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It’s Cafe Mocha with Loni Love, Yo-Yo, Angelique. On the line is a man that raised a generation of people who love to do booty calls. Comedian, actor, husband, father. Come on, booty call didn’t exist before Bill Bellamy. Bill Bellamy, welcome to Cafe Mocha. Hey, Bill, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that that was the introduction. You know what? It’s okay, Lottie. You know what? I have definitely contributed to the culture. A lot of booty has been gotten since the 90s. So I like that. That brought people together. Well, welcome to the show. All right. Bill, and you know what? We are so excited because you’re going to be hosting something so great. It’s called the Super Bowl Soulful Celebration. Tell us about it. Oh, my God. It is actually a wonderful show. And it’s sort of like a really wonderful gumbo of talent, right? You got the secular world, or a.k.a. the gospel artists are performing. Then you have Muni Long, the new artists that are making noise. Then you have the athletes that are singing. The NFL has their choir that these guys that have incredible voices, these big, strong guys that have these most incredible voices performing. You have legends performing like the Isley Brothers that we all grew up on, right? And so you have myself hosting, you got Roxy Diaz, And we basically, the theme of it is keep going. The theme about it is perseverance, us showcasing black excellence in all levels of what we do. And that’s what’s exciting. And we’re here for the Super Bowl. It is one of the very few shows sanctioned by the NFL. So you know that we are bringing it, bringing the heat. Number two, the performances are just going to knock everybody’s socks off. And it is positivity. So I’m excited.
How exciting is it, though, to be able to host something like this so grand? And how do you prepare for it? Well, you know, you’ve hosted shows as well. I mean, all we do is really, really bring our personality to the structure, right? They hired me because I have the experience to do, you know, these shows. I’ve done music shows my whole career but at the same time, they need somebody that is going to bring a certain type of energy to make the show fun. We don’t want it to be like, okay, guys, next is… You know what I mean? We want it to have personality. We want it to be funny. We want it to feel like a vibe, like you’re watching a real show. Impromptu, comedy, performances, oh, my God, vocals, you know?
stuff that black people are known for. You know how we get there stop playing with me. I was there last year and Mary Mary tore the place to pieces. Down! Shut it down now now wait are you a football fan? Who’s your team uh my team right now is, I don’t want to say it uh but my my home team is the Giants. And it hurts it hurts yeah you should cry. You should cry Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I didn’t want you had to bring it up. But anyway, we are not good. We gave away Saquon Barkley. So I went down to Philly. I just left New Jersey, got on 95 and just started driving my ass down to Philly. So I’m rooting for Philly. All right. Give me an E. Give me an L. Give me a… You know what the mayor… Did you see that? Yeah.
Yeah, she couldn’t spell eagles. They was like looking at her. Give me a D. Like, what is she talking about? Like, who are you rooting for? What is happening? Okay. So to everybody listening, Bill Bellamy will be hosting the Super Bowl Soulful Celebration along with Roxy Diaz and a number of artists. You can catch the show. It will premiere Saturday, February the 8th at 8, 7 Central on Fox. We’ll have more with Bill Bellamy later in the month. Hopefully. This is Cafe Mocha.
It’s Cafe Mocha. Loni Love, Yo-Yo, Angelique on the line is my brother in comedy. He’s been doing it for a long time. We first saw him on HBO’s Def Jam, and he’s still been making his way. I just love him so much. He’s coined a phrase that we all know about. It’s called booty call. Give it up for my comedy brother, Bill Bellamy. What’s up, ladies? Oh, my God, Kim. It’s so good to have you.
