Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Ep. 79 KingBach - Ear Biscuits
Episode Date: July 24, 2015The world’s most popular Vine comedian, Andrew Bachelor, known to fans as KingBach, joins Rhett & Link this week to discuss how he went from taking selfies in his bedroom to having nearly 13 million... followers, why his Vine stardom helped launch his career in film and television, and the full story behind his hilarious proposal to Beyonce at a Clippers game. *NOTE: This conversation contains adult themes and language To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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This, this, this, this is Mythical.
Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I'm Rhett.
And I'm Link.
Joining us today at the round table of dim lighting
is the most popular Viner in the world,
Andrew Batchelor, better known as King Batch.
King Batch is currently ranked number one
with 12.9 million followers on Vine.
You heard it right, almost 13 million followers
with four and a half billion loops.
King Bach literally is the king of Vine.
He got his start on YouTube
where he uploads original sketch comedy
on his channel Bachelor's Pad TV.
He's got some incredibly funny stuff on there
including one of our personal favorites, Sherlock Homeboy.
He's also had a lot of roles in film and television,
including MTV's Wild N' Out, Showtime's House of Lies,
and Adult Swim's Black Jesus.
But we spent most of our time today talking to Batch
about his bread and butter,
the six second viral Vine videos.
Now, if you haven't seen one of Batch's Vine videos
or a few of them, you are missing out.
But I'm gonna do my best because playing a clip
is not really gonna do anything for you.
I'm gonna do my best to just give you
a little bit of an idea of his approach.
So there's one called The Setup.
Two guys are talking to each other.
One says, did you do that robbery yet?
He says, the other guy says, yeah,
did you sell those drugs yet?
Yes.
They both then rip off their shirts,
revealing that they are wearing wires,
at which point two cops come out
and a cop grabs each one of them and pulls them away.
It all happens in six seconds.
This conversation-
Technically six and a half seconds, right?
Technically you can get to six and a half seconds.
That is true, I've heard that.
But six seconds is sort of the,
you know, what people still say colloquially.
Now it's much funnier to watch him on loop.
Than to hear me say it?
Than to hear you talk about it.
But if you, you could make a Vine channel
where you like explain his vines.
Explain like play by play Batch's vines.
I have a feeling that would be better
than just doing our own vines.
No, no, no, Yeah, give me another one.
How about this one?
A Monopoly Just Got Real.
So Batch is playing Monopoly with two friends,
including Daystorm, who we know,
has been on Ear Biscuits before.
He lands on Go to Jail.
He then turns to the camera and says,
I ain't going back,
pulls out a knife and stabs the two friends.
I laughed at that one.
So that one's good.
They're all funny. They're all great, but your play- that one. So that one's good. Yeah, well no.
They're all funny.
They're all great, but your play by play
of that one was great.
My version of that one was great.
I get it, right.
Was good.
But you should definitely watch them
and not just hear me talk about them.
Yeah, I enjoy getting inside of his brain
because there's no doubt King Bach
is a super talented technician,
definitely a filmmaker who set the template
for six second comedy.
And he tackles the topic of race a lot too.
He's got this vine where he's in a Captain America suit
and it's called Captain African America.
That's just one of many.
Seems like something that was just waiting to happen,
but it's like very funny to watch.
It's very funny. But there's a lot of them
that have that theme.
Yeah, I think that the race car was very much
on the forefront of my mind going into this conversation.
So I was a little preoccupied with asking him about it
without actually seeming racist.
Yeah, mission not accomplished.
Yeah, you can see that it led to a great start
to our conversation, but once I recovered from that,
we also talked about his background growing up
with Jamaican parents, and we got the full,
complete backstory to his hilarious Vine video
where he proposed to Beyonce at a Clippers game.
In front of Jay-Z.
In front of Jay-Z, and we talked about
the future projects he's working on,
including one with Key & Peele.
Yeah, so enjoy the King Batch Biscuit.
You're wrapping up a text.
To Vine headquarters.
To Vine headquarters?
And say, all right, I'm going dark for one hour.
Yeah, don't miss me too much.
You're not gonna see any activity. That't supposed to be like a a racial remark oh no no there wasn't like a
double entendre i didn't even take it there but you just but you but you did i did you definitely
did i definitely so what's going on inside here's what's going on inside. So, all right, so I'm watching Back Through the Vines, and yeah, there's the race theme sometimes,
so I think that's what came out.
There was like this, oh, he thinks I'm,
it was like an insecurity on my part.
It's like, oh, he just thinks that I might have made,
like he can make the race, I can't make a race joke,
so, but he's gonna think I did.
I've just started this off on the horrible wrong foot.
Right.
Like this like ultra awkward white guy foot.
Right, it wasn't going through my mind but now.
It is, it's all you can think about.
How often does that happen?
Wow, this is a first.
You just set a record.
Define that, Rhett.
What do you mean that?
Well. What just happened?
The thing that, okay, so we do quite a lot of research
when we get ready to talk to somebody on an Ear Biscuit.
And the thing I always enjoy is I like to see
other people who have interviewed
the person that we're gonna interview.
And the question that people come up with
and they try to ask a question that's like,
I wanna ask a thought-provoking question about race.
Right.
How often does, that's not what just happened.
No, I think it was kind of the opposite.
Yeah.
A thought-devoking joke about race.
Like, but how, I mean, how often does that happen?
Oh, yeah. Happens all the time. Because back when Vine first started, it was a whole black people would be like white people be like.
Right. Asians be like, remember that? Yeah.
So we all used to do that. And so I guess I got a couple of vines that may have dived into that that topic.
So, you know, people always ask because a lot of my popular
vines were those like you know i don't even remember this so long ago but like i had a lot
of fried chicken jokes a lot of watermelon jokes a lot of uh asian smart jokes so a lot of people
ask me about is race an important topic and why do you talk about it i talk about it because it's
on everybody's mind like everybody's
trying not to be racist most of the people you know right so and with comedy you always got to
talk about or discuss things that people are are thinking in their head but too scared to say
yeah there's that irony and then there's that shock value right exactly you want you got to stir things up a
little bit yeah i did one vine it was uh maybe like a month or two ago um there was these white
people they're walking we're on the sidewalk we're all on the same sidewalk walking towards
each other and then they left to go to the other sidewalk i'm like come on guys it's 2015 and they're
like yeah you're right so they come back to the corner and I'm like, now give me all your money.
So you know.
We saw that one.
Yeah, so there's things like that that I do.
So, but is there a, is there this like,
you know, every comedian kind of has something
that they're known for,
a kind of something they keep going back to.
If it's something like,
I know that these racial themed vines are going to get more traction
so i'm going to make sure that that's one third of my vines or yeah how does that come in yeah
i try to stay away from them um i'll do maybe one every two or three months you know i try to stick
to original ones like uh i have a series called the gas money like um i got you go you got that gas
money he doesn't i got one that's called hey yo ma let me get your number it's me trying to holler
at girls but um you know like every time like i'll do something that that touches people so for
father's day i did a father's day vine it was a a white guy throwing football to his dad he's like
happy father's day dad and then the dad throws it to me and then i throw it to my dad i'm like happy father's day dad and he just hits the ground
and there's no one there and then my friend is like yo where's your dad at and i'm like
he went to the store he'll be back soon and then i just start crying and then you add the
the music the music i'll be missing you because he's never coming back. Now, you know, that's because that's so true.
Even though it's a little whatever racist, it's true to a lot of people.
It's not just black people.
A lot of white kids don't have dads as well, you know.
So my reasoning for that was I'm reaching out to this audience.
I'm reaching out to these people that don't have dads.
And you also get people, at least in this one instance
that we just watched, to say things
that they may not normally say.
You were on like a local Fox affiliate
and they were interviewing you, right?
Yeah.
For like their morning show or something?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Those are always a little painful to watch.
Like you did great, but it's, you know,
there's always this disconnect when like you're watching
the local news person who's like,
I'm kind of the robot who's been handed these questions
and I have no clue what I'm asking you about.
Vine or is it Vine?
