Druski: They're Lying To You About Overnight Success!

The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

Druski shares his profound journey from a traumatic childhood in Atlanta to becoming a comedy superstar. He details how he used humor as a c

Key takeaways

• Druski experienced a life-altering moment when he was armed robbed at gunpoint, which solidified his resolve to become a comedian.
• He utilized comedy as a tool for healing and as a way to provide emotional relief for his family during turbulent times.
• A major career shift occurred following a video call from Drake, which significantly boosted his visibility.
• Druski describes a period of deep depression in college where he isolated himself to search for his true purpose.
• He emphasizes the importance of forgiveness, noting that he had to forgive his father to move forward without grudges.

Main topics

• Childhood trauma and resilience
• Comedy as a coping mechanism
• Overcoming poverty and crime

Notable quotes

If I survive this, I'm going to become a comedian or die trying.

Conclusion

The episode serves as an inspiring testament to how one can transform

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) For many of us, going further isn't a choice. It's a feeling we can't ignore because ambition has a way of outgrowing where it began, turning dreams into direction. Every journey brings us closer to the life we imagine. So, where will your journey take you? Etihad. Beyond Borders. Speaker 3 (0:29) A lot of my friends that I grew up with were going to jail or ended up dead or shot in the streets. So I fell victim to doing illegal stuff. But it was the moment that we got arm robbed where I have a gun to my head now. And once I saw the barrel of that gun being pointed at me, that was the moment I noticed, okay, if I survive this, I'm going to become a comedian or die trying. Speaker 3 (0:56) My comedy comes from that place of healing, wanting to make our situation better at home. Like, one time I watched my brother get beat for wetting the bed. It was a lot. So I would always try to step in to try to be like a coping mechanism for him. Maybe it's my mom. So I knew I was funny. I knew I was very entertaining. But it didn't hit me until like college. And I started to figure out, OK, wow. All the people I look up to are all like comedic legends. And I feel more connected to them than anything I've ever felt in my life. That is my purpose. So I left college. I went home. I wrote all these goals down on a sheet of paper. Now I'm locked in. I have no other option. I'm sitting here in a room, no mattress. My car got repossessed. I actually made that like a content piece but i feared nothing because i'm like i have nothing left but i knew i'm like i'm gonna keep going i'm gonna Speaker 4 (1:42) continue to keep pursuing making videos boom boom boom boom boom and Speaker 3 (1:45) then the thing that changed my life was Speaker 4 (1:47) drake calling for the laugh now cry later major video everything shifted after that just keep i had this crazy story that they accidentally sent you jim carrey's money no they sent an email showing how much he would be getting paid Speaker 3 (1:59) for that Speaker 4 (2:00) hour people are saying it was in the region of Insane. I hope he didn't see mine because that would have been a little bit embarrassing. And then in March, you did a skit and it did hundreds of millions of views. And then it sounded like Trump did ask to sue you. I don't know if that's true. I'm not looking to get sued by nobody. I'm not looking for it. Who is he talking about? Speaker 4 (2:19) Guys, I've got a favour to ask before this episode begins. The algorithm, if you follow a show, will deliver you the best episodes from that show very prominently in your feed. So when we have our best episodes on this show, the most shared episodes, the most rated episodes, I would love you to know. And the simple way for you to know that is to hit that follow button. But also, it's the simple, easy, free thing that you can do to help us make this show better. I would be hugely grateful if you could take a minute on the app you're listening to this on right now and hit that follow button. Thank you so... So, so much. Trisky, I really believe that to understand somebody, somebody who is an anomaly, and you very much are an anomaly, you first have to sort of understand their earliest context. And I went through all of these old photos of you as a young boy to try and build some of that context in my own head. What is it that most people might not know about that earliest context that's most informative to sort of who you are today? What remains? Speaker 3 (3:19) I still literally feel like this little boy in all these pictures. Like, I see these moments and it reminds me of how free I was able to be as a kid. And I wanted to be so much. And my mom and my grandparents, they always supported me being just open and free and having this. What is that? That was your dad and your brother? