Jamie Foxx has a lot to discuss about these days. After going more than 20 years without releasing a stand-up particular, the Oscar winner is now getting ready to release his second in two years. His newest, Take Care of Yourself, follows 2024’s What Had Happened Was…, the deeply personal Netflix particular where he addressed the medical emergency that almost took his life.
Something has clearly been unlocked. Foxx has returned to comedy with a renewed urge for food for performing and an urgency to get his concepts out while he can. “Man, I got to get it out, because I had been sitting on stuff,” he said. “Now, I got Kill the Comedian. I got Black Forrest Gump. I got 10 hours’ worth of stuff I want to get out.”
Take Care of Yourself finds Foxx considering about where he is now, both onstage and away from it. Music stays half of his act, and his daughter Anelise seems alongside him, enjoying guitar on the same Oakland stage where her father carried out early in his profession. Foxx also seems more and more in what occurs when a comic sticks around long enough to watch himself change.
During his dialog with ESSENCE, Foxx mirrored on fatherhood and the advice Oliver Stone once gave him about bringing his youngsters to work. At 59, Foxx has a easy description for what retains pulling him back to the stage: “I just keep the light on.”
ESSENCE: So, you’ve labored across so many main platforms. Why was Hulu the proper match for Take Care of Yourself?
Jamie Foxx: Because Hulu was rising, altering. It was the proper match for me because I’m evolving as far as me as a comic. I used to be performing and leaping and singing, and now I’m in my type of speaking, just being the first time I could be personal. I ain’t never speaking about myself. My supervisor’s like, “Yo, bro, you got to talk about your shit. I hate it.” But then when this factor occurred to me, now it forces me to discuss otherwise.
I talked about it when Katt Williams said Jamie Foxx wasn’t humorous. “What Had Happened Was wasn’t funny, sir.” (Laughs.) And I recognize that because as a comic, you need adversity. You need something to discuss about. And so my life has been so good until this, and I don’t ever need to go through what I went through in order to have materials, but it permits me to have a jumping-off level to discuss about whatever’s humorous or not humorous. It gives me my story. And Hulu embraced it. They came and saw the early preparation of it, and they were just on it. So it makes sense.
When you hear people—whether it be critics, followers, comedians—and they say something you put out or your artwork isn’t humorous, does that have an effect on you in any approach? How do you deal with that?
JF: I imply, we all get affected, but in this explicit state of affairs, I ain’t got to show to nobody that I’m humorous. However, the story and what I went through was the fundamental ingredient. When we set up What Had Happened Was, it was like we took all the jokes and set them apart and said, “No, this is the story I want to tell.”
It was virtually like I needed to say, “This ain’t necessarily stand-up. This is a journey. This is something I want to get off my chest.” But I could do it. When I go to the membership, I was in the membership a few days in the past and I see some of the comedians show up, sneak in to see what I’m on, but I see them, so I flip it up a notch. Twenty-five, half-hour of that sizzling shit. And they go, “Damn.” When I come off, I say, “Yeah, I’ve always been that. You ain’t never been this.” Just to keep that half intact. But when it comes to the other factor, this is something I need to do. I need to discuss about what I went through. I hate to discuss about it being previous, but comedy grows you up. If you’re a actual comic, you have to ultimately grow up. And that’s the factor, that’s where we are. And so I was lucky. Hulu, Oakland, it all labored out.
Speaking of Oakland, what goes into the choice when you’re making an attempt to select what metropolis and what venue you need to movie your specials in?
JF: Oakland was where I began. In 1991, I won the BlackBerry comedy competitors and the set was going to be completely different. At first it was going to be like, “when you come to Oakland to do business, what kind of business do you do? We do town business. We’re going to name it Town Business.” But then that scene, my daughter was like, “Dad, that’s kind of old. It’s a little, not corny, but it was like…”
Just like in Atlanta, I’m doing this particular in a space where it’s two and a half days, and anybody would usually inform you that doing a particular takes you a 12 months. You’re going to maintain it, but we don’t have that luxurious. So when you go to a place like Oakland, I know they’re going to let me discuss my shit. So, that’s why we determined to go there because it has something to do with the trajectory of my profession, and I needed my daughter to be on that same stage that her dad rocked out in 1991. And so to watch her on that stage, rocking her guitar, I said, “Ah, man, she doesn’t even know what this is doing to me.” And then to see how Oakland responded, and everything pointed to 415 and 510.
Your daughter, what is it like seeing her share the musical expertise that you have?
JF: It’s loopy. She did that on her own. She’s self-taught. She taught herself how to play the guitar. She said, “Dad, I want my own lane.” Which you chuckle, okay, all proper, get your own lane. But she’s actually taking it.
So, when I see her do that, and then we get a likelihood to be on the BET Awards with Kehlani and issues like that, so she’s rising. And my daughter is completely different. So we just did the Snoop Dogg Christmas particular and I was like, I said, “Aren’t you just so happy?” She’s like, “Dad, I am happy, but chill.” I said, “What you mean? Just chill.” And Snoop is laughing, watching me strive to get her excited. And then my daughter goes, “Dad, can I tell you something?” “What?” “You’re chalant.” I said, “What?” She said, “I’m nonchalant.”