Yeah.
But then I was looking, we were looking back through,
I don't know if this was on Instagram or Vine too,
but you got her to be in one of your Vines, right?
I heard of what?
You got her to be in one.
You got the anchor and she said,
this just in, King Bach has a tiny pecker.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah, she was in the Vine, yeah.
How did you get the reporter to say
King Bach has a tiny pecker?
How much negotiation was there?
It was, hey, I have 12.8 million followers.
You want to do this?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What do I have to do?
I was like, no, no, no.
You just say I have a tiny pecker,
and then that'll be good.
Yeah.
And you did this on the set of the show.
Yeah.
And so were there like,
uh,
like producers like standing around like,
uh,
she's going to regret this or we need to step in.
See the thing about this,
they really are robots.
Like there's,
there's no one there.
It's just them.
It's just like you two are here.
Yeah.
And then it's,
uh,
it's the teleprompter and one guy with the thing.
And that's it.
It's a,
it's a huge,
it's a huge, uh, studio. No one's there. It's just teleprompter and one guy with the thing. And that's it. It's a huge studio.
No one's there.
It's just them by themselves.
Like they can do whatever they want.
Or whatever you want.
Or whatever I want.
But I mean, it wasn't on the air for them.
It was like in between.
But it got a lot more views than if it had been on the air.
We did it during a commercial break.
So we were like rushing.
They're like, I'm five, four. King V it during a commercial break. So we were like rushing. They're like, on five, four,
King Vetch is a tiny peck,
three, two,
and we're live in Los Angeles, California.
Oh, that's great.
So how often are you putting out a new Vine?
Is there like a schedule?
I'm lazy now.
I do maybe like one every other day.
It's not that I'm lazy.
It's I'm doing a lot of other stuff.
Like I'm doing TV shows.
I'm doing movies.
So it's hard to like schedule like doing a Vine and then studying the script and studying these lines, you know, because at the end of the day, like the Vines, they come from me living life.
You know, it comes from real situations that happen, you know, and that's where I draw my Vines.
I don't just sit down and say, all right, let me think of a funny idea.
You don't have just like a brainstorming session.
No. It's just like
constantly on, attuned to the fact
that you might experience something that could be a vine.
Yeah, exactly.
That's how I manage it.
Yeah, well, the one,
even video games with females are complicated.
Mm-hmm.
And she's like adjusting her Wii character.
Right.
Was that from an experience you were playing
yeah with a woman give us that story okay so so okay yeah i'll take it from point a to to z okay
so it started off the real situation i was playing video games with this girl she was so pretty
i'm gonna marry one anyways um so what happened was we were playing Mario Kart, and I picked my characters, boom.
And then, you know, in Mario Kart, you have to pick a car, you have to pick the parachute, you have to pick the wheels.
And she was just spending forever to do all that.
So that struck me, like girls take forever to pick whatever they want in the regular game.
And then for Vine, you have to take a situation and you have to heighten it.
So my heightening it was me picking my character fast and then her not only not picking, she
doesn't even get to the car.
She's just fixing the body.
She made the me character skinnier.
Skinnier.
And then she's like changing the eye makeup.
And the hair and everything like that.
So that's like taking it to the next level for Vine.
And I mean, before Vine, I would never have thought, yeah, I can sell that not only in six and a half seconds, but I can sell that with there's like six or seven cuts.
Right.
I would never have thought that was possible.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a hard process to do because there's always like you don't want to have too many cuts, even though sometimes I do a lot of cuts.
I always watch my Vine video like maybe 50 times before I upload it just to make sure it's easy on the eyes because you can get dizzy just watching cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.
So you have to make sure that the cuts, they match up.
And I went to film school, so I know about camera angles and all of that.
So, yeah, it's a process that I had to slowly learn and develop.
And what about the captions?
How important?
I mean, what percentage of the game is that?
Oh, that's 99.9% of the game, my friend.
Caption is everything.
Like, sometimes I always shoot,
I shoot my Vines,
and then I come up with the caption.
Oh, really?
Yep.
Because let me tell you how I,
you know, I watch,
when I'm watching Vines,
I, with yours in particular,
I really feel like I've got to read the caption first.
You know, when you scroll down,
it starts happening,
and you take it in, and you're like, oh, I'm
going to start the caption.
Now I'm watching it.
Now I'm watching it.
I'm reading the caption.
With yours, it's just like, I know I'm going to get the caption is going to be paid off.
Right.
Yep.
Yep.
And that's a thing you got to do.
So keys for captions.
Keep them short so people can read them because you got six seconds.
So you want to just look down and be like, boom, got it.
Now let's watch a video.
And if the video is self-explanatory, don't put a caption.
Just put an emoji.
So then people aren't like trying to look and see.
They just see, oh, it's just an emoji.
Now let me watch a video.
So the eyes can just move really quick.
So those are like different tips and tricks.
But you always come up with the caption second.
After.
Yeah, exactly.
Because I'll shoot a vine and I'll think it's like, you know, like the, so for instance, the one where the guys walked across the, it could have just been called, it's, you know, it's racist.
But when I actually shoot the Vine, you know, you do some improvisation and, you know, things are kind of different.
So when you edit it, then you come up with a different title that more suits what you shot, you know?
Right.
Never be married to a caption.
Are you actually editing on your phone?
Yeah, I got iMovie right here.
So you just keep it all right there in your palm.
Yep.
But you're banking it.
Like, I mean you are you planning
days and like shooting a number of these things or is it really hand to mouth like i just shot
this and now i'm over here editing it oh yeah yeah i i shoot maybe maybe three or four in one setting
and then i'll edit them when i'm when i uber to the club you know that's that's that's how i do
it it's easy and a lot of people come
up to me on the street and like hey man how do i'm trying to get famous like you man i'm trying to
i'm trying to get my stuff popping and like i wanna i wanna i wanna help him but then i'm like
no why should i help you i did it on my own you know i was in my room just doing selfies so i'm
like i tell everyone like you can it's up to. You go and you make a selfie video and you do something funny.
Which is code for I'm not going to help you.
It's code for I'm not going to help you.
You can go f*** yourself.
And that's a related question to that is when you got the profile that you got
and Vine is so collaborative, people want to collaborate
and that does a lot for them.
Right.
And you collaborate with a lot of people.
Especially when you have the ability
with the way that you work.
Exactly.
At least I could imagine,
I could, you could be shooting,
I could say, let's shoot something right now, Batch.
Right.
And like, I could think you might could do it.
Right.
So I can only imagine that you have developed the no.
But here's the thing.
Here's the thing, when I was starting out, I didn't do my first collab until I had 150,000 followers.
So I built everything from scratch by myself.
It was me and my friends, Daystorm Power.
Who else was doing it?
We did some with GloZell, Timothy DeLaGhetto.
And these are all people like we had zero followers on Vine.
And we weren't sharing them to Twitter at the time.
We were just shooting it because we didn't know how to do it.
So we just went from zero followers,
and then it took me two weeks to get 100 followers,
and then it took me another week and a half to get 500 followers, you know.
And I was so like crazy about it.
I had a calendar, and I would write down how many followers I was getting a day,
and I was like, oh, people like when I do this kind of video. People like when I do this kind of video. People
like the race videos. And I saw I did this one race video and I got 2000 followers just from
doing that. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to do more race videos. Yeah, sounds good. I'm not racist,
but people want to see that. Let me let me do that, you know. And then it got to the point where
I mastered and I see what people like to see um they like
to see relationship stuff they like to see things that you deal with in regular life that's why you
know when i draw my ideas it comes from stuff that actually happens to me because not only does it
just happen to me it happens to everyone everyone has relationship problems everyone has parent
problems and all of this and then when i developed that when i studied that i went from getting like
2 000 followers a day to 50 000 followers a day because all these like websites and best buying compilations are all
putting me on there and they would put my name, King Batch this, King Batch that, you know,
and I was getting 50,000 followers a day. And then I went from 3,000 followers to a million
followers in like less than a month, you know? Right. And it was just from me just doing-
Figuring it out. Figuring it out on my own, you know?
