If you don't know Ali Siddiq yet, it's okay. You will. It's inevitable. I met Ali a year or two into his career, just a few months before I began stand up myself, and I remember watching him take a standing ovation as a support act for another very successful comedian at he time. It was magic.

What I didn't know was that I was watching a kid freshly released from prison, before apprearances on BET, HBO, and Comedy Central, on a mission to do something different. Ali was arrestd for dealing drugs while he was still in his teens an served 6 years of a 15 year prison term.

The journey is well documented in his Comedy Central special It's Bigger Than These Bars, a special that came after he nonchalantly won the network's Up Next contest in 2013.

And all along the way, he has remained one of the most prolific stand up comedians in a generation. Ali Siddiq and I talk about what inspires him to turn something into comedy.

Watch "It's Bigger Than These Bars" on Comedy Central, or for Ali's entire catalogue, visit AliSiddiq.com

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