48
ESQ: This issue is about what fame means in- We thought you guys would be the per-
fect people to talk to about it, given your own
ascent, which we don’t have to get into, be-
cause, you know, you’re famous.
DESUS: We thank you for that, because every
interview is like 20 minutes of “How’d you
meet?” Maybe that’s part of fame, you com-
ing to interviews like: You already know that;
don’t you dare ask that.
ESQ: That’s the thing about social media, too.
We just know everything all the time.
D: Because remember, back in the day, you never
knew what a rapper was doing. You didn’t
know what Ghostface Killah had for breakfast.
You didn’t even know if they had emotions.
ESQ: What did you guys think about Twitter
back in the day, when you were first start-
ing to do cultural commentary, before you
had a big audience?
MERO: I was writing a blog, just like sitting
around with friends and shit, and we would
be smokin’, and then I would just pop out like
a random non sequitur, and my homegirl’s like,
“Twitter is made for your wild ADD-ass brain.”
D: When I first started, in like ’08, I was work-
ing at nightclubs. So when I was tweeting,
it was basically a journal. You’d say some
fucked-up stuff, because you never thought
there would be this culture of “Yo, let’s see
what the fuck you said on September 13,
2009.” I think people on Twitter now, they
don’t have that freedom we had.
ESQ: You don’t really see it as a source of fame
anymore. The people who’ve made the most
of Twitter to achieve things...
M:... already achieved it!
ESQ: What counts as being famous? Where is
the bar now?
D: There’s a Jerry Seinfeld quote—he says that be-
ing famous means you meet a person and they
know everything about you but you know noth-
ing about them, and you have to repeat this hun-
dreds of times a day. But it kind of means some-
thing different in New York. New Yorkers make
eye contact with you real quick, they might do a
head nod, and they just keep on moving.
ESQ: Mero, I just saw a video of you in the
Dominican Republic. People were chant-
ing, “Mero!” DANA STARBARD/SHOWTIME
M: Yo, it was nuts. I fully expected to walk out
there and people to be like, “Who the fuck is
this guy, and why is he having all this unfettered
access to this shit?” And I just hear one dude be
like, “Ay, Mero!” but in Spanish: “Mero, Mero!”
I was like, “Y’all get Showtime out here?”
ESQ: That’s one of those smell-the-roses
moments.
M: Hell yeah, bruh. I was like, “See, Mom, it’s
legit; it’s international.”
ESQ: Parents will always appreciate something
different from what you will.
D: My mother, when she got to this coun-
try, one of her main jobs was she worked in
a New York Public Library. One day, my good
friend Lisa Lucas, who is in charge of the Na-
tional Book Foundation, was like, “We want
to interview you at a library.” Packed house.
Everyone was like, “We’re so proud of you—
you were raised as a baby in the library,” and
everyone afterward was showing me pictures
of my mother, like, “Yo, send this to your
mother!” And I showed that to my mother,and she literally teared up, like, “Wow, you’re
really out there; you’re really famous.” And
I was like, “I was just hanging with AOC and
Don Cheadle—this is what impresses you?”
ESQ: People remind you to smell the roses be-
cause it’s so hard to remind yourself.
D: I think because our lives had really just such
low bottoms, everything here feels like the
highest point. If you’re not able to become
comfortable in this, it’s going to kill you. Be-
ing famous means not only do you have to be
comfortable with yourself but also comfort-
able with the way the world views you and you
not being able to change that view.
ESQ: A new level of fame is when people don’t
know you by your real names. Does anyonecall you by your real names anymore?
D: I was just at Shake Shack and I used my real
name, and everyone was super fucking con-
fused. Everyone at Shake Shack is like, “Who’s
this famous person?” And there’s this one guy
on staff, he does the nod, and I’m like, “You
know who I am. So put extra ShackSauce on
there, man—hook that up for me.”
ESQ: What do you guys do now to make a point
of keeping your feet on the ground?
M: Bro, like, I am anchored to the ground. I
have four kids; my wife does not call me Mero.
My kids are like, “Yeah, you’re on TV—that’s
cool, but that just means you can buy us more
video games.” I am still going to basketball
practice; I’m still at ShopRite. I don’t even
have the space to get bigheaded.
D: I’m still in the Bronx. Every night, I have to
go buy beer and go buy blunt wraps. I always
talk to people in the ’hood, just asking them
about their day. And these people are like, “Yo,
I can’t pay my rent this month” or whatever,
and it just reinforces the fact that, like, we evenmade it out of the Bronx was super lucky. The
whole thing goes back to fame. We have to han-
dle it well, because they’re watching and they
hope we make it. I want to keep continuing to
help you out and help the Bronx.
ESQ: Last question: Who’s the most famous
person in the world?
M: Right now, this second? I feel like it’s
Donald Trump, unfortunately. He’s always in
the news; people all over the world are talking
about this jerk-off.
D: I gotta go with Jesus. Jesus is the most fa-
mous person in the world. And it’s not even in
a good way. Even if you’re an atheist, you stub
your toe, you’re like, “Ah, fuck, Jesus fucking
Christ.” It’s just great branding.Desus and
Mero and their
guest, Elizabeth
Warren, on the set
of the duo’s
Showtime series.“MY KIDS ARE LIKE, ‘YEAH, YOU’RE ON
TV—THAT’S COOL, BUT THAT JUST MEANS
YOU CAN BUY US MORE VIDEO GAMES.’ ”THE SHORT STORIES#KNOWLEDGEDARTS