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. My dad and my brother right here, for sure. Even looking at these pictures, I had no idea around this time who I was going to become. This is, this is dope. How did you get these pictures, by the way? Where did you find all this? Did my mom send you these? I Speaker 4 (3:54) was looking through some of the videos that your parents recorded of you at that time. And you've got, like... Speaker 1 (4:05) It's hard. Do you have any more questions about me? Speaker 2 (4:14) About your teacher and how you're doing at school. Speaker 1 (4:17) Great. Well, I'll just focus on my work. Speaker 3 (4:22) That's me in character right there. That's literally in character. So she would put on these camcorders to let me be free. So that was like my outlet to be able to do these characters and be myself, you know? Yeah, yeah, I have multiple videos. I know you've got more. There's one of me in a diaper, like wrapping. That's another crazy Speaker 1 (4:49) one. Speaker 3 (4:49) I wasn't sure if this was last week or... Speaker 3 (4:54) Yeah. That's my cousin Bree. Speaker 4 (5:08) Oh, my God. Why did you come up with those balls? Nah, it's just... That's the beginning of Could Have Been Records, right? Yeah. Speaker 3 (5:15) Nah, those are the moments, you know, we used to put on these performances for my family, and I'm just grateful that we were able to be ourselves, and I was able to be supported somewhere, because you do get confused in these settings, so to say. You know, you look like you have something to say to that. Speaker 4 (5:35) You know, I've interviewed a lot of comedians. And one of the things that I tend to find is that comedy is some sort of like tool. And when I spoke to Jimmy Carr or some of these other comedians that I've interviewed, they're always able to sort of understand in that early context. how they were using that tool to often solve a problem that they had in that context. So I remember Jimmy saying to me, he goes, you often think of comedians as being depressed, but actually for him, it was a case of comedy was a way to help his mom who was depressed. It was like how he saw her smile. Speaker 3 (6:04) Was comedy for you at that age a tool? Very much so. Very much so. And I speak about my dad because he was one of those tough guys to deal with around that time. He wanted us to figure it out early. And like, My dad was like the lead person of pushing that narrative. My mom somewhat would do it, but she would always try to tell him, relax, you know, he's still a kid. Like, at the time, I'm like eight, nine years old, and my dad's like, what do you want to do? Figure it out. You're either going to go to jail, you find a craft, or you're going to end up in a warehouse or something. You got to figure out whatever you're going to do, or you go to the military, get your ass blown off. And that was the only two options. He said, get your ass in the car. Yes. So imagine me at like eight, nine years old. Those are my three options. School, find a trade, or you go to the military and get your ass blown off because we're going back to war. He was always talking about, we're going back to war. We're going back to war. And I'm like, what the fuck? Are we going to war? Speaker 3 (7:10) Early on, he pushed that he wanted me to figure it out. And he had great lessons, but his Speaker 4 (7:17) teaching skills was very Speaker 3 (7:19) tough and physical. He's old school. I'm sure you heard it before. He's very old school about his teachings and how he goes about doing it. So he has a short temper. Immediately, he used to ask these rhetorical questions all the time of like, he'll be like, go get me a Phillips screwdriver. And I'll go get a regular screwdriver. He's like, this is not a Phillips screwdriver. Bam, upside the head. Then my brother goes, he's like, I want you to go get me a Speaker 4 (7:46) Phillips screwdriver. My brother goes and get a Speaker 3 (7:49) hammer. The dumbest shit, right? And he would come back and bam, upside the head. So that was like the immediate of teaching. It's not the best way of teaching. And from an early age, I learned that. Speaking to other people's fathers and parents, I learned that this is not a normal thing. And I didn't know that until we would go to like neighborhood parties and stuff. And maybe my dad would be like, oh, these are my boys right here. He'll reach out his hand and we'll flinch like that because it became a normal thing for him to always lift up his hand. Like if we said the wrong thing. So I wouldn't say that my comedy necessarily came from that, but it definitely came from. like a healing, wanting to make our situation better at home. It's not like we don't come from like a broke home. I