As opposed to the short circuit,
there's a short circuit thing that happens when you just pimp somebody out there.
Exactly.
Because look, if I help someone else out
and I give them a tag,
okay, yeah, they'll get 20,000 followers.
But when I leave and they create content,
it's gonna suck and people are gonna be like,
why am I following this guy?
And it's gonna hurt them in the long run.
Knowing all that, how do you say no? I just tell tell them i'd say straight up oh man it's easy i make
it seem like it's a simple thing even though it's not i'd be like oh man it's easy just just make
selfie videos at home but when they say i want to do one with you right now oh no they never do
they don't no no people don't ask that they'll when they do they'll be like all right let's
shoot one and then they'll just do like a hey i'm with king badge yo say what's up and i'm always willing to say what's up
but like you know no one's ever asked to yo i got this skit idea and blah blah and if they do
i'll do it it's six seconds and they're not gonna be like all right you got to do a backflip here
you got to take your shirt off you gotta kiss my girlfriend on the mouth like no one ever does that
you know so you know i'm always willing to like, you know,
say what's up or do a quick little, quick little skit.
Like I just say one thing and then-
Well, that's a good point.
The investment is pretty small.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay. Yeah.
But then again, it's not for, I mean, yeah,
when it's like helping somebody out,
but let's go back to just you and your craft
because the, I mean because the investment is something that
when you think about your work
is tremendous amount of time.
And I just imagine, even when you say you're so busy
with all these other things, which we'll talk about,
there's gotta be this pressure that like,
A, I'm on top, I'm really far on top,
but there's still a pressure to stay up there, right?
So you gotta keep giving them something. No, there's still a pressure to stay up there right so you got to keep giving them
something no there's no pressure because all right so here's it here's another thing that if you go
on vine and you go in this search thing um make sure my phone's on silent i am the number
uh number five most uh typed in name on here because just because of like um the videos of
the of me in the past you know so my name i still get the most followers a day even though i don't
post you know and it's just because of um it has a lot to do with me being on tv and movies now
so people are like oh that's a guy from vine uh and he's on my TV. And someone says, what's Vine?
And they'll type in my name and they'll search.
Oh, this guy's funny.
Let me follow him.
So I'm getting a lot of followers from that, just me being on TV.
But yeah, it's just, it's just a flowing.
So you're coasting at this point.
I'm just coasting right now.
That's not a bad place to be.
Yeah.
Now, Iman Alphacat was telling us about the whole heater or deleter thing.
Yeah.
I think Daystorm told us about it too.
Mm-hmm.
Just, we got into the mechanics with both of them.
So we won't make you take us back through all of that.
But.
Did you teach them that?
No, we learned.
We learned.
If a video doesn't do good, the lights.
Take it down.
Yeah, you delete that.
And how quickly are you doing that? Well, now I don't do good, the likes. Take it down. Yeah, you delete that. And how quickly are you doing that?
Well, now I don't do it anymore because I've kind of mastered, I know what works.
But back in the day, I give it five minutes.
If it didn't get the likes, boom, out of there.
Do you carry a police uniform around with you everywhere?
Because that comes up in a lot of vines.
A lot of it, right?
And so it's one thing for inspiration to hit
and you're like, okay, I can shoot this,
but I gotta have my police uniform.
No, Day Storm has his prop closet.
We go to Day Storm's house and he's got a whole bunch
of props and uniforms in there
and we'll just go and we'll raid his closet.
And does that ever, I mean,
the whole going outside dressed as a police officer,
has it ever gotten any of your friends
that you've gotten that to do in trouble?
No, not the police uniform, but Daystorm got arrested.
Well, he got put in cuffs one time for bringing out a gun.
And it was a toy gun with the orange tip and everything.
But, you know, you don't see that when you're across the street.
You don't see the orange tip. All you see is a guy holding an AK-47.
Oh, gosh.
Yeah, we have a problem.
I want to report this.
And, you know, the cops came.
Helicopters came.
When was this?
This was about a year ago.
Yeah.
It was like 10 cop cars, helicopters.
It was crazy.
And I filmed the whole thing.
Yeah.
So what came of it?
Was he taken in?
No, no, no.
No, they just looked at the gun and they saw it was an orange tip and they told him, you know, we could have shot you.
But this is like back in the day when they were really shooting black people then.
Back in the day.
A year ago.
Oh, man.
So speaking of film, so what did you do with that footage?
Did that go up somewhere?
It went on this.
There was another social media website that I was on.
I can't remember what it was. I don't it anymore but i uploaded it on that so it's lost now it's lost
footage but if you find that footage i want to see that found footage i'll tell you some good
footage yeah kim kardashian you well with you and beyonce oh yeah So front row of the Clippers game,
you hand her something.
Right.
And this is a Vine, this one was huge, right?
Right, mm-hmm.
So give us the story.
First of all, what would the audience see
if they haven't seen it?
Like walk us through what they would see.
Oh okay, so the audience,
for those of you that don't follow me on Vine,
at King Batch.
Anyways, so it was me at the Clippers game.
I see Beyonce and Jay-Z sitting down.
I kneel before Beyonce,
and I hand her some toilet paper.
Oh, that's what it was.
Yes, because she is on the rest of these bitches.
Wait, can I curse?
Is the curse gonna get bleeped?
Yeah.
They get bleeped? But yeah, you're fine.
Say whatever you want.
Okay, she'd be pooping on these female dogs.
And Jay-Z looked at me like, I'm going to kill you after this.
And you can see that.
You can definitely see that on his face.
Because your friend was filming it, or like one of the members.
Yeah, one of the members of the Clippers.
Clippers.
Yeah, crew.
They were filming it.
And yeah, it was pretty scary because like.
Well, he looks up in mid text and then looks right back down.
Looks back down, yeah.
But it's quite a look.
And then at that moment, it was a quick look.
But I was just thinking about all the articles I read of him stabbing people in the back of the concert.
And I'm like, oh, wow, maybe I shouldn't have done this.
But Beyonce, she was-
She looked very happy.
Oh, yeah, she was so happy.
She's so nice.
So that's what happened.
But then the Vine that loops then cuts to you
kind of giving commentary on the look from Jay-Z as part of it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because you have to add a little bit of comedy to the Vine.
So I was like, yeah.
I mean, he probably didn't want to kill me,
but it's funny if you let people think that he did right okay so let's let's rewind it right before you go
up to beyonce you're you're just at the clippers game because you want to go to a clippers game
well the clippers they actually uh they have they gave me season tickets so i go to all the clippers
games well that's nice yeah wow so you're there and it's
just just something you do and they tell me they tell me beyonce is there if you want to do
something we're not going to stop you they they gave you the heads up they gave me the heads up
specifically yeah beyonce yeah they didn't mention jay-z either it's just like no one's thinking oh
yeah no they said that they said beyonce and jay they're here if you want to um do something and
i was like all right cool let me think of something. We're not gonna send security to like tackle you.
It's basically.
Right, right, right, right, right.
Give you the green light.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh man, okay, so.
And she, I don't even think she knows who I am to this day.
Like, I'm sure she's seen the Vine.
Maybe.
I mean, along with.
30 million views.
30 million other people.
Yeah, you know she is.
Okay, so how long before, after arriving at this clippers game did you
did you get the toilet paper and do this because i would have been a nervous wreck like so keyed up
like even in performance mode it's like all right i'm about to do this you know i wasn't nervous at
all i wasn't because she's such a nice person you know and uh wasn't nervous. I just went up and I just got on one knee
and I was like, even if she is gonna,
this was my reasoning.
Even if she gets mad at me,
it's gonna be good television or Vinovision.
Right.
Would you have done it
if it wasn't gonna be turned into a Vi?
Would I have done it if it wasn't,
and put it where?
Just for nowhere.
Just for the moment.
Just for the moment.
Just for the moment. Just like for your friends who were there and the people in the stands, would you have done it if it wasn't, and put it where? Just for nowhere. Just for the moment. Just for the moment. Just for the moment.
