WHEN Chris Rock, the straight-talking comedian dubbed the "funniest man in America," was told on The Oprah Winfrey Show that his great-great-grandfather had served in the US Coloured Troops during the American Civil War and that, by the time he died in 1917, he had gone from being a slave with no possessions to owning 65.5 acres of land, he thought it was a wind-up.
"I thought I was being Punk'd. I really did," he joked. "I thought Ashton Kutcher was going to come from behind something and go, 'You know your grandfather was nothing but a slave. You know he just mopped up for white people. Come on, we got you'."
Thankfully, Kutcher was a no-show and the revelations about Rock's great-great-grandfather continued. Julius Caesar Tinghman was elected into the South Carolina legislature when he was just 27 years old.
"It's so weird, because I'm a comedian and this guy was a politician. I never knew where this gift of gab came from. A politician has to know how to crack a joke and tell a story and do all those things. I didn't know it was hereditary," Rock later reflected.
"If I'd have known I'd come from politicians and people of intellect, I would have probably tried to get into the intellect business."
Instead Rock, who is best known in the UK as the narrator of Everybody Hates Chris, the Channel Five sitcom inspired by his teenage experiences while growing up in Brooklyn, turned to show-business.
Next Wednesday, the stand-up makes his Scottish debut with an exclusive performance at the Edinburgh Playhouse, much to the delight of the venue's general manager James Haworth, who says, "Yet again the Playhouse are at the forefront of Scottish entertainment and are proud to welcome international comedy sensation Chris Rock for this one off Scottish date."
Reviewers and audiences have been unanimous in their praise for Rock's current tour and last month, when he announced he would play London's 14,500 capacity O2 Arena, the show sold out in a morning forcing another date to be added. That sold out in a matter of hours.
These two shows are now expected to be recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records as the UK largest ever stand-up shows.
But what else would you expect of one of American comedy's strongest and most original voices, whose expletive-driven send-ups of black culture have won him Emmys, Grammys and film roles – although not the admiration of veteran comedian Bill Cosby, but more of that later.
Born Christopher Julius Rock III in South Carolina, the entertainer is the oldest of seven children. He was raised in the poor black neighbourhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn where, as part of a racial integration experiment, he was one of only four black children bussed daily from their home to a poor white school in Bensonhurst.
Consequently, it was during his schooldays that Rock first experienced the racism that would influence and inform his comedy.
On leaving school Rock flirted with a number of jobs, including a stint with McDonald's and as a truck loader for the New York Daily News.
Around the same time he discovered the comedy circuit and his ability to make people laugh. It was a comic awakening that ultimately led to a job on the American comedy institution Saturday Night Live – a show he was part of for four years, cracking gags alongside Adam Sandler and Mike Myers. The African-American dominated comedy show In Living Colour (with Jim Carrey and Jennifer Lopez) followed in 1993, just as it was cancelled.
"I was a has-been. So I figured if I'm not going to be famous, I can at least get really good, and get back to being the way I was before I met Eddie Murphy and saw the big houses and the girls," he recalls.
Returning to his club roots, Rock honed his act until a cable TV special called Bring the Pain won him two Emmys and put him firmly back in the limelight.
Today, the 43-year-old has won numerous awards and appeared in the movies The Longest Yard, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, New Jack City and Lethal Weapon 4, CB4, Kevin Smith's Dogma and Neil LaBute's Nurse Betty. He has also hosted the MTV awards twice and in 2005, the Oscars.
"So far I'm satisfied with my film choices. Some were good, some were bad. But with each one, I learned something, the experience got me here.
"There's not one movie where I'd go, 'I shouldn't have done that.' I had my reasons for every one of them. I try to work with good directors, I try to have good co-stars. I wish to be the weakest link."
Rock also made his directorial debut on the 2003 movie Head of State, in which he also starred. It was an experience he enjoyed.
"It's weird. Actually, it made me relax. You know, when you write a movie and you hand it over to somebody, somebody that you probably just met months ago, it can be nerve- racking. But this was very relaxing actually.
"I love the control. I love everything. I love just taking the thing and seeing it and making it your own. It's easier for me that way. I think my best work is when I'm kind of in charge."
A father of two (he and wife Malaak Compton-Rock, have daughters, six-year-old Lola and Zhara, four), Rock's humour is not for the faint of heart or those easily offended.
His ability to turn his scathing wit on class, politics, and racism when the mood takes him has left him with as many critics as fans.
In the past, his no-holds-barred delivery has even put him at odds with Bill Cosby, reportedly one of his comedy idols, who publicly reprimanded Rock for his heavy use of the word 'nigger'.
"My first showbusiness job was Catch A Rising Star, 1977, at the First Avenue Comedy Club, audition night. I passed auditions. Got five bucks for about seven minutes of stand-up," he recalls. "The coolest thing about being a comedian is there is almost no inappropriate behaviour. So anything you're caught doing, if you're willing to make fun of it, you'll be fine."
Incendiary and insightful though it is, his material has, some will tell you, mellowed since he became a father and discovered family-orientated mainstream success with Everybody Hates Chris.
"I hope I get softer," he confesses, with a laugh. "Hey man, Prince is singing at the Superbowl. Hopefully you evolve, I can't be the guy I was 20 years ago. I was only edgy compared to other things. I was always just me. What I did wasn't like I was ever sitting there – 'I'm going to be edgy'. I'm not edgy, I'm just Chris.
"I'm like the Hulk onstage. It's way over the top. That's Bizarro Chris. Sometimes I get off stage and go, 'What did I say?' I'll watch one of my specials a year later and go, 'Eww, that was mean'."
Despite his success, Rock is modest about the path his career has taken.
Ask him when he first realised that he had made it as a comedian, for example, and his reply is not what you might expect.
"I still don't know. I could still go down the tubes at any moment. But who's to say I wouldn't have had a more fulfilling life driving a truck? I love my life, but I don't think I'm any happier than my younger brother Andre, who drives a garbage truck."
Of course, if he tires of showbusiness he could always take a leaf from his great-great-grandfather's book and dip his toe in the world of politics. After all, he played the President of the United States in Head of State. But is America ready for an African-American president?
"It's ready for a retarded president, why wouldn't it be ready for an African-American president?" he says in his typically blunt style.
• Chris Rock, Edinburgh Playhouse, Greenside Place, Wednesday, 8pm, £40 (returns only), 0844-847 1660 The full article contains 1382 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