ain't going to say we weren't a broken. We were a broken home. We weren't a broke home. Speaker 2 (8:45) My Speaker 3 (8:45) dad was an airline pilot for United Airlines for entirely my whole younger life. My mom worked for the CDC. Very two good jobs. My mom was always home. My dad would travel in and out. Speaker 3 (8:59) I think what I wanted to do in my personality as a kid was always to make the family smile, no matter through all this stuff that we're going through and these teachings being too far sometimes, or maybe this ass whooping was too much. The ass whooping went too far because I don't got it. I'm not going to get into details on it, but you had some ass whoopings in the house that went too far. But yeah, I think I feel like my comedy comes from that place of I never tend to punch down. I like to. Speaker 3 (9:34) find the funny but also the good side of funny and not look at the negative for my type of comedy. I can find a negative situation and bring the funny out of it for both sides, me and the other person. Speaker 4 (9:48) So I guess as a child, very perceptive children, you're on edge a little bit then. For sure. And it's funny because I remember sitting with Gabor Mate and him telling me how kids that have an early context where they have to be a little bit more... aware, Speaker 3 (10:03) they Speaker 4 (10:03) often become very good at observation. And they become good therapists. They become the most empathetic. They also sometimes have struggles with mental health because being hypervigilant or being aware comes at a cost. It's not free. For all the upsides, there's always a downside. Does any of that resonate? Speaker 3 (10:23) 1000%, man. And I think sadly, in my brother's case, that went a negative direction. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder as we continued to go through puberty and got older. Whereas for me, I feel like I might have found a coping mechanism with comedy and maybe he never found that coping mechanism from that trauma. And I feel like trauma can sometimes give you the good route or the negative route. And I feel like a lot of that going on in our house early on. Mayda played a role in him being diagnosed with that. And yeah, that's the sad side of the story. But yeah, even with him, I think early on, I would always try to make him laugh because I knew we were in a fucked up situation. One time I watched my brother get beat for wetting the bed. And it was the simplest thing. And I couldn't understand. I was like, why is he getting beat this bad? It was very far. Very not the normal belt. It was very, very far. So I would always try to step in either after or during these moments to try to be like a coping mechanism for him or like maybe it's my mom and he's arguing with her and they're getting physical as well. So I would always try to be, oh, the funny guy maybe at the dinner after or maybe after the next day goes by and I'm trying to lift everybody's vibe up. So you watched your mother get hit as well? For sure, for sure, for sure. Not physically hit, but I've seen different things of like the choking and, you know, pushing her out the door and then locking the door. And then I got to go and be the one staring at her at the door. And she's like, open it. And he's like, you better not open that door. And I'm in between a rock and a hard place trying to figure out, do I open this door with my mom or is he going to come? So it was a lot of different situations of. trying to figure it out at a very young age. And it started so young that I, some back to, some things are kind of blurred for me, but I do know that my comedy comes from that comforting type of space. I can read a room and sense any type of danger. I can read a room and sense any type of happiness, sadness, anything, in any situation. Somebody could be mentally ill. Somebody can be physically hurt. Somebody could be anything. And I always have been a good judge of as well. So I feel like that has helped me in my career for sure. There's two things I wanted Speaker 4 (12:54) to add to that. Part of the reason I noticed this, obviously I've sat here 700 times or something doing these images. And you're one Speaker 3 (13:00) of Speaker 4 (13:00) the first people to stop mid conversation as you were speaking and say, you look like you had something to say there, Steve. Yeah. Because you were looking at my face. Yeah, I can read. People don't usually do that. So it's funny because I meet some people who are much more aware of me. You know, some people, they're just talking and they're giving their answers to my questions. And then there's this other very rare Speaker 3 (13:20) group of people, Speaker 4 (13:21) often comedians, who I almost feel like I'm speaking to them even when I'm just sat here thinking because they're like hyper aware in that sense. For sure. And you just did that to me. So I