Ahead of the release of his brand new stand-up comedy special hitting Netflix, Charleen’s Boy, I had the chance to sit down with Deon Cole. We chatted about why he got into stand-up, the name of his special, and Netflix’s influence on the comedy world.

Deon Cole: Charleen’s Boy is Cole’s second Netflix original comedy special which he dedicates to his later mother. Throughout Cole’s hour on the stage, he weaves his way through life, love, and, funny enough, sex toys.

Excerpt from my review: Overall, Deon Cole: Charleen’s Boy is the type of special you throw on without any questions and enjoy the hour ahead of you. I will admit that jokes will land with all ages, but this one is for the over-30 crowd that has been through some things in life. It’s raunchy, funny, and crazy but downright relatable. This one is just a good time.

I have a huge passion for stand-up comedy, so it was nice to sit down with someone like Cole, who is as good as he is with his craft. It was a thought-provoking conversation where Cole told the story of why he named the special the way he did, the process of his joke writing, and much more.

You can check out the video version of the interview here.

Deon Cole talks new Netflix special, Charleen’s Boy.

Ricky Valero: At what point did you realize you wanted to do stand-up comedy?

Deon Cole: Once I tried, I didn’t really have any aspirations or anything early on. As soon as I tried it, that’s when I was like, oh yeah, yeah, this is what I should be doing.

RV: Charleen’s Boy is set to drop on Netflix on November 15. What made you name the special that?

DC: I dedicated that to my mom, She passed away, and yeah, I just wanted to dedicate it after her.

RV: I love the opening. Just cause it’s soft and sincere, kind of leading into the comedy special. Was that the decision you were gonna go with from day one?

DC: It kind of like just worked out, it was just me looking, you know, I always look at old footage of my mom and me and just of her and you know, reminiscing stuff, and one day I just came across this video that we did at this dinner. 

I took her to dinner one day and we did this video. I was just like, wow, it was like that, that that would be a great opening and for this special that I’m doing for her, but I wasn’t naming a special after her first.

It’s a long story that led up to that, like, I got kinda pushed into naming the special after her, and I like to say, you know, she had something to do with it too. I was kind of locked in with doing the date on the day that she passed the web because there was no way to really perform. I had performed all over the country and only didn’t perform with everything was so expensive in New York except for this one theater. I got to thinking about it the more I just started having this feeling that something that kept talking to me and I don’t know if my mom, like, it was like, you know, don’t, don’t mourn on this day celebrate and this was the first year anniversary of a passing. 

So I’ve been going through a lot, but I had nowhere else to perform and so I just kind of felt like that was her corner me into performing on that day because I turned it down and I said I wasn’t gonna do it but it just kept messing with me that you know you should do it, you should do it and you should celebrate her and dedicate this to her. 

If it’s the only day that you got, and it just happened to be that, you know, because I was gonna call the special Cole Facts. I usually name every special after my name with some type of you know, catch to it. So I was gonna call it Cole Facts, and then after I was kind of locked into that date and more kept thinking about it, I just was like, man, I’m just gonna call it boy because I thought it would be a great name because when people see the special, they’ll be saying exactly what the name of the special is, but they also will be saying actually who I am, which I am Charlene’s boy, the name will you know, live forever.

You can listen to the full interview with Deon Cole below or anywhere you listen to podcasts.

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Or you can listen to the interview on Youtube below.