Just like for your friends who were there and the people in the stands, would you have done it?
For the Jumbotron.
I would, oh, for the Jumbotron, I would have got a ring and I would have done something like cool, not funny.
It would have been like, hey.
You would have legitimately proposed.
I would have actually proposed to Beyonce.
Yeah, I would have actually married her.
Legitimately proposed. I would have actually proposed to Beyonce.
Yeah, I would have actually married her.
I guess what I'm asking is,
what's your off-camera personality profile?
Are you the type that like,
I still am gonna entertain
and I'm gonna do this hilarious thing or this...
No.
I'm gonna get the center of attention here
or that's like totally against type?
Oh yeah, off-camera, I'm going to get the center of attention here or that's like totally against type. Oh, yeah. Off camera, I'm boring.
I just, off camera, I just, I'm creating.
I'm thinking of stuff to do, you know, for when the cameras start rolling.
But like, you know, when the cameras are rolling, that's when I go and I take risks.
But off of it, no, I'm just your average Joe.
Just your average Joe Smill.
just your average joe just your average joe's meal so knowing that this was going on vine and it was gonna just totally kill the internet when it did like that had to feel good like when you
were walking away you're like i did it no i had still have no idea you never know when a video
is gonna go viral you never know until you upload it you know i was like shoot the other part right
thereafter or did you shoot that like i shot it on the way we were walking back up to the box
and I was just like, all right, let me,
I need something else.
It wasn't really all that good.
So I was like, Jay-Z looked at me like,
watch out.
Because you watched what you just shot back.
Yeah.
And then you're like, okay, I got my joke.
I got my button.
And then did you immediately post it?
Yeah, I posted it right there at the game.
That's great.
And then you're still sitting there.
You're just watching it go up. You're watching two games. Yeah, exactly posted it right there at the game. That's great. And then you're still sitting there. You're just watching it go up.
You're watching two games.
Yeah, exactly, right?
And then they had my – like when I was down there, they had the camera on me and they had my name, but they spelt it Batch, B-A-T-C-H.
But everybody knows it's King Batch, B-A-C-H for the viewers out there that don't know.
And so right when I got up, nobody's even
saying, oh, that was crazy what you did to Beyonce.
They were just like, yo,
they spelt your name wrong.
And who else was there?
Bieber was there with us at the game.
A couple of the Viners were there with us at the game.
And they were all just like,
they weren't even, like, I just accomplished
my dreams. It was like, yo, they weren't even like I just accomplished my dreams.
It was like yo they spelt your name wrong.
Found your weakness. Yeah they found it.
So the Clippers just called you up and said
hey here's season tickets. Here's a
box? Yeah.
And you said okay.
Yes please.
Yeah that works out.
It worked out great.
Give them my number.
Let's go back.
Let's find out how the batch that we see here in front of us
and at the top of the Vine charts.
You're right.
Taking over the comedy world.
How did this all happen?
Where are you from?
I'm from Florida, West Palm Beach.
I was born in Canada,
raised in the mean streets of Palm Beach.
When did you move?
I moved when I was three years old.
Three years old, but you're technically Canadian.
I'm not an American citizen yet.
I'm still a Canadian citizen.
I'm here on a green card, so I could get deported any minute.
Could you?
Right now.
Are you working on that?
Are they coming in?
I don't know.
No. Yeah, I could if I do something minute. Could you? Right now. Are you working on that? Are they coming in? I don't know. No.
Yeah, I could if I do something bad.
Just like Justin or Drake, right?
Yeah.
Is Drake American yet?
I don't think so.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I know he's really into pools.
Into pools?
He likes swimming pools a lot.
That's all I know about Drake.
So yeah, I went to college at Florida State University.
I studied finance.
What are your parents like?
Let's stick back there a little bit.
Yeah, my parents, they're both drug dealers.
Just the finest, cocaine.
No, they're accountants.
They own an accounting firm.
But they're Jamaican, right?
They're Jamaican, yeah.
All right, so describe them. Like, are we like, okay. Cause
then you say your parents are Canadian Jamaicans. I have no clue what that means. So they, yeah,
they lived their whole life in Jamaica. Uh, they went to college in Canada, York University. So
they've got like the, the accents, the Jamaican accent. Yeah, I, man. And did you ever have that?
No, man.
You never had it?
No, because like, and I think it's a lot of people that go through this, like when they go to school, like if you have like different, like if you're Spanish or you're Haitian or whatever, you go to school.
Like, why do you talk like that?
Like, why can't you just talk like us?
And they start making fun of you.
So I was like, yo, dad, when I'm at home, speak American.
I'm getting messed up at school.
They're beating me up at school.
You can't be talking like this.
Verbally beat up or physically beat up?
Verbally.
Okay, so it wasn't a cool thing.
Having the Jamaican parents wasn't a cool thing.
At the time, no.
Now it's awesome.
Now it's great because there's no more bullying
or is there but it's like yeah when i was in school i just was like yo i want to be like i
want to be like my friends and they talk regular you know they eat fried chicken what is this
oxtail what is this curry goat i want fried chicken and watermelon dad so um another racist joke i saw he's in there like yep i got him i got him he's
falling into my trap so yeah that was that was uh the childhood that that i grew up with brothers
and sisters yeah i have one sister uh christina she's actually my manager um and yeah that was
my childhood it was me is she an older sister an older sister? You can't have a younger sister be your manager.
Oh yeah, you can.
Because that's like. She's smarter than me.
That's like, as an older brother,
you can't admit any of that, right?
I denied it for years,
but then she solved the Rubik's cube in 3.5 seconds
and I was like, you win, you manage me.
You could do that twice in a vine almost.
Yeah.
Almost, you get right to the very end of it.
It's very frustrating when you think it loops
before you solve it twice.
Ah, he almost had the red.
So what are your parents like now?
Are we talking like dreads and like?
No, no, they're just regular black parents.
And they're still accountants.
Yeah, still accountants. Do they take care of your stuff?
Oh, yeah, I think.
I hope so.
They're supposed to be.
Yeah, my sister, she has a master's in accounting as well.
Okay, so there's a lot of family pressure to be an accountant.
Yeah.
Which is kind of the exact opposite of what you do at this point.
Yeah, like ever since the third grade, I was like, I want to be an actor.
Well, I didn't know what acting was.
It was just like, I wanted to do what Jim Carrey did,
and that was like beyond the TV.
I didn't know.
Which movie were you interested in?
Ace Ventura, The Mask, all the Ace Venturas, Liar Liar, all those movies.
I used to know Liar Liar like word for word,
and that's how crazy I was with it.
Because you're too young for the In Living Color, Jim Carrey.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I saw pieces of it on Napster.
I used to download, and that's why I saw Fire Marshal Bill.
Yes.
But I never knew it was a TV show.
I just thought there were little clips on Napster
that I would download.
And LimeWire.
Damn, that's back in the day.
That was just Mac only.
Mac only.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I didn't know what it was,
but I knew I wanted to be like that guy.
Was this coming out with being, you know, class clown, making your friends laugh?
Or was it just like, I'm a kid watching movies and I want to be like this guy?
Yeah, I think I developed my class clown ways from trying to be like Jim Carrey.
Like I would go to school and start like acting all goofy like he would do in his movies, like The Mask, you know?
And then I guess that put me as a class clown.
And it was different because Jamaican comedy,
it's a lot different than American comedy.
It's like, you know, I don't know how to explain it.
It's just more aggressive.
And it was just like I had to develop my own way of comedy
through watching these american tv shows like i would watch uh eddie
murphy's uh delirious and raw on napster as well i didn't even know that it was called stand-up
comedy because there was no visuals of of the of eddie murphy stand-up it was just audio so it's
crazy and i didn't know that it was eddie murphy until my freshman year of college when we were watching it.
And I was like, yo, this sounds so familiar.
And they were like, and then I would listen.
I was like, yo, this is what I used to listen to when I was a kid because they only had
clips of the jokes, like the ice cream joke and all these other Eddie Murphy jokes.