thought, oh, he is super, super aware, which kind of correlates to everything, you know, you were saying that. For sure. For sure. But it always comes at a cost. Speaker 3 (13:35) Yes, I Speaker 4 (13:36) agree. All gifts do. I sat with, I think it was Michael Jordan's trainer. He also then trained Kobe. And he said to me, he goes, our dark sides are linked to our light side. So the things people clap for are inherently linked to the things that we then struggle with. Yeah. That's true for yourself, I'm presuming. Very true. And I think through life, I've learned that Speaker 3 (13:57) not all teachers have the best way of teaching, which I speak on his lessons. many of lessons that were really good and on the positive side of life where I had to eventually Speaker 4 (14:10) come Speaker 3 (14:10) to sources and just tell myself like, wow, like. I cannot look for more success and look for the light at the end of the tunnel without forgiving any and everything in my past. And that came with having to forgive my father in my head and also to him face to face of like, it's all, we just let it all go. And I think that helped me continue to move forward and not have any grudges. Grudges can really hold a lot of weight on you. Maybe his mother was abusive to him or. his upbringing was in a different type of area in the world where it was like Northeast DC, very trauma neighborhood. That's very like, you know, a negative place to grow up in. And he's from like the project buildings of that. But yeah, I think. The lessons he had were very good. He always talked about not half-assing anything. If you're going to do something, do it all the way. If you're going to mop the floor, don't just do this side of it. Do it like this. If you're going to clean the dishes, do all the dishes. Don't half-ass rinse it and then put it in there. But his lessons would be over the top. He's going to break the dishes if you do it. He's going to throw it up in the air and watch it crash on the ground. And then he's yelling to the highest he could yell. And it's just so... There used to be a lot, you know, and I think it almost like, you know, people talk about you, like, how can I be broken if I've already been broken? at an early age. And I kind of feel that way. Like people be like, oh, it's not too much of a burden on you and your career. This is not too much. I'm like, how could I be broken if I feel like I've already gone to my furthest extent? I can only continue to push myself to higher levels because I feel like I've gone through everything that could be the worst possible situation, at least in my brain. But yeah, it had very good lessons and always had quotes and sayings on things like. I actually have to bring it up. But it's confusing because at an early age, I had no idea. Oh, okay. It only takes one. Whoa, shit. I really fucked this up to negate 10 attaboys. I have no idea. Still to this day, I get confused, but I understood. Let me tell you what I understood that. I understood that as life went on and I started to notice a lot of my friends that I grew up with and the area I grew up in were going to jail or falsely being accused of things or ended up being dead or shot in the streets. And like, we've seen a lot of that stuff. Cause I've come from a neighborhood where it's the suburb, but It also had a mixture of the real Atlanta in there as well. But yeah, so these things were very confusing to me early on. But as I continued to grow in life, every single lesson that he had taught me and that he had told and talked about and constantly over, over, over, over again spoke on, it started to come back to me in my later years of life. And I began to grow an appreciation for it. after I forgave him for, you know, all these, you know, past trauma situations and everything that happened. But yeah. And when you say forgive, are you, do you have a good relationship with him now? Yes. Very, very good for sure. Um, yeah. And, and I think you just, you, in anything in life, you have to move on from things and. And continue to push. I think you can never grow to do great things without looking back and being like, okay, I have to close the door on this. I cannot hold this grudge. Because if you hold a grudge, you got to think about what a grudge is. A grudge is on you as a burden. That's a burden to everything. It's not just physical. It's a mental thing that can really rot people's brain out. It's a thing. I'm sure you probably, Speaker 4 (18:05) you know. Of course, yeah. But a lot of people think of forgiveness as, letting them win or justification. Or they feel Speaker 3 (18:12) like a loser because, oh, I'm not going to forgive them for that. I'm never, I'm going to hold that grudge to the death. It's like, yo, you're not helping yourself. That's actually a you thing. That has nothing to do with them or what they did. If you hold on to that, that's