Pryor’s comedic style was undoubtedly influenced by his childhood environment. He was born in segregated Peoria, Illinois, and grew up in his grandmother’s brothel. His mother was a prostitute and his father was a pimp. When he was ten, Pryor’s mother abandoned him, and he was raised by his grandmother, who beat him frequently. Expelled from school at 14, Pryor soon entered the military, where he was incarcerated for assaulting a racist white soldier.
When he was 22, Pryor moved to New York City and began performing stand-up comedy in clubs. In these early days of his career, he modeled his style after Bill Cosby, seeking to please his primarily white audiences and avoid controversial topics. But Pryor was not Cosby, and he grew increasingly troubled by the need to pander to his mainstream audiences and repress his true identity. Though he was achieving success and becoming popular, he felt tormented and used drugs heavily.
In 1967, Pryor was set to perform at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas, when he had an epiphany. He stared at the crowd, exclaimed, “What the fuck am I doing here?” and left the stage. Subsequently, Pryor’s style began to change into something more edgy and he started using profanity in his sketches.
In 1969, Pryor traveled to Berkeley, California, the heart of the counterculture. There, he learned about Malcolm X and the Black Nationalism movement, befriending revolutionary leaders Ishmael Reed, Cecil Brown, and Huey P. Newton, as well as leaders of the Black Panther Party. In this environment, Pryor gained a new perspective on his personal life and the meaning of his comedic craft.
From this point on, Pryor’s stand-up performances displayed a profoundly changed style. He avoided using black stereotypes in his sketches, but racism became his main subject matter. He attacked the humiliation and disempowerment that blacks experience in America and imitated insensitive white characters. He was not afraid to use profanity, speak about uncomfortable subjects, or make comedy out of painful real-life experiences. He frequently used his personal life as material for his stand-up performances. He turned his own experiences with sex, drug abuse, law enforcement, and even an incident where he set himself on fire after freebasing cocaine into hilarious comedy. Pryor’s fearless critique of racism in American society and his willingness to speak about his own humiliation transformed the craft of stand-up comedy for black and white comedians alike.
Richard Pryor’s most famous works include:
Craps (After Hours) (1971)
That Nigger’s Crazy (1974)
Is It Something I Said? (1975)
Bicentennial Nigger (1976)
Wanted: Live In Concert (1978)
Richard Pryor: Live in Concert (1979)
Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip (1982)
Supernigger (1983)
Richard Pryor: Here and Now (1983)
Richard Pryor: Live and Smokin’ (1985)
Richard Pryor: I Ain’t Dead Yet, #*%$#@!! (2003 documentary) with Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Wanda Sykes, and Denis Leary