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Dave Chappelle took to an outdoor stage in his hometown of Yellow Springs, Ohio, in June 2020 to deliver a monologue that was less a stand-up set and more a direct, furious reaction to the murder of George Floyd. Filmed at the Wirrig Pavilion under strict pandemic guidelines, the performance played to an audience of roughly 100 socially distanced, masked locals. Rather than chasing punchlines, Chappelle spent his 27 minutes addressing the nationwide protests, the historical weight of systemic violence, and his own exhaustion with the cycle of Black deaths at the hands of law enforcement.

The performance, directed by Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar, bypassed Netflix’s main subscription service and went straight to YouTube for free, with a message directing viewers to support the Equal Justice Initiative. Chappelle anchors his thoughts with a comparison of the 35 seconds of terror he experienced during the 1994 Northridge earthquake to the grueling eight minutes and forty-six seconds of Floyd’s death. He also targets conservative commentator Candace Owens and CNN’s Don Lemon, defending his own initial silence by arguing that the protestors on the streets do not need a celebrity to speak for them. The title of the set carries a double meaning, noting that the length of Floyd’s death matches Chappelle’s own time of birth on his birth certificate.