a forever thing for you. Speaker 4 (18:28) And one of the things that will give you is great resilience, I imagine. You talked about it there. You said, how can anything break me when I've already been broken to the fullest extent? Again, with that comes a set of issues you can tend with as an adult. I mean, I experienced it myself, which is you, if, if my parents were quite, um, there wasn't a lot of love between them. Speaker 3 (18:46) So Speaker 4 (18:46) I, I, one of the lessons I inherited was that relationships look like this and this isn't necessarily a great thing that I want. So I swerved relationships every opportunity I was presented. I'd pursue people. And then the minute they turned to me and said, do you want to be in a relationship? I was like, it's Speaker 2 (19:01) too Speaker 4 (19:01) much. I've Speaker 3 (19:02) seen this before. I'm getting away from this. Now I know where this Speaker 4 (19:06) goes. Speaker 3 (19:06) I know what you mean. I deal with that as well, for sure. I know exactly what you mean. Have you experienced that yourself as well? Yes. I feel like I continuously have grown a relationship with women. in a way where I feel like I almost get scared with getting too close, kind of like how you explained, because of maybe I haven't seen the successful. Speaker 3 (19:35) home of two parents or two people in a relationship. Yeah. Maybe I haven't seen it with my own two eyes to work. And I feel like that kind of does hinder me a little bit because it does come in between when I feel these feelings for this girl and I almost jump back immediately as soon as I'm like, nah, nah, nah, I don't trust it because I know what this comes with. And they're like, yo, what do you mean? We didn't even get a chance to fully. And I don't know. It's a natural mind thing that happens to me. And I still, to this day, I have no idea. If you want to be my doctor Speaker 4 (20:16) for this, Speaker 3 (20:16) go ahead. I'm just hypothesizing. But I have no idea why. I feel like that has something to do with it. Maybe I haven't seen it in a way that's healthy. And that Speaker 4 (20:25) might be the reason why. But I still, Speaker 3 (20:26) that's a question that I need answered. Speaker 4 (20:29) If I spoke to someone that you were in a relationship with and I said to them, is Drew affectionate? Speaker 3 (20:35) You laugh and you know the answer. No, no, no. I feel like they would tell you that I am until I'm not. And I basically just, I just pull out. Like I pull back. Like I almost feel once I get too close, I can't trust it. it's almost like a magnet when you reverse it on the other side. It's like when it comes too close, it starts to repel itself. That's how I feel when it comes to me getting more and more closer with the female. That Speaker 4 (21:06) makes sense. I think that's what I experienced up until I was about 27 years old. But I'm 31 still. Speaker 3 (21:12) Yeah. Speaker 4 (21:13) It ain't that far. I gotta find a Speaker 3 (21:15) wife. I have to find a wife. Speaker 2 (21:17) You have to find Speaker 3 (21:18) a wife. Speaker 4 (21:19) No, it'll Speaker 3 (21:20) happen. It'll happen. Speaker 4 (21:21) Does it matter increasingly as you become more successful? Do you think more about it as you grow? It's Speaker 3 (21:26) hard to trust after you become... I think when you're kind of successful at the beginning, it's not hard to trust. You're just like, yo, she likes me for me, but also she can still like me for the celebrity I am, kind of 50-50. But as you become more and more successful, you have this doubt in your mind, like this could absolutely be her in love with just Drewski and not Drew at all. Is that just a convenient excuse for the whole Speaker 4 (21:57) avoidant? Speaker 3 (21:57) No, no, no. I'm serious. I promise. It's a question in every superstar's mind. I guarantee you, even when they are with somebody fully, they still have a question in the back of their mind. Does this person just love the superstar of me? That's so interesting. And it does bother somebody who is super successful because... you see all these people will scream and chase you and you have a show or maybe a meet and greet and you see how people react to you or you go on the street and you almost want, you want to believe that this person that you're dating also is genuine, like how these fans are. Like, yo, okay, maybe she just loves me for me. Maybe this is not kind of like how the fans just love me for that. You want her to believe that this is the same type of real thing. But it's hard to believe after you see all of this stuff, you only know me for that. You didn't meet me when I was just at home living with my mom, broke on the sofa. You know what I'm saying? Speaker 4 (23:02) Like you didn't see the real side of who I Speaker 3 (23:04) actually am. You know, if you get what I'm saying, you see the new