You didn't get to see the jacket.
I never saw the jacket until my freshman year of college.
I was like, this?
That's a big part of that is the jacket i never saw the jacket till my freshman year of college i was like this that's a big part of that yeah exactly so you know that was that was me growing up and my parents they
were all they called from the accounting and all that background so they they didn't want me to be
an actor they made me do uh finance for um for college so my undergrad was in finance so when
you brought it up it was it just and i think this is probably the case with a lot of kids.
I mean, we grew up in North Carolina,
we wanted to be filmmakers and when I told my dad
we wanted to go to film school, he was like,
okay, well, I'm not paying for that.
You know, I think when you're kinda outside of like,
either like New York or LA, it's like parents don't really,
they kinda try to snuff that out
because most of the time it's kind of a pie in the sky
kind of thing. Exactly, they said no one makes it, you out because most of the time it's kind of a pie in the sky kind of thing.
Exactly.
They said no one makes it.
You have to be like one out of a million.
Did you believe them at that time or you're like,
I'm just going to find my own way?
I kind of did, but then I was watching,
I think, I don't remember what grade I was, maybe eighth grade.
I was watching some clips of The Rock when he was younger.
It's either The Rock or Vin Diesel, one of them, one of those big guys.
I think they're the same person.
They are, aren't they?
Let's just say, let's just go with that.
Yeah, so maybe someone could find this clip.
But they said, he said, he said, I always knew I was going to be a star, so I always act like a star.
And then that just stuck with me for everything.
I was like, no matter what anybody says, I already know I'm going to be a movie star when I'm older.
So even though my parents and they were like, you got to go do finance.
I was like, yeah, I'll do finance.
But then I would take acting classes on the side to perfect my craft.
Right.
So, yeah.
And acting classes, you graduated with a degree in finance.
But you were also an athlete at FSU, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, I did the track team too.
Like I could have went to – I could have competed for Canada if I wanted to.
In the Olympics?
In high jump, yeah.
So how did you get into that?
I just did sports.
My dad did soccer in high school, so I did soccer growing up.
I did track growing up, and I was good enough to get a scholarship at college.
For track?
For track, yeah.
And how high did you jump?
Seven feet, two and a half inches.
How tall are you?
Five eight and a half.
I round up for the ladies and say five nine.
If you had to do it right now,
what do you think you could get?
I mean, how much does that wear off over the years?
I could probably get like six eight right now.
That's pretty good.
You could jump over me.
You could Fosbury flop or whatever it is,
Fosbury flop over Rhett's head if he laid his hair down. If he laid his hair down.
That sounds like a Vine, but I'm not,
you know, we can talk about that later.
Listen, you gotta start this on your own.
You don't need propped up by Fatch.
You gotta do selfies, man.
Okay, all right, selfies first.
He could help you, but then after that,
your Vines would suck, he's already told you.
I told you, man.
But you could have been,
you're saying you could have been on the Olympic team.
Yeah, well, I mean, I'd take a lot of training. He's already told you. I told you, man. But you could have been, you're saying you could have been on the Olympic team. Yeah.
Well, I mean, I take a lot of training.
But you kind of said, you sort of voluntarily backed out of that.
I'm not pursuing this thing.
I always knew that I wanted to be an actor. I had fun doing track, but at the same time, it wasn't a blast doing that.
What I have a blast doing is creating content and having people draw towards it,
whether it be happy or sad. And so how was that happening in college? What were you doing in
college to entertain people? Yeah. So I was in a couple of acting troupes. I was one called the
Black Actors Guild. I was in another one called- Bag. Bag. Yes. Yep. That was in another group called 30 and 60 where we performed 30 skits in 60 minutes.
It was us against the clock.
And that was short form comedy.
And so like an example of that would be we all line up in a group and then they would start the timer and then 60 minutes would count down.
And then the audience, they would pick a number.
They'd yell at numbers. We have all the numbers lined up on the wall and they'd be like
uh 15 15 and you turn over you flip over the 15 card and it says klondike so we go and we perform
and then and we start they go action whatever and it's like what would you do for a klondike bar
and then one person goes i'd read a book another. Another person goes, I'd run a mile. Another person goes, I'd help a friend.
And the last person goes, I'd suck a d***.
And they're like, what would you do for a good night's sleep?
And then you're out to the next scene.
And then everyone's like, 14, 13, 12.
And then we say, all right, 10.
And we go to the next kid like that.
I mean, that sounds like training for Vine in some ways.
Yeah.
I got to move through this and it can't take that long And that sounds like training for Vine in some ways.
I gotta move through this and it can't take that long because I gotta get the other ones out there.
Exactly, yep.
But it didn't loop.
Didn't loop.
And if that one would have looped,
would it have been funnier?
Because that's the real test, right?
Yeah, that is the real test.
You gotta see it 10 times.
You gotta see it 10 times
and it's gotta keep getting funnier.
Every time.
Every time.
Because then every time you watch,
it's like a movie.
Every time you watch it,
you're like, oh, I didn't notice that.
I didn't notice that right there and there.
You know?
So, I mean, you had the bog.
You were deep in this.
So it's like improv.
Yeah.
No, well, we perform, we practice.
It wasn't improv at all. We practiced for like two months. Yeah, no, well we practiced. It wasn't improv at all.
We practiced for like two months.
Oh, okay.
All that was basically memorized and planned.
Yeah, exactly.
But an hour long show.
Yep.
And then what next?
What was the next entertainment thing
that started to get traction for you?
Was it after college or still in college?
No, still in college.
Still in college I did um youtube videos um my first one was actually called tl if you type
in it's called tlc no scrubs hilarious i think that's what i called it hilarious all caps i think
so yeah yeah you gotta go all caps with you gotta go all caps all the way what was that
um it was me doing my first like music video parody um and it's crazy i don't know
yeah it was really bad it wasn't hilarious so you were watching like
what year was this this is 2008 okay i made my first video yeah so you're like okay some people
are getting traction on youtube no i didn't do that i didn't even know people were getting
traction on youtube i um um i just wanted to make videos and i i seen like some viral videos like i
think the evolution of dance yeah remember that that was that was the only video that i knew was
like really popping and hot and i was like oh that's cool let me try and um do some too and i uploaded that didn't get a lot of views got maybe like
a thousand views but for me i was like holy a thousand people saw me you could suck a
that's what i was so you kept you kept doing it yeah like from there doing it your youtube channel
and you called it king batch no no that one was called JL07D because I was cursing.
Because that's catchy.
It was my friend's email address.
And it was because I was cursing on the channel.
And I didn't want my parents to see me cursing.
And if they typed it in, they would see it and be like, oh, this is bad.
What would they have done?
Spanked me.
In college.
They would have driven.
Driven all the way to Tallahassee.
What were they, like very conservatives,
like no cursing in the house?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, I never cursed around my parents.
Even now?
Even now, yeah, never.
But they see your stuff now.
Yeah, they hate it.
They don't hate it.
Yeah, they do.
What do they say though they say um
andrew you you have to you have to be a role model i don't know i don't speak that foolish
language no they um they just tell me they encourage me to um to be positive and uplift
everyone but i do and do you engage you say uh but i am i mean
i tell them i have i hope i have a foundation that's helping people but i i'm i express myself
with uh it's colorful language but no i tell them it's it's not even me like if you watch a movie
if you watch will smith he's cursing in his movies but you don't see him cursing interviews
you know?
So I'm like, hey, it's just a character.
That's not me, Mom.
I'm Andrew.
That's King Batch.
Who is that guy? I don't know that guy.
But you cursed in an interview, too, right here.
No, but this is King Batch, guys.
Come on, guys.
Yeah, right.
Here he is, King Batch.
Let me call in Andrew.
Hey, guys, how you doing?
It's Andrew.
So what are we doing now today?
A little podcast?
So how often does this come up?
You have this conversation with your parents.
With my parents?
I think she's texting me right now.
Is this live in stream?
Is this going live right now?
This is Periscoping right now.
She's texting me right now.
