I Am the New Black »

Tracy Morgan is an actor and a comedian. He was a cast member on Saturday Night Live for seven years, has had featured roles in numerous movies, and currently stars on the award-winning sitcom 30 Rock. In 2009 he was nominated for an Emmy Award for his role as Tracy Jordan on that show. He lives in New York City.

Anthony Bozza is a former Rolling Stone staff writer and the author of the # 1 New York Times bestseller Too Fat to Fish with Artie Lange and the New York Times bestsellers Whatever You Say I Am: The Life and Times of Eminem, Tommyland with Tommy Lee, and Slash with Slash. He lives in New York City.

The outrageously funny, heartbreaking, and surprising story of Tracy Morgan's rise from ghetto wiseass to superstar comedian.

Who is Tracy Morgan? The wildly unpredictable funnyman who rocketed to fame on Saturday Night Live? The Emmy-nominated actor behind the sly and ingenious character Tracy Jordan on the award-winning hit sitcom 30 Rock, whose turbulent personal life often mirrors that of his fictional alter ego? Is he Chico Divine, the life of the party--any party, anytime, anywhere--getting ladies pregnant everywhere he goes? Or is he a soulful, tender family man who emerged from a hardscrabble ghetto upbringing and, against all odds, achieved superstardom, raised a solid family, prevailed over a collection of lethal bad habits, and is still ascending new heights and coming into his own? The answer is: Tracy Morgan is all that. And a bag of potato chips with a 50¢ soda.

When he was just a boy living in the Tompkins Projects in...

Hello, Welcome to My Introduction xi

1 Roots 3

2 As Far as My Father Could Take Me, a.k.a. From a Boy to a Man 25

Black Comedy Is: Redd Foxx 63

3 A Home Grows in Harlem 65

Black Comedy Is: Richard Pryor 89

4 Ready for Prime Time? 91

Black Comedy Is: Eddie Murphy 121

5 The Tracy Morgan Show 123

Black Comedy Is: Def Comedy Jam 153

6 Top of the Rock 155

Black Comedy Is: The Nineties Marriage of Hip-Hop and Comedy 169

7 I'm a Full-Grown Man 171

Black Comedy Is: The Word Motherfucker 185

8 I'm Tracy Morgan. Thank You for Being Here with Me Tonight! Now Please Go Home. 187

Acknowledgments 195

List of Illustrations 197