personality, Speaker 4 (23:09) so to say. Speaker 4 (23:12) It's tough. Speaker 3 (23:13) It's tough out here, man. Could have been love. Could have been love. Speaker 4 (23:17) Oh, fuck. So you go off to college, and you last, was it two semesters before you dropped out? Speaker 3 (23:25) Yeah. No, I started at a school that was in Gwinnett County where I grew up. So I spent like a year and then another half of a semester there, and I got enough credits to transfer because I was like, okay. I've got to get out of here. Like, I know my life is bigger than this. And also at the time, I wasn't thinking, oh, I want to be a superstar. I was just thinking I wanted a real college experience. I wanted to go to a four-year college. I didn't have the grades to do it in high school and go straight there. I want to find a way to do it in college. So I think when I went to Georgia Southern as the school following that, I just wanted to find the college ecosystem of like, what's the vibe here? Oh, let's party. Let's do this. And I didn't find that as soon as I got there. It's almost like I didn't get the immediate, this is college. Like I thought I would get after I got there. And I went into like a deep depression because I had two guys that I knew went to the school from like. Like, you know, somebody from your county, of course. And I was like, oh, OK, I'll link up with him. He'll be a great friend to be along with on this ride of whatever this new school is. And I would try to link up with them. And for some reason, it always was a hassle for me to link up with them. They always would be like, oh, we always got to pick you up. You don't have a car. And I'm like, no, I'll get an Uber to y'all. Well, if you don't have any money to get into the game, there's no point in coming because we can't pay for you or. I want to come to the party with y'all. Oh, well, you have the same shoes that you hoop in. Why would we bring you like you? They will always have jokes about maybe I felt like I wasn't deserving enough to be around them, sort of say. And I felt like. almost very, for the first time in my life, very depressed. And that kind of bothered me because I started to just not even go to classes anymore at this new school. I was just staying in my dorm room. So I went to not even go into class anymore. I stopped going to classes for like the whole second semester of being at that school. No classes. Sat in my room and would just sit and think. I'm calling my friends back at home. They're not doing nothing. So I kind of didn't want to go home because I'm like, damn, they're not doing shit. I'm not going to. go back but also like what am i doing here i'm not doing anything here either what is my purpose in life so sitting in there and being depressed and sad and looking at myself in the mirror i started to figure out i'm like damn Speaker 4 (25:54) what Speaker 3 (25:55) do i really want to do in life is any of this really makes sense like i'm here for sports journalism but do i want i know i want to be on tv like i took sports journalism to be maybe an ESPN sportscast just to get my face on TV. I didn't know. I was like, maybe I want to do that. It sounds cool. But as I continued to do more, I guess, soul searching, so to say, just sitting in the room and thinking about what I want to do. I would sit and watch Steve Harvey interviews on like, what is it you want to do in your life? Jump off a mountaintop and take a risk. And like, I would watch all these videos of everything of. People I looked up to, Kevin Hart, and I started to figure out, okay, what's my purpose? These are the people I look up to, but what exactly do I want to do? And as I continued to do more search and I started to figure out, okay, wow, I think all the people I look up to are all like comedic legends. I'm watching Will Ferrell's stuff, Chris Farley. These are guys that I find as my heroes. I think since I've always been the funny guy in every classroom, Everything I've done, sports, I get kicked off the football team for being funny. All this stuff is because I am a comedian. And it was almost like I felt like an idiot because I'm like, damn, I'm sitting over here in college. That is my purpose. This is it. I feel more connected to them than I've ever felt to anything I've ever felt in my life. Why? The things they would say in a Kevin Hart interview, the things he would say in a Steve Harvey interview, the things Will Ferrell would say or Chris Farley would say or Jim Carrey, I felt more attached to it because they also felt a need and a purpose to become like a hero of comedy. I don't know. It sounds dumb because when you tell your parents, oh, I want to be. a comedian they're like oh you're like basically a clown I guess and you'll go start doing stand-up rooms and maybe you make it maybe you don't it sounds kind of silly telling people or your hometown friends oh