But put her on speaker, let's talk to her.
Let's talk to my mom.
We could ask.
I'll call my mom right now. Let me put her on speaker. Don't say that unless. Let's talk to my mom. We could ask. I'll call my mom right now.
Let me put her on speaker.
Don't say that unless you're going to do it.
I'm doing it right now.
Let's hope she picks up.
What's her name?
Ingrid.
Are you going to give her context or are you just going to?
No.
We're just going in.
Let's hope she's not going to talk about my dirty underwear.
Hello?
Hey, Mom.
Hi.
I'm getting interviewed right now.
Where?
Right here in our studio.
It's the Ear Biscuit Studio, Mom, with Rhett and Link.
Oh, you guys have me on speaker.
Yes, we do. What do you think about your son's career
I think it's great
I think he's doing what he wants
Be honest mom
I can tell by the tone
No I think your career is going great
What do you think about his videos
What do you think about his videos? You're happy. What do you think about his videos?
Do you like his videos, his Vine videos?
99.9%.
I love.
What's the 0.1%?
What's the 0.1% that I don't like?
Yeah.
I don't like the swearing.
Swearing.
We heard about that.
I'm just being honest.
What words in particular do you not like to hear him say?
Oh, I could never repeat that.
I almost got you though, didn't I?
You almost got you, Mom.
All right, Mom.
I love you. I'll talk to you later. Love you too. Love you I? I almost got you, mom. All right, mom. Well, I love you.
I'll talk to you later.
Love you too.
Love you, mom.
We love you.
Bye.
Take care.
Bye.
I think it's really weird that you just got your girlfriend to role play as your mom.
That just is inappropriate.
To have that ready to go like that.
That was obviously a fake accent.
That was your girlfriend doing her best shot.
No, that's great.
You got a sweet mom, now call your dad.
Yo, what is?
What?
I'm not son.
I didn't think you were lying,
but that was still very cool to get validation.
Yes, yes, it was.
I don't think we helped your relationship any there, but. She seems like she's resigned to it validation. Yes, yes, it was. I don't think it helped, I don't think we helped your relationship any there, but.
She seems like she's resigned to it though.
I mean, actually the fact that you called her
and she spoke about it like that,
it's like, yeah, this is something we talk about,
but this is not a sticking point in the relationship.
You can't move beyond it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like she, yeah, she knows.
Like I tell her every time, it's like that's not me it's it's a character i
play you know just entertaining people um you started investing this character into a youtube
channel under someone else's email address yes and then did you switch over to your youtube
channel now it's called something different it's not king batch no it's called bachelor's pad tv yeah because my king batch channel i think that's where i put my track
videos um and then bachelor's pad tv that's where i that's where um what i wanted to do was i wanted
to start my own web series of like sketch comedy so um i developed that to do that but you know
i stopped doing that i stopped doing web series and just did off skits, just regular worn-off skits.
And at the same time, so you're doing this in 2008.
You're still in college at the time.
At FSU.
Yeah, right when I moved to California in 2010, that's when I stopped JL07D,
and I started doing Bachelor's Pad TV.
And you moved out here to kind of try to make it in the traditional media
world. Yeah and the only way I could do it
was the only way that my parents would let me move out
here is if I took classes. So
I said I'm going to get my Master's degree
let me go to California and do that
so I went to New York Film Academy. Yeah.
I did a Master's program. I dropped out
a semester early
because it was just so repetitive
and I was like come on denzel washington
he doesn't have a master's degree you know let me just and i can do a great denzel washington
so yeah it's just um i i then i started doing my youtube stuff really heavy and i was doing
stand-up in YouTube and then Vine came
out and I was just like you know it's a lot cheaper to do Vine videos but what did you think
what was that conversation like when you were introduced to Vine by a friend right and it was
it was uh Brittany Furlan so she was on Vine yeah so the way it happened it's like it's crazy that
I think about it now it's like this would never happened if you know i didn't take the the courses of events i have and so there was this um there was this
comedy troupe called groundlings right and groundlings uh i did the classes there and i met
this guy named dj labelle um i don't know if you guys know dj labelle he does um he does like the little parody videos here he did this one called um uh women of la
and i was in that video and so was britney ferlin but we never met we shot on two different days
so he had a rap party for that video and britney was there and she's just really crazy like i
didn't even like the first time he introduced he's like hey this is my friend prudy she's like you and i'm like um okay nice to meet you and it's the whole time at the party
she's every time she sees me she's like you she's sober like she's sober she liked you
huh she liked you that was like yeah yeah yeah something like that i don't know but um yeah so
after that i was like you know who's that who's that crazy girl and
she's like oh she does vine videos and at the time she had she was like the most the number four both
most followed person like she had 500 000 followers and i was like what's vine and i
downloaded it like the the week after because um black people always be late. Racist. But what did you think?
Like, okay, Vine is a six and a half second video
that then loops on itself.
This is genius or this is stupid?
No, I didn't.
It's just something, I'll do it.
Yeah, I didn't have any opinion on it.
I remember I went to, I did my first video.
I was just like, you know, just filming like random stuff.
And then just, I just liked that you can film and stop
and then film something else. I was like, no one else has done that before i was like yo this is cool
um and and yeah so that's that's why i started doing it and then later on i started like
let me try a skit you know and i did like a a little impersonation of something and then next
time i was like when i was on set of filming one of my youtube videos we had a set there and then i was like all right i'm gonna like i'm gonna rob you but then you
take out a gun and then tell me to put it back and then so we filmed that little we filmed that
video and then i was like oh it's cool so the videos like i started off with they were they
were very bad at first but then i studied and i see what people liked what people wanted to see
and i just incorporated that more but they were very quickly skit based
yeah exactly whereas what she was doing was more personality based I assume yeah
she did a lot of personality like she did a torque a lot of torque videos like
twerking in Walmart and you know you know she did yeah she did a lot of
personality ones but she did a lot of personality ones, but she did a lot of skit ones as well.
And then you kind of got into this group of guys
where you were all trying to figure Vine out, right?
Right.
And DayStorm told us about the Vine parties
basically getting together
and everybody makes a bunch of them.
Yeah.
Like how long, you know,
it seems like the kind of thing you're gonna look back on
is like those were the good old days when we got together and we're figuring it out yeah we used
to film this is when i stopped everything i i stopped you know taking acting classes i stopped
uh doing stand-up comedy i stopped doing youtube videos and we would meet up from 9 a.m to like 5
p.m and just shoot a whole bunch of videos that's that's all we did we just shoot the, save them and then upload them the next day. And that's when that's back in the day was
when back in the day, we were uploading about three videos a day at that time.
And would you invite a whole bunch of really hot girls? Or would you just like,
find them and just have the meeting wherever they were? Because they would be there one way or
another. Yeah, they'd come like when we had they started coming out when we had like uh a hundred thousand
followers like 50 000 actually 50 000 followers the girls would start coming out because they
have like what 200 on 2000 200 on like instagram and twitter so like yeah we want to do it so now
it's now it's easy now now we have everything now
we have all the followers now they're just like can we can we what do you think about me like
being in your vine like I don't know we'll think about it this is Halle Berry you know
so that's that's that's where we're at now but yeah but so you you stopped doing everything else
to to focus on vine at that time was Was that a, oh, this is going
to be the thing or this is going to be the thing that gets me into the stuff that I want to do?
No, at that point when I focused on it, it was just like, I just, I don't know. It's just like,
I really have fun doing this. It's not like it's wasting my time.
I'm getting a lot of followers doing it.
So, you know, I was just like, let me just keep with it,
see how many followers I can get, and take over the world.
And was there any money in it at that time, that early?
No, there was nothing in it.
Just doing it just to do it.
So you stopped doing things that are potentially making you some money.
You're in L.A.
It's not easy to live in L.A.
Right.
No, but the thing is I wasn't making any money doing YouTube either,
doing YouTube or stand-up.
Like stand-up, they'll give you like $50 here, $20 there to do some spots.
What was your day job then?
Nothing.
I had nothing.
I just dropped out of school.