Y’all sound like y’all all savory. You got the foam on top of the coke. I see you. I love it. I mean, first of all, you are the perfect man for us to talk about for this beautiful weekend of Valentine’s Day. And my first question, I’m going to be nosy. You’ve been married for 23 years. Yes. What are you doing for your lovely wife for Valentine’s Day? Well, I think I want it to be a surprise, but it’s going to involve romance. It’s going to involve wine because we both love wine a lot and All-Star Weekend. So All-Star Weekend is in the Bay Area. So All-Star Weekend is in the Bay Area this year and I’m hosting the All-Star Jam. We have an incredible
Incredible line-up of funny. Your ass should be on the show, but you know what? You’re busy. Okay, cool. I got a show already. You already got a show. I can’t get you no show. Maybe we put Yo-Yo on the show, okay? Okay. So we got Coco Brown, D.C. YoungFly, Michael Blackson, Gary Owen. I’m hosting at the Paramount. paramount Theater, you know, that bitty venue is so nice and we have Spinderella. She’s doing the ones and the twos. So we got the women. We got the fellas. It’s a great celebration. It’s Valentine’s Day weekend. So your boy gotta turn up i can’t not i can’t drop the ball on my boo-boo. You know, that ain’t gonna go well. So, you know we got to get we got to turn up.
Bill Bellamy, a few years, what has it been, five, seven, maybe 10 years now, those terrible basketball people decided to put the all-star game on the weekend of Valentine’s Day. So as a man, as a basketball fan, a husband, a man, how do you even deal with that? Because you said wine and flowers and romance, and then you said all-star game. What you got to do, if you… Y’all sound like y’all like to be romantic and stuff like that. You know, women are very sensitive to romance. Okay, so here we go. You can’t wait till Valentine’s Day because there’s too much stuff going on. You got to start on Tuesday. Just start loading up. Do something Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. By Friday, y’all exhausted.
You can’t do it all in one day. So I figure I’m going to start on Wednesday and just start delighting and surprising and stuff. You know what I’m saying? That makes sense. Bill, you’ve been doing this for so long. Is it a problem with your wife that most of your gigs are on big holidays? Yeah, they, you know, that don’t work. and she don’t want to go with me unless it’s a good city oh my New York let’s go turn up Miami oh my god let’s go turn up Toledo oh go ahead go ahead I love it. Oh, it’s Cafe Mocha. You know, y’all love to go to the right cities where they got the shopping and the fly and the night. You know how y’all do. Don’t lie. You know how it go. That’s right. You know.
It’s Cafe Mocha on the line. Comedian Bill Bellamy talking about his touring. It’s Valentine’s Day celebrations. We’re talking about it all. Bill, this is the thing that I love about you. If people need to get a laugh, really a quick one, go to his Instagram page because he is full of Hollywood stories. Are you trying to, you should make that into some type of show. Are you trying to work on that? Yeah, we’re developing that as we speak. That is so funny. And it’s interesting that those Hollywood stories, they came out of me doing my book ‘Top Billing’. Right. And so how I was able to remember those stories was taking all those pictures. You know, you guys know me for a long time. I interviewed everybody during the nineties and we were, this is the,
The heyday of MTV, the heyday of BET, the heyday of Freaknik, all this amazing, iconic stuff that was going on in the 90s. I was in the middle of it. So I had access to Tupac, Biggie, Beyonce, Destiny’s Child, SWV, Brownstone, Blackstreet, Teddy Rod, Mariah, Whitney, Bobby. It was just an incredible… world to sort of just like get access pass and so when I sit down and I think about my life I’m like yo that was crazy and so I just start sitting in my car and I was just telling like these three to six minute stories and everybody love them because you can’t go back and get that information yep But it’s also in the way you tell the story. You’re a wonderful storyteller. Like I said, I want to see a show. I want to see your face. I want to see maybe reenactments. I can produce the whole thing for you. You know what I want to ask you? You already got it. And Lonie is a producer. Let’s be clear. You know what I wanted to ask you? Every time I see you, it’s been over 30 years, but you seem to always have this joy. How do you keep your joy
