album of the Year, and everyone that he would have ever respected was at the party. T.I. was there, Snoop was there, Jay-Z was there, Puffy, before we knew he did all that stuff, was there.
I was there, on and on and on. And as good as the party was when I was partying, I was having fun, but I had a pit in my stomach ’cause it reminded me of the ’90s. And you can believe me or you cannot believe me. I’m just telling you how I saw and how I felt. They had the FBI… the FBI lights up. I just felt like, “Man, this party’s under surveillance,” but I didn’t think too much of it. And then I went back home to Ohio, and I was taking a nap, and my wife shook me awake and she had tears in her eyes and she said, “David.”
I said, “What’s going on with you?”
She said, “Your friend is dead.”
And I’m old now, so I’m like, “Bitch, you’re gonna have to be more specific than that.”
I know ni*gas with gout.
But it was Nipsey. And this is why I feel for Charlie Kirk’s fans because I know what it’s like to see someone you look up to and admire gunned down by a fucking nobody. Oh, my God. It’s so hard to accept that. And if you looked on the internet and… and saw all those terrible videos, because there was a very gory video of Nipsey’s murder too. And then I… I looked in the comments section, and… and the internet was doing what it does, and everyone was coming up with one conspiracy theory after another, but the one that I kept seeing the most involved a holistic doctor in New York City. Have you heard it?
It’s a doctor named Dr. Sebi. In the mid’90s, during the height of the AIDS epidemic, a Black holistic doctor in New York named Dr. Sebi claimed that he cured two people of AIDS and HIV holistically. And at that time, that was an illegal claim to make in the United States because of the FDA. So the federal government took Dr. Sebi to court and New York State took Dr. Sebi to court. And Dr. Sebi beat both cases.
And Nipsey Hussle, unbeknownst to many, was making a documentary, he was producing it, about Dr. Sebi’s work and his life. And people on the internet believe that larger powers killed Nipsey Hussle to keep that information from you and I.
I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. But I’ll tell you something that I do know.
The greatest comedian I’ve ever seen with my own eyes is Charlie Barnett. Charlie Barnett, a New York street comedy legend. He only did comedy on the streets, and I was lucky enough to meet him. He was a mentor of mine. Charlie Barnett was so good at performing on the streets that from the streets, he booked himself a job on Saturday Night Live. Yeah, but the week of rehearsals, they found out that he couldn’t read. So they fired him and replaced him with Eddie Murphy.
Oh, it could have been beautiful. But you gotta be able to read to do Saturday Night Live. I know y’all saw Bad Bunny last week.
I’m not knocking him, but that ni*ga’s reading, you know what I mean?
Charlie Barnett wasn’t deterred. He kept pushing.
And he went on to do movies like D.C. Cab, which is where I first saw him.
He used to be on Miami Vice. This motherfucker became a star in his own right.
But the thing that kept derailing him is that Charlie was a terrible drug addict. This ni*ga started doing crack to quit heroin. He was doomed.
He learned how to do street comedy from a guy named Swami X, and Swami X didn’t just teach him how to do comedy, he taught him how to get high, and Charlie never could shake it.
And when Charlie mentored me, even though he was a terrible drug addict, I never saw him high. He never wanted to do to me what Swami did to him. He made sure I understood that cocaine is just not for you even though those bitches are prettier than them ugly weed bitches you be hanging out with.
One night, I saw Charlie in a comedy club and he looked terrible. And this guy would avoid me if he was getting high, but I’d never seen him look this bad.
So I said to him, I said, “Charlie, you good?”
And he didn’t say anything.
And I said, “Are you high?”
And he laughed. He said, “No, ni*ga, I’m not high.”
He said, “I’m dying.”
And I said, “What?”
And he said, “I’m dying. I have AIDS. And I’m dying.”
Now, I must’ve been 18 or 19. I’d never met nobody that I knew of that had AIDS. But I got to tell you, that… that shit had me shook. And then I started thinking of all his jokes. And he was hinting at it for years. Didn’t he used to have a joke where he said, “I took an AIDS test yesterday. I got a 65.”
Another time he was on stage at the Apollo, and he told the crowd, “There’s good and bad in everything.”
And the crowd was like, “Yeah.”
He said, “So what’s good about crack?”
And, you know, everybody in Harlem was like, “Nothing.”
And he said, “Shit, crack brought the price of pussy down to five dollars!”
But when he said he had AIDS, I was so shocked that I looked at him to see if he was joking.
And I knew, I said, “He’s… He’s serious.”
And I said, “Fuck that shit.”
He said, “What you mean?”
I said, “You’re not going to die around me, ni*ga. That’s not your destiny.”
He said, “What are you talking about?”
And I took Charlie Barnett to Dr. Sebi. This is a fact. And Dr. Sebi treated Charlie Barnett for three months.
This is a crazy story. I could make a whole movie about it.
It’s a long story, so I’ll spare you. But the point of the story is, Charlie died of AIDS.
D.C., no matter how much this government or anyone else puts pressure on you, keep your wits about you. I’m here just to remind you that we are a community, and we will stay sane together. We will take care of each other, and we will wait this orange ni*ga out.
The fear that I have for myself that I need you to protect me from is cooption. My voice has become more powerful than I intended it to be, and I cannot let these ni*gas do me like Charlie Kirk, or even worse than that. What if these ni*gas trip me up somehow, coopt me, and then make me say the things that they want me to say? Well, we can’t have that.
So, just in case, we need a code. It’s gotta be something that I can say so that if I say it, you know that these ni*gas got me. And don’t listen to nothing that I say after I say those words. But don’t tell anybody what it is, but it’s gotta be something that, you know what I mean, that I would never say.
Oh, I know what the code is. The code word is, “I stand with Israel.”
Thank you very much, and good night.
I’ve always come to the conclusion
That “but” is the way
Of asking for permission
To lay something heavy on one’s head
So I have tried to not be the one
Who’ll fall into that line
But what I feel inside
I think you should know
Oh And baby, that’s you, you, you
Made life’s history
‘Cause you’ve brought
Some joy inside my tears
You have done
What no one thought could be
Oh, oh-oh
You’ve brought some joy
Inside my tears
I’ve always felt that tomorrow is for
Those who are too much afraid
To go past yesterday
And start living for today
I feel that lasting moments are coming
Far and few between
So I should tell you
Of the happiness that you bring
Baby, baby, it’s you, you, you
Made life’s history
Oh, baby
You’ve brought some joy
Inside my tears
Baby, you have done
What no one thought could be
Yeah
You’ve brought some joy
Inside my tears
Yeah
You’ve brought some joy
Inside my tears
Oh
You’ve brought some joy
Inside my
Tears
Doo, doo, do, do, do, do
Yeah, yeah
You’ve brought some joy
Inside my tears
Baby, baby
You have done
What no one thought could be
Yeah
I’m rich biatch!
1 thought on “Dave Chappelle: The Unstoppable (2025) | Transcript”
This show was like watching a paranoid stoned chain smoking friend rattle off his favorite pet theories. Chappelle’s comedy has become completely self-referential and so focused on himself it becomes tedious. His act now consists solely of him eating his own ass.