Where were you living?
How were you living?
Oh, off Mommy and Daddy. yeah yeah i had um i made some investments in college uh through apple i bought
um a stock in apple when it was like low when it was 80 and then at the time when i came out here
it's like 600 so i was like yo i got my money saved up i can stop doing stuff for a while and and survive
and um and yeah i was just like let me see what i could do in this time and i think um i think i
had like six months that i could do it like straight non-stop everything and i just did it
and stuff started to work out and what did that when it began to work out. And what did that, when it began to work out, obviously it turned into followers.
But when did the people start calling?
You know, when were like, we wanna put you in this,
we wanna represent you.
Oh, you're not talking about brands,
you're talking about like entertainment?
Well, I guess both,
because that's kind of two different things.
There's the sponsorships and making money directly from it,
then there's other opportunities.
Yeah, they both came about the same time.
When I hit a million followers,
my management came out of the woodwork.
Hey, what's up, man?
How you been?
Everything cool?
We want to bring you in the office,
see what we can talk about.
And then also agents were hitting me up.
UTA, CAA, WME, Gersh,
all the top agencies were trying to get me to sign with them.
And what's that like?
Were you prepared for that?
Or is it like, what do I do? It was like revenge.
I got to ask my younger sister what I should do.
It was like revenge because like back in the day, I'm trying to get like, I'm trying to
send them my headshots, trying to call them.
I don't get nothing.
I don't get nothing, not a thing.
But now a couple of months months later i got a couple followers
now you guys want to you know uh work with me so it was like it was like all right cool so i let
them wait you know i let them fight it out a little see which one was uh the best one and uh
uta ended up being the best one for me and justin bieber how did you know you mentioned him earlier
you're hanging out at the Clippers game.
I know people like to talk about that
and like to ask about it, but I can't not ask.
Right, right, right.
Because I think it's just a,
oh, it's just another point of reference.
Beyonce took his toilet paper
and then he goes back to the seat with Bieber
because they're friends.
Did that happen because he was a fan first
or through something different?
Of the Clippers game? No, friendship with bieber in general oh how we hang out yeah
like how did you guys meet um so he watched the vine he watched his vine video he was a fan
of you of the vine videos yeah yeah and then what and actually we didn't meet through that we met
because floyd uh was a fan of of my vine videos so he flew me
out to vegas and uh he gave me tickets to his fight and you know bieber walked him out that
year um yeah bieber walked him out that year so i met him through through floyd and then but he
knew who i was through the vine videos right and then we all you know it's a tight family that we
have so we'd all hang out go to parties a tight family that we have. So we would all hang out, go to parties together.
And through that, we built a friendship.
And was there a point where you were just like, this happened?
I'm famous.
No, not really.
Because the way I look at it, it's like, yeah, people come up and take pictures.
But to me, it's just like, it's a big high school. You know, in high school, like you look around, you're like, yeah, people come up and take pictures. But to me, it's just like it's a big high school.
You know, in high school, like you look around, you're like, oh, I saw that guy last week.
You know?
Oh, yeah, I saw him two days ago.
So, you know, you have a familiar face there and, you know, take a picture.
Like you take pictures with your friends.
So, that's to me, that's how I look at it.
It's like a big high school.
You know?
That's my relation to it.
What about Snapchat?
Like, I know you're on Snapchat,
King Bach on Snapchat too, right?
King Bach on Snapchat, ladies.
Ladies, just the ladies from Snapchat.
Just emphasis on ladies.
So what's your approach to Snapchat?
Because I imagine that your Vines,
a lot of they hatch, I wouldn't say spontaneously,
but like for us, if we use Snapchat, we don't do Vine.
So we use Snapchat as a very spontaneous way to perform
in a way that our YouTube videos would never allow us to do.
But I just assumed there was more of a competition
creatively between what you do with Snapchat or Vine.
Right.
Definitely Instagram.
Right, right.
So let's just throw all those together.
Are you just throwing on Instagram, what's on Vine,
and what do you do on Snapchat?
Yeah, so Snapchat is like my daily vlog.
Like I used to do vlogs on YouTube,
but you know, it's hard to edit and do all that.
So I saw Snapchat as, okay, I can just film what I'm doing
and delete in 24 hours.
So that's what I use my Snapchat for. So no sketch-based stuff on Snapchat.
No.
Just real life.
Yeah, just real life, what I'm doing, who I'm turning up with, what dates I'm going on with my future wife, Halle Berry.
I love her so much.
And, yeah, so Instagram, I do that for pictures, videos.
I use this app called Shots.
I do, that's like a selfie app.
So I do a lot of selfies on that.
Vine videos, I do my sketches.
Facebook, you know, is everything.
You've got some stuff on Facebook that is like a minute and a half video, like an instructional
video, different like sketch type things.
A longer sketch.
Playing a character.
Is that only on Facebook or is that somewhere else too?
No, those are my old YouTube videos.
Ah, you're recycling the old YouTube videos.
On JL070 that had like 5,000 views.
Now they have like 4 million views.
Yeah, and now people are seeing it for the first time.
That works.
And that's why a lot of comments are like,
yo, what happened to your hair, man?
What's going on? You shaved your your head how do you do this yeah so it's because those
are videos from like 2008 2010 so with all this stuff you know we don't do vine but we do a lot
of that other stuff and we know how difficult it is to keep up with staying relevant and staying
on top of all these different things.
So you kind of gave the impression in a previous interview
that with the Vine stuff, it's just like,
no, I mean, I'm just filming it
and I'm editing it on my phone.
But is it just you and your sister?
And like, or what's the team behind?
Yeah, the team is me, my mom, my sister, my dad, and UTA.
That's the team right there.
So for your content that you produce.
Oh, for my Vine videos?
You're basically saying you can kind of do, you get help from friends, but in terms of.
You don't get someone to edit your Vine videos.
I edit them myself.
Yeah, right on the phone on my phone yeah
so like like i said like if i'm going to an audition or i'm going to you know the movies
or something with some friends i'll be editing my vine videos right i think the big question is
when is sherlock homeboy gonna come back i love that dude i love so love. It was so funny, man. So great. I want to turn that into a movie, but copyright issues.
With Sherlock Holmes?
Yeah.
Really?
Just a parody, man.
Fair use.
Misspell Sherlock.
Get a really good fair use lawyer and just, yeah, do it, man.
Listen, all right.
I'm going to co-write this with you, man, right now.
Yeah.
Sherlock Homeboy meets Herlock Shomegirl.
Shomegirl.
I don't know, there's like a female alter ego.
Right, right, right.
It could be Halle Berry.
She'd be into that.
The pipe.
Okay, so Sherlock Homeboy,
I'm just gonna geek out on this character a little bit.
There's two episodes on your YouTube channel, right?
Mm-hmm.
And this was before Vine took off
or like at an early stage of Vine
where it was like in parallel.
Right, right.
I guess it's my way of asking,
how do you view YouTube?
Are you gonna do any of that?
Is it necessary anymore?
I love YouTube.
I actually love YouTube more than Vine
because like YouTube, you can show talent on YouTube.
You can really take your time and show emotion and really tell a story, whereas Vine is just
like you got to boom, boom, boom, and you have to be over the top and all of that.
So you're frustrated creatively with the limitations of Vine?
No, not at all because you can do whatever you know, you can do whatever you want.
I choose to do the Vine videos.
I have fun doing them.
I have fun doing them.
So, you know, I make the Vine videos and then when I have time,
I'll go back and I make YouTube videos as well.
But if you had to choose, if you were forced to choose,
you can be the number one on Vine forever, keep doing what you're doing,
or you can pursue this traditional, whether it's YouTube or whether it's film or TV,
story-based, character-based stuff.
Which one would you do?
Money is not a factor.
Money is not a factor.
Well, see, it's a politic game because if I wanted to get offered the roles on the TV shows
that I'm going to get offered, I would need the followers.
Even though you have the talent, you still need the fan base.
But let's take that out.
Let's just say it's up to you.
People just write a blank check.
