by Cyrus Webb
It's hard to go anywhere lately and not find something that Cedric "The Entertainer" is not a part of in some form or fashion. Whether we're talking about television shows, movies, comedy stages, entrepreneurial ventures with Anthony Anderson and even the recording booth, he is making his mark in the worlds of entertainment and business while showing others how it's done.
In 2023, however, he added a new slash to his name, bestselling author of the novel FLIPPING BOXCARS under his name Cedric Kyles.
As a natural born bookie I was excited to get the book and read it, and like so many other ventures by Ced it did not disappoint.
The book takes you on the journey of the main character Babe, a man trying to make his place in the world while also taking care of those he loves along the way. The paperback edition of the book released in September, giving new audiences a chance to engage with the story and the characters.
I had the opportunity to talk with Ced about the book and its messages. Enjoy the conversation.
Ced, thank you again for the time and congratulations on all of your success. What has it been like for you to reflect on all you been able to do?
Like so many people, you live your life often times you can have successes, life can be good, and yet you have a lot of things in your head that you want to do, but you can keep yourself from trying. 2023 was just one of those years where I just decided to try and do things that I believed in that I had inside me and not necessarily pre-judge it or decide that people weren't going to really accept it. Some people only know me as a comic, they aren't going to believe me as a novelist, singer or the other things I do.
This was my time to experiment and have a good time. Most of the greatest things that we have to offer people are things that we often keep for ourselves. We just don't share it, and we'll be quite surprised on how people actually will follow you and will dive in and will be inspired by another side of your personality. It's been really great doing television and film but these new ventures are just that, they're new. I'm planting seeds. I'm not expected to be out here and be the top number one R&B singer in the world, not the number one novelist in the world, but I'm planting seeds for something I love to do and that's what I'm doing.
You are definitely doing that. What I've noticed especially with the book on Amazon is people saying they weren't expecting this [novel] from you. The main character of the book for those who have not had a chance to read it is an individual who really has two sides to him. People know him as Babe in the streets. That's where he has a lot of his respect, but to his wife, Rosie, he's Floyd. What was it like for you to think about the two worlds that this man had to be able to walk in?
Yeah, that was one of the real key things that became more and more profound as I was writing the book was really thinking about the times he (Babe) lived in. This is pre-Civil Rights, in the middle of Jim Crow, and he's in the South. He had gone into the military, so he has lived in Germany, England and France. Now he is recognizing that the type of bigotry, the type of racism that we have in the United States was bolder than anything he experienced anywhere else.
Babe is now there to fight for his dream, his ideas. So, when he came back, this is that period of his life where he can't put that back in the box. He can't put the fact that he knows a few French words, that he knows how to shop or eat or order a latte or that his mind is expanded, He's not necessarily the same person. And so to ask him to go through the back door, to ask him to 'Yes sir,' to somebody younger than him is going to be difficult. In creating him I was like how do you stand in your strength, be a man, and also know you got to protect your family and then have these dreams that are bigger than where you're trying to be boxed into.
That's really where I built the tension around the character and what's going on in his life at that time. It just became very clear to me as I was writing it who my grandfather was again, because a lot of people know he passed before I was actually had a chance to meet him. So, these were all just kind of like my feelings about who he was as a person, and it became very real to me writing this novel.
I love the fact that we get to see Babe in his element. He's a gambler. He's a person willing to take chances. There will be some who look at one side of him and say he's all about himself, but we do see times when he is definitely thinking about others. Talk about that, Ced, and his ability to not just try to pull off a big heist but in doing so show that his life has some meaning and that he matters.
I think that one of the key things about us and our personalities, and what I really wish we did more as human beings, is work together. We used to have communities that were really that. We used to joke about how people in the neighborhood could straighten you out if your parents weren’t around, and if you're doing something like breaking in cars, being a bad kid, somebody else's parent can actually say something to you. Nowadays, you're scared to say something to anybody else's child, right? You just don't get engaged, and you let behavior get out of hand, get crazy.
Babe wasn't that kind of person. If he saw something, he was going to do something about it. In the book in the process he built a lifelong friendship with someone. These are the kind of things I think that people don't necessarily take enough risk either to find ourselves helping somebody and then realizing that's going to actually give us something back in in return and sometimes tenfold.
In 2023 you were out there on the road talking about the book. Though Floyd or Babe is the main character, he really has his literal ride-or-die friends around him. Yeah.
I want to talk about what that was like for you to show the power of friendship and brotherhood in this book, even when it wasn't even about them. They were really just wanting to make sure that Babe was good and had what he needed.
I would say that's also something very reminiscent of me that I kind of pulled out from my grandfather through some degree of osmosis or something. My partnerships with my guys that I started with like my business partner of over 30 years, my tour manager since junior high school...we ride like that. It's those kind of people that hold you up. They grow, they build, they learn, they educate themselves. A lot like you see with LeBron's or with Jay Z's camp. These are people who are not just hanging around. They come to contribute. And so, I wanted to show that partnership and what they bring to each other and why.
I thought that was very important to show that no man really is a mountain, that he's not standing out there alone. He (Babe) has a beautiful woman that's got his back which most of us really need, somebody that really holds us down, and then a core friend group that is there for you when things get tricky and get a little down. They see the things and the gaps and the holes that you don't see, and they got you covered and that's very important. I thought that was necessary to show. Again, a person who is about helping people, a person who is not selfish in his game.
In the book we see for Babe half the reason why he doesn't have the things that he wants in life yet is because he's so busy taking care of everybody else. Now he feels at 40, this is my time and that's another clock that we put in there. He was approaching his 40th birthday, and we all do that. We all have these kind of things in our head that 'By the time I'm 30, I'm gonna do this,' 'By the time I'm this, I'm gonna do that.' Those are good litmus tests to try things in life, to give yourself deadlines, but like Babe we have to realize we got to get up and put your foot down and go forward.
Get your copy of FLIPPING BOXCARS on Amazon or your local bookstore. Also make sure you're staying connected with Ced on Instagram at www.instagram.com/cedtheentertainer.
Photo Credits
* Top image by Getty Images/ Andrew J. Cunningham
* Middle image by Conversations Media Group
* Bottom image by Lucine Chammas (PMKBNC)