Right. (Laughs.)
JF: She said, “You go ahead and do all that.” She said, “I’m over here chilling.” And so I shield that for her. So when she needed to keep behind her hair, she said, “Dad, this is me. I just want to be…” So I let her have that, and it’s great to have your child tag along with the expertise and see her maintain her own. So out of all of it, that’s one of the greatest, coolest takeaways of Take Care of Yourself.
The “chalant” factor—every time I see you, you’re always vibrant, you’re energetic, you’re always laughing, you’re always entertaining people, you’re always on. But when you finally flip off, what are some of the issues that you do to chill out and take care of yourself?
JF: I smoke weed. I’m kidding. I’m kidding.
Hey, no judgment over here, brother.
JF: No, I just chill. I don’t smoke it. I just let people around me smoke it. But I just chill, man. I do a little pickleball night time every Wednesday on some previous man shit. I just sit around with the homies and stuff like that, but I’m seldom off. Even when I’m sitting around with the homies, I’m working on some concept or some joke or some TV or film factor. So that’s what truly permits me to chill out.
I always like to describe your stand-up particularly as more of an expertise, particularly these last two. When did you determine that music was going to be such a massive half of your act?
JF: When I first began doing comedy back in the day in L.A., and it was D.L. Hughley and Steve Harvey and The Wayans and Rock, all them, what separated me was doing the music. I watched Adam Sandler go up at the Comedy Store. It was all Black artists. He had his guitar. So, when I watched him rock that, I said, “Oh, I’m going to take my thing.” Because I came from classical music. I used to do this joke about what if “Gin & Juice” was an opera: “Rolling down the street, smoking indo, sipping on gin and juice, the juice, bitch.” So it type of modifications the temperature in the room. And then now it’s become a factor.
People look towards that little last ending where you get on the piano and do whatever, and you do your factor. I don’t need it to just be stand-up comedy. My favourite was Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin and these guys who would just do everything. So we strive to spice it up a little bit.
Why do you still need to come back to stand-up after such a profitable profession in movie, tv, and music?
JF: You know what it is? And I ran into Eddie and I was at Eddie’s home and everything was good. And he was like, “I want to go do stand-up.” I said, “Man, your house is too nice.” “What you mean?” “Man, it’s too nice. Then you got a scent.” He had some sort of scent pumping through there. And I said, “What is that?” He said, “That hibiscus.” (Laughs.)
So as a stand-up comedian, if you look at any of us as we get older, you just need your gentle on. That’s all. So I said, “I’ll never turn my light off.” I had turned my gentle off in early 2000. I wasn’t humorous. I was doing wealthy jokes. I was on stage. “I just got that Range Rover. Anybody else?” I was like, “Man, what the hell are you speaking about? So staying on feels good. And then I get a likelihood to run into youthful comedians and artists and issues like that, and I just keep the gentle on. That’s all I need to do is just keep the gentle on. And maintaining the gentle on type of gives me that vitality.
How do you keep your gentle on?
JF: Don’t take yourself too significantly. You interview enough people when they begin hiding behind glasses and they become this factor in their head. And that’s what I do. I don’t take it too significantly, man. I ain’t never been that approach. Especially at this age, knock on wooden. I’m like, “Man, I get a chance. I’m still getting a chance to get up to bat.” I’m just going to keep unfastened with it.
So before What Had Happened Was, it had been years since you had carried out a stand-up particular. You have two in two years now. What sort of space are you in creatively?
JF: Man, I got to get it out, because I had been sitting on stuff. I didn’t actually have anything to discuss about. Just give me something to discuss about. Now, I got Kill the Comedian. I got Black Forrest Gump. I got 10 hours’ value of stuff I need to get out. So that’s why I’m grateful to Hulu for permitting me to discuss my trash, to discuss my factor. So it’s like now you get more pressing. I saw a man, he was 97 years previous a few days in the past. He says, “Live, Foxx.”
He said, “Live.” “What do you mean?” He said, “You got to live.” He said, “Went like that.” So if time goes like that, I need to put fire in the furnace and issues in the capsule. You know how they put it in the capsule? If I’m allowed to do it, I’m going to proceed to do it.
The world has watched you raise Corinne and now we see Anelise coming into her own, but you’ve still been ready to keep a stage of success too. What advice would you give a father that’s making an attempt to steadiness his life and their profession?
JF: I was speaking to Oliver Stone a while back. I had just had my child. I had my first youngster in ’94 and I’m preparing to shoot a film in ’98, so Corinne was 4. I said, “Man, I’m a little on the fence about shooting this movie, man. I don’t want to be away from my kid.” He said, “Bring your kid to work.” I said, “Huh?” “Just bring her to work.” He said, “And that way she could watch you work and as she gets older, she could understand that if you do have to take off and be away for a minute, she understands that Daddy’s working in this capacity.”
So that’s what I would inform him. As much as you can, take them with you, man. Because the one factor you can’t get back is the time. You could inform your daughter, “I’m out here trying to do whatever,” but they don’t know. They just got here. They just know, “I’m sitting here at the house by myself.” So if you could rustle them up and take them with you, that’s the good ingredient. I think it helps because me and my two daughters—we’re tight. You really feel me?
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