Video: Tiffany Haddish talks about opening a grocery store in LA food desert
The following is a transcript of the interview below with John Kelley and Tiffany Haddish.
Following “Byron Allen’s Comedy & Music SuperFest,” Allen Media Group’s John Kelley discussed the event, and much more with comedian/actor Tiffany Haddish after her performance to talk her mindset, relationship with other comedians, current vision board, and her big dream she’s aspiring to. The variety show event, which was filmed in February, is currently available on theGrio Cable.
John Kelley [00:00:00] Have a good time out there. How do you feel?
Tiffany Haddish [00:00:01] It felt great. I always have fun no matter what. Even in court.
Kelley [00:00:05] You are crazy.
Haddish [00:00:08] That’s the key to life.
Kelley [00:00:09] It is.
Haddish [00:00:10] That’s key to life. As Richard Pryor taught me, that if you have fun, they have a fun. So I always try to have a good time.
Kelley [00:00:15] Talking about being a part of this lineup because that’s like a murderer’s row out there. Y’all are killer.
Haddish [00:00:19] I mean, I’m honored to be on this lineup. Every single comic that’s on his lineup is someone I’ve looked up to, someone that has given me advice, mentored me in some kind of way, except for Tommy Davison. But everybody else. No, no, he actually. No, no. I’ll tell you, he’s actually really awesome.
He gave me some– he said to me, “Tiffany, you know, you are the Mandela, You are the Mandela.” I was like, “I’m not related to Nelson Mandela, but…” He was like, “No, a mandela. Like, it’s a flower that’s like represents, you know, the blueprint of life.” And I was like, “What?, you try to get me pregnant? Stop Tommy. You ain’t got to run game. Just take me to dinner.” And we’ve been cool ever since.
Kelley [00:01:02] Yeah, that Mandela thing works.
Haddish [00:01:05] Well, it didn’t work because I’m not pregnant, but. So I don’t know what he mean. A blueprint of life. What’s that?
Kelley [00:01:13] You know, Byron has sai– he said, I want to bring back superstars to prime time television on a regular basis. As an artist, how important do you think that is so people can experience that?
Haddish [00:01:23] I feel like it’s great to bring superstars to prime time television, but bring them in. Have them bring somebody on the rise. You know, give someone coming up an opportunity like it. I don’t think it should always just be all the celebrities. It should be like a celebrity who is somebody else that this up and coming. Give others a chance to shine because it’s really hard out here.
Kelley [00:01:44] And with this power comes great responsibility. Talk to people and tell them what you’ve been doing community wise and what you want to do with–I think you want to open up a little something.
Haddish [00:01:52] Oh, yeah, yeah, I want to open up. I am open. It’s already open in my head. We just got to get to the grand opening date. So I still live in South Central Los Angeles. And I have noticed in my community that they’ve shut down many grocery stores, which to me is like, “Well, are you trying to starve us out?” And then those grocery stores didn’t necessarily have good food in there for us anyway. So I want to open up a grocery store.
I don’t want to say– let me rephrase that. I am opening a grocery store that is right on Buckingham and Martin Luther King. And I’m going to make sure that 85 to 100% of those products that are sold there come from Black farmers and Black vendors. I want to make sure that there’s education that is given out, because I noticed that like like Michael’s or Home Depot, they teach you how to use their products.
They have thousands of thousands of products and they teach you how to use them. Grocery store has thousands and thousands of products, but never teaches you how to use any of them. And, you know, food is medicine. Food is magic sometimes.
Okay. So if you know how to put it together, if you know how to cook it. So I want to have cooking classes there and I’m going to have financial literacy classes because from my experience in life, once I understood how food worked and how money worked, I become a more happier and productive human being.
And I want that for everybody, especially in my community, especially for my people, right? So if you had so I’m just like, I believe, like if you’re happier and more productive, your family’s more happier and productive. If the family’s more happy and productive, the community’s more happy and productive, and if the community is more happier and productive, then there is less need for police.
Kelley [00:03:38] Hallelujah.
Haddish [00:03:38] And that’s my way of taking down systemic racism through the food and through the money, because that’s where it come from anyways.
Kelley [00:03:46] Bravo to you. I love that. Final question. What’s next? What’s on your vision board?
Haddish [00:03:52] I don’t have a vision board. Okay. Okay.
Kelley [00:03:55] I’m just going to go.
Haddish [00:03:55] I live it.
Kelley [00:03:56] There you go.
Haddish [00:03:57] So where do you see reality?
Kelley [00:03:59] I see everything. I see magic.
Haddish [00:04:01] You see success on the planet is magic.
Kelley [00:04:04] I see a mission. Yeah, I see. Yeah. A woman who just taken charge and is doing it now.
Haddish [00:04:09] It’s, like too much charge out of. I will let a man lead unless he lead me into a ditch. And then I got to take charge. He gets to take charge. I’ve learned my lesson. But what’s next for me? I have already season two now– Apple TV. And then I got another movie coming out with me in August. Plus, I got another cartoon and another TV show that’s coming out. While people have been thinking I ain’t doing nothing, I’ve been getting it.
Kelley [00:04:37] Tiffany Haddish.
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