HBO: How, how would you define the show? If someone didn't know anything about Def Comedy Jam, what would you tell them?

O'NEAL: It's a platform for black comics. Where else are you going to see black comics do comedy as on the level that they can do it here? You can go as far as your comedy can take you when you do Def Jam. You get to see young black comics doing what they want to do. And white comics too. I think there's a white boy on this season.

HBO: There's a Middle Eastern comic.

O'NEAL: Well, he's white if he ain't black.

HBO: Talk about the kind of material you can use on Def Comedy Jam...

O'NEAL: I guess, edginess is a corny term, but basically, you can explore, man. Black people like to explore language, dude, you know what I'm saying? Good comics like to explore language. We communicate kind of aggressively. So sometimes, I don't have access to all the words I want to have access to. Sometimes, I got to swear to even think. This show helps people like me, who can't always find the right word out of the dictionary to communicate in the best way they know how.

HBO: Talk about your experience coming out onto the Def Comedy Jam stage.

O'NEAL: I think you got to get them fast. And then, once you have them, then you really have them. It's almost like having a clever line when you see a girl in the street. If you go "Hey good looking, what you got cooking?" She's like well, the rest of that's going to bomb if you keep talking. But if you got something clever, you got to say it, and she's going to go, 'oh okay, I'm going to listen to the rest of what you got to say. Because, that grabbed me.' That's what it is. Def Comedy Jam audience is like a woman in the street. You got to catch in and she'll like you.

HBO: You're part of a whole, a new generation on Def Comedy Jam, it seems like a very young cast this year.

O'NEAL: I'm not young, though.

HBO: Yeah you are.

O'NEAL: I'm black, I'm thirty-seven. And I got diabetes, so I guess if you do the white-black ratio, I'm about -- I'm a hundred and ten year old white man. So I got about another five years left.

HBO: You're still part of the new generation of comics - what's different about your generation as opposed to the older generations of comedians?

O'NEAL: I think the older generations, when Def Jam started - it's like UFC right? You ever watch UFC, the Ultimate Fighting thing? When I first started watching, it was just your style versus someone else's style.

You was doing karate your whole life and another guy was doing judo and another guy was doing Kimbo or something. Or, another guy's doing kung fu. And you all get together and see who the baddest dude is. Then it grew because one style started kicking everybody else's ass, and so everybody's doing that one thing.

I think in the beginning of Def Jam, everyone had their style because there was nothing to really aspire to be. Then, everybody just said, oh one thing's kicking ass, that's what I'm going to do.

Now, after Def Jam was going on for a few years, it's allowed people to go and study their own style again. So now, this season and last season, you're seeing a bunch of people with different styles again, different art. It's full circle I think.

HBO: How do you relate to Russell Simmons?

O'NEAL: 'Russell Simmons' it's almost like saying, Q-tips. You know his name is the product, you know what I'm saying? Q-tips aren't cotton swabs, they're the name. And his name is synonymous with Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam. But you know, I love Russell Simmons because he created Run DMC. I grew up on that music. So he's a big icon for music to me. But this, Def Comedy Jam, is a damn institution.