Chris Rock

Chris Rock's 1996 special Bring the Pain, which aired on HBO, is widely considered the watershed moment in modern stand-up comedy and won Rock 2 Emmy Awards. His 1999 follow-up Bigger and Blacker earned a Grammy for Best Spoken Comedy Album. Rock's pointed observations on race, relationships, and American culture have made him one of the most quoted comedians alive, with his material studied in university courses on rhetoric.