and still make other people’s laugh. What have you been able to, what can you tell us over these 30 years that’s kept you so happy and not bitter? I think my secret sauce is embracing my talent, right? And not necessarily being concerned always about the results, right? So like, so for instance, you know, you could be like, oh my God, I haven’t done a movie in two years. get down on yourself. Man, I should have been in this TV show. I would have killed that role. We all do that. You see some of your peers, some of your friends, they’re working on a TV show and you’re like, man, it’s my time. When is my next move? I say keep doing what you do best. Lock into your lane. It’s going to come to you. It’s hard to deny real talent. And so I think
For me, that’s worked. It’s kept me relevant. It’s kept me in the culture for 30 years. You know what I mean? And I’m giving it to you guys from the heart. Like, you go on my social media, I’m literally going out my way. I want to make your ass chuckle. It’s some sad-ass people out here. It’s some people going through it. I’m thinking maybe they might be clicking through their phone and be like, I’m being crazy as hell. Oh, my God, you know? And that, to me, is how you lean into – you know, social media, because you don’t have to wait to get a TV show to develop it, to get it on the air. I can think of something right now and put it up and let people rock out with it. That’s what I love about the new technology. Go ahead, Ashley. It’s Cafe Mocha. We’re talking to Bill Bellamy. I wonder how much your family life has to do with you being a little more chill and
Because when we were in our early 20s, it was just all about career and coming up. But you get married, I feel like you slow down a little bit. Or I shouldn’t say slow down. The focus changes. How much has your focus changed? And how has that contributed to your joy and positive attitude? Well, the beauty of family is you have to… you have to commit to it as well, right? When we first come up in the game, we committed to the game. We committed to our career. And that’s our baby at first, right? And so when you get married, in my case, and then you have children, and you can’t bear with it because you don’t want to miss out on the beautiful thing that you asked for, the beautiful thing that you created, right? So for me, I had to sacrifice a lot of things out.
A lot of things didn’t really fit, you know, my, my lifestyle. I couldn’t do that movie. I didn’t want to be away that long. My daughter was in the kindergarten. My son was in third grade, you know, and I had to go to the school when I need to be a part is, and we need to do family trips, you know? So I, I had to, like you said, kind of pick and choose. I had to fall back on certain things, pick up on other things. But now when I look back, My daughter is 21 graduating from college. My son is a freshman in college. I’m very proud of my commitment. I’m very proud that I didn’t squander that opportunity. And then, you know, now, you know, me and my wife are empty nesters. So now we like, oh man, wow, we could make, we could have some fun. So, you know, if you could, if you could make it,
through all that hard stuff, didn’t you guys get a chance to kind of like get busy again? I think that’s the good part of it, actually. Wow. Bill has a 21-year-old. I love it. Wow. This has been just a great, enlightening conversation. You guys, again, for Valentine’s Day weekend, Bill is going to be at the Paramount Theater in Oakland. He’s hosting with a bunch of my funny friends comedian friends, but also check out, um, his other tour dates. And if you just follow him on his instagram page, Bill Bellamy is entertaining. he’s got all his tour dates. And of course, you know, I love you, Bill. So we’ll be working somewhere soon. Thanks for stopping in the cafe you know you gotta do a show with us, Loni Stop playing with me. I want to see your funny stuff up there. You are silly as hell i know i’ll never forget when we flew on that flight together. We didn’t even take a nap.
She was talking her ass off for six hours. I said, this girl funny as hell. We always have a good time, Bill. Always, brother. Oh, my God. I always, always, always enjoy you. Yo, yo, you know you my boo-boo. I always like them little hazel eyes. Yes. I get it. And then me. You still cute. I love you. I love you. I’m the one that does all the work that nobody knows. It’s fine. I know, I know, I know. You always working hard. But also, too, for anybody that’s in the DMV, I’m doing the MGM National Harbor on March 22nd. It’s going to be super live. This is my third year in a row. It sells out every year. Big, big venue. I got people from all over the DMV coming, so…
Just wanted to shout y’all out like that. I love what you guys are doing with your show. And anytime you need your big bro, call me.
