When Matt Rife met Dave Chappelle in Atlanta in 2020, he couldn’t just savor the moment because he had an intrusive idea rattling around in his brain. “I wanted to so badly ask, ‘Can I do five minutes to open your show before your opening act?'” he recalled on “About Last Night” in 2021. But, while Rife felt fairly certain that Chappelle would have become a fan of his particular flavor of comedy, he couldn’t gather up the courage to ask his hero to do him such a huge favor.
When host Adam Ray said he had attended one of the “Chappelle Summer Camp” events in Yellow Springs, Ohio, Rife expressed envy. But Rife soon scored his own invite to perform at one of the shows. Better yet, he got to hang out with Chappelle afterward. “We just smoked and talked for, like, four hours,” Rife told The New York Times. “And he gave me 30 years’ worth of advice.” One big takeaway was for Rife to stick to his guns and not let anyone else dictate the content of his material.
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Rife’s girlfriend was with him and the comedian told Deadline that Chappelle was warm and welcoming to her, as well. “He treated me like an equal, rather than somebody he was mentoring, rather than somebody who he was put onto by somebody else,” Rife said. “He treated me like a real friend and colleague.”
