Melissa Harris Perry: This is The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris Perry in for Tanzina Vega. Now, what is the social scene that you are most missing over the past year? For me, it is house parties. Kick back and familiar spaces with familiar faces. Music, laughter and very loud, we'll call them discussions. I can't wait for it to be safe for us to all gather again like that. While we're waiting, we can engage the intimacy, hilarity and spirit of the house party in a brand new late night show hosted by comedian Sam Jay. A show that doesn't really look or sound like anything else on television right now.

Sam Jay: I thought Uncle Ben was a rice tycoon. I didn't think that [bleep] was a butler. I was like, "This [bleep] in a suit. This [bleep] rice." I was proud about that rice. I didn't know nothing. I didn't even know the narrative. You all just threw, "This was a butler slave." [bleep] This was a rice god to me. That's what I thought.

Melissa Harris Perry: Pause with Sam Jay had its premiere last Friday on HBO and Jay told me she isn't trying to reach an advertiser friendly demographic through her show.

Sam Jay: Just trying to talk to people that, I guess, can feel what I'm talking about. I don't know if it's ages 35. I don't think that's specific for me. You know what I mean? I just felt like these are things that me and my friends talk about. These are conversations that I'm around a lot and are being had. I wanted to bring some like rawness and honesty to the screen.

Melissa Harris Perry: It is raw. Look, in her standup Jay makes bold jokes that often touch on big ideas.

Sam Jay: Go to the British Museum, it's huge. I was overwhelmed. I walked in, I was like, "Holy [bleep]." because it was wing after wing, after wing of stuff and it blew my mind because I was like, "Wow, white people stole all this [bleep]."

[laughter]

Sam Jay: Stole so much [bleep]. All this [bleep] is stolen. That's crazy.

Melissa Harris Perry: On her late night show she brings a similar energy, tackling topics that the audience, and maybe especially like us X-gen Black viewers might be clutching our pearls and a little surprised to see discussed so openly on television. The premiere episode delves into what it means when Black people are viewed as being too close or too comfortable around whiteness.

Sam Jay: It was just the topic we had a lot to say about when it came up in the room, it sparked a lot of conversation amongst us. I think when we find things that spark a lot of conversation amongst us in the room, then we tend to push towards them because we're like, "We were talking about it. We're feeling divided about it, then it's probably worth exploring."

Melissa Harris Perry: Interestingly, Jay said that white folks weren't exactly on her mind when she was creating the show.

Sam Jay: Not really. I mean not, and not in a sense of like, "How am I going to get them to understand this?" I just felt like you can follow this if you want to open your mind up a little bit and follow this." I didn't want to be explaining myself and explaining blackness, you know what I mean? It was just like, "If you're down to listen and you're down to clown, like come get down." If I'm being honest, I wasn't really speaking to them.

Melissa Harris Perry: If you are done to listen and you are down to clown, Jay is going to do some fascinating things for you. She's more likely, for example, to seek out Black people whose perspectives aren't always highlighted on TV, like the conservatives she interviews in the first episode.

Sam Jay: When you say pro Black conservative, what does that look like? I don't think I've ever heard those words put together, let alone have a picture in my head of how that's active.

Speaker 1: I'll list it out. I'm a constitutionalist. I'm a capitalist. When I say capitalist, I don't mean like, just abolish welfare. I mean abolish the federal reserve. I'm a capitalist. To me, that's conservative. Then when I add my pro Black lens in front of it, I'm like, "How do I specifically apply these policies to the Black community?"

Sam Jay: I don't interview people. It's not a profession of mine. I am a naturally curious person and I do enjoy talking to people. I tried to just approach it more like a conversation than an interview. I didn't really have an agenda. I didn't want to get something out of them. I didn't want like a got you moment as much as I was just really curious about them, who they were and why they made the choices that they made. I think that made it a little easier on me to navigate the conversation.

Melissa Harris Perry: That curiosity, it creates a depth to the show and Jay's depth is also related to her willingness to be introspective. For example, she speaks frankly about the pushback she received from her own LGBTQ plus community after a joke she made about transgender women.

Sam Jay: Just looking at my special. I [bleep] to do a trans joke in a way that I thought was [bleep] awesome. That was going to advance a conversation truly in my heart. To gay [bleep], they look at me as a gay [bleep]. At the end of the day, I read [bleep] that's being said, and it's basically like I align myself with straight people. I don't hang out with a lot of gay people. I can't ask for honesty from others and honesty from the guests and the people in the room if I'm not giving that. Really that's what it stems from for me, is just being true to myself and true to the things that I want to discuss and I think are important.

Melissa Harris Perry: In many ways, these conversations that Jay is having on her late night show are an extension of her stand-up but her comedic voice has also been sharpened by years as a writer for SNL.

Sam Jay: I mean, when you're writing for a show like you're writing for SNL, then you're writing for other people too. You're trying to get your voice into Kate McKinnon's mouth and body in some ways. In that regard, you have to think more about the whole, where in stand-up you just got to think about yourself. When you're writing and casting, you have to think, "What is Kate good at? What is Aidy good at? What is a good role for Keenan? What does Keenan do well?" How are they going to score in this and how are they going to be successful in this as much as, how am I going to get the jokes I want to get out and across?

Melissa Harris Perry: I have no doubt that in the coming years, you're going to hear and see a lot more of Sam Jay, as she continues to rise in the comedy world. For now she's feeling good about what she was able to achieve through her late night show.

Sam Jay: I already feel like it's a success because it's done and I made it and I did it. I'm like, "Wow, I got to do something that was uniquely me, authentically me. I got to share it with the world really." It's happened already. I think anything else that comes of it is like a bonus.

Melissa Harris Perry: One place you won't be seeing her anytime soon is in a comedy version of Versus, something Jay says she just could not wrap her head around.

Sam Jay: No, I can't. People want to see something like that. I've noticed people want to see comics battle, but I don't really know what that looks like. Comedy is so individual and hyper nuanced, you know what I mean? It's like, what is a comedy battle? How do you judge that?

Melissa Harris Perry: I'm not sure how you judge it, but I still got to say, I want to see it. Pause with Sam Jay airs Fridays at 9:00 PM on HBO and you can also watch it on HBO Max.

 

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