Dave Chappelle Remembers How He Used To Go To Jam Sessions At Prince’s House

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Dave Chappelle didn’t just famously play Prince on his sketch show. He met the Purple One — who was clearly a fan of the sketch — on several occasions. In a new interview with The New York Times, the comedian revealed that he spent time watching jam sessions in Prince’s home.

“I didn’t know him that well, but the times that we hung out were fun and very memorable and often funny,” he said. “He was very generous with his advice, and he was very generous with his access. He let me see some of his process.”

Chappelle went on to describe parties that Prince would throw as a means of fostering artistic community.

“He used to have these parties where we would go over to his house, and there would be all these musicians that I admired, and they’d just do these jam sessions in the basement,” he said. “Everybody at the party was playing something. I think when he died there was the icon dying, but then there was this pillar in the community of people dying.”

In the interview, he also touched on his hosting gig at Saturday Night Live and the trouble with being topical under the presidency of Donald Trump.

“He’s so skewed, it’s hard to find an angle that sounds fresh, Chappelle said. “If you talk about him, it’s almost like you’re part of the chorus and not a soloist.”

Read the whole thing over at the New York Times.

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