Oh, YouTube.
So from a creative standpoint, that's what you want to do.
Yeah, because I went to film school.
I studied everything about directing, producing.
I do that all.
So if you look at my YouTube channel, those are the videos that I wrote, directed directing, producing. I do that all. So if you look on my YouTube channel,
those are the videos that I wrote, directed, and produced.
And it's a great feeling when you take something from zero to 100 real quick.
Right.
So what are you focusing on now?
Because it would seem, I would assume that you could pour your finances into,
if you want to do a self-financed something on YouTube, I would assume that you could pour your finances into,
if you wanna do a self-financed something on YouTube,
you could certainly do that at this point.
Oh yeah, definitely.
So is that what you're doing,
or is it more of the traditional
break into movies kind of thing?
What's, where's your focus?
Yeah, right now it's more the traditional,
I'm actually developing a show with Key & Peele right now, a sitcom,
that we're going to pitch to networks at the end of next month.
I'm doing a move with Martin Lawrence.
I just got two scripts.
I'm going to see which one that I like the best out of those.
And you would just be acting in that?
Yeah, acting in those, yep.
As opposed to, I didn't know if there was like a directing component to any of this or a writing component no i won't start directing um traditional media
until about maybe three or four years um then there'll be big blockbuster movies yes um so yeah
it you know it and then i'm i have another offer to do another like a you know adequate budget movie starring myself.
So yeah, I'm doing a lot of traditional media.
So I don't really have time to do the YouTube videos
as much as I want.
And same with Vine.
It's hard for me to find the time
to do Vine videos as well.
So I mean, you're getting the opportunities that you want.
But it's interesting because when I look at Sherlock Homeboy,
I can immediately see
the next step from that.
If that's the only thing I saw in terms of you being,
like it's clear that you're a star,
a movie star when I watch that.
Like if I hadn't seen anything else.
It's just automatic.
But the Vine videos, it requires,
it's like okay, isn't there a question of, well,
are they only listening to me because I have
so many followers?
Are they only hiring me because I'm popular on Vine,
but creatively, there's no crossover here?
Yeah, exactly.
You know, it's nice that you've got the comedic chops
to be a great actor, but isn't it frustrating that you're
being hired just because you're popular no or is it both i mean not at all because you know i um
i went to film school i don't know i'm dying over here i went to film school and i studied
you know the craft of acting before you know i stopped everything like well i know you're good at it right but isn't there a chip on your shoulder no not at all because like you know i i do the videos
to i had to do the videos to get popular so i could get offered these roles and then i use the
talent that i have stored up to when i get the roles so when i get the roles to perform when i'm
on set so it all happened like it all happens hand in hand.
So, you know, a lot of, that's why I think, you know,
I hear a lot of rumors about, you know,
we give YouTube stars the opportunity to act
in these movies and they mess it up.
And that's because they don't have the training,
the training of the craft and they're not ready yet,
you know, so it all works. You know that when you take advantage of the opportunity, you're gonna show up and you're not ready yet, you know? So it all works.
You know that when you take advantage of the opportunity,
you're going to show up and you're going to deliver.
Exactly.
Yeah, not scared.
I actually did a drama movie,
my first drama movie that will come out in 2016.
It's called Shot Callers.
So, you know, that's me doing some serious acting.
And for two years straight, that's all I studied, just drama, you know, that's me doing some serious acting. And for two years straight, that's all I studied, just drama, you know?
Just crying in classes and all of that stuff.
So you're not funny at all?
I'm not funny at all.
Do you cry?
I do cry.
Do you bleed?
I do bleed.
I bleed blood.
And it's, okay, so even now you're already branching off into just drama.
Right. But it's an actor path even now you're already branching off into just drama right but it's but it's an actor path exactly at this point yeah directing that'll come back in what's the
key and pill show um it can't be i can't really talk too much about it but i can say it's based
about cops so you're gonna use that cop i'll use the same outfit i'm gonna go to daystorms closet
hey i need that cop outfit for what uh it's just the same outfit. I'm going to go to Daystorm's closet. I'm going to be like, hey, I need that cop outfit.
For what?
It's just some silly TV show, bro.
So it's not a sketch series.
It's a scripted sitcom.
Yes, like a sitcom.
Yep.
That's exciting.
Yeah, that's going to be great.
And are they going to be in it too, or are they just behind the scenes?
They're just producing it, executive producing it, putting their stamp on it.
Yeah, okay.
That's a good stamp to have.
Yeah, yeah.
Well listen man, it was cool to hear your story
and get to know you and we're super excited.
It was great to be here.
Yeah, so.
Sign the table.
We'll see you at the next Clippers game.
Oh yeah, with Beyonce.
We'll be above the box, like in the upper deck.
We'll throw something down to you.
Well, we'll be out front waiting for you to walk by
and we'll hold out our hands for a few extra tickets.
Thanks for coming in.
Thanks for having me.
And there you have it, our conversation with King Bach.
Tweet at King Bach and let him know
what you think of our conversation.
It's spelled like Bach, King, B-A-C-H.
And yeah, I might have thought it was Bach first time I-
The first time.
You know, it's like at least 50% of me.
Just like one time and after that, got it right.
Maybe it was, yeah, I had to hear somebody say it,
but when I read it, it was King Bach.
So that's how you type it when you tweet at him,
hashtag Ear Biscuits, but when you see him on the street,
Just say, hey, what's up, Bach?
What's up, Bach?
Now, I find it interesting.
He's funny everywhere he tries to be funny.
Oh yeah.
But he has hit this sweet spot with six seconds.
But I think that we should potentially get him
to be involved in our new venture,
the new app that we've come up with, Twig,
one second videos.
Yes, we have come up with that.
As opposed to just going down to five or four,
let's just go all the way to one.
Who else is gonna compete there?
Right, maybe like photo sites potentially.
But no, they got, no, photo sites is no second.
I mean, it's just a one frame.
I'm talking full, maybe 30 frames.
You could do maybe 60.
Everything's in 60 frames.
So you get 60 frames, 60 FPS, like the news.
Yeah, I think we're not competing with pictures,
but we're competing with the gifs.
We're competing with the gifs.
We're competing with gifs, I think.
Twig, anyway, so happy to announce our new app, Twig.
And Batch is all over it.
Featuring Batch, he's number one on Twig.
He is all over it.
Soon to be number one on Twig.
Right, he is, I mean, but he's on top of the world.
Well, I'm joking. And he senses no pressure. Well, I'm joking. Because he's so far ahead, that's why. I'm he is, I mean, but he's on top of the world. And he senses no pressure.
Well, I'm joking.
He's so far ahead, that's why.
I'm joking, but I think he actually
would be funny in one second.
That's the funny thing is that if you told him,
hey man, there's this new thing where you gotta be funny
in one second, he would figure out a way
to be funny in one second.
Oh sure, he already knows it.
He don't have to figure it out.
He's like, yeah, I've already got 20 things planned
because I knew that this was gonna happen. And there's people who have to pick it up. Yeah, I've already got 20 things planned because I knew that this was gonna happen.
And there's people who have already planted it.
So like our Twig is gonna be late to the game.
Twig is probably already an app
and we've like sent people over to it now.
I think Barry should be number one on Twig.
I'm just gonna create that account right after that.
Barry with an E.
I get it.
I think it's Barry's actually.
Oh, there's like two guys named Barry on the same account
and they're number one on Twig.
They could be number one and two
and they alternate between who's on top.
And we decide.
We decide, no, we decide who's on top, man.
No, that's not how it works.
It's whoever gets the most loops.
Oh, okay.
Hey, here's the thing. Is it gonna loop?
It doesn't loop.
It shouldn't loop. It's one second
and it doesn't loop. It freezes at the end.
It freezes and you can never,
and then it disappears,
because it's like Snapchat.
It's up for one second and then it disappears.
Try to be funny on that, Batch.
I bet you you can.
Hmm, me too.
All right, we'll be back next week
with another new invention
or maybe we'll just do another ear piston.
Let's just do that instead.
Yeah, okay.