7th February 1966 - (present)
Born to Rose and Julius Rock in Andrews, South Carolina as the first of six children and raised in Brooklyn, New York. His childhood included a family life under his strict disciplinarian father and an ultimately unsuccessful education spent at a nearly all-white school, suffering regular racist beatings from his peers. He dropped out of school and later got himself a GED which, according to Chris, stands for 'Good Enough Diploma'.
A veteran of the stand-up comedy circuit, Chris has been performing for over twelve years, rising to fame after being 'discovered' by Eddie Murphy in 1987 and consequently earning him his first acting role - a bit part as a parking valet in Beverly Hills Cop II. But his big break came in 1990 when he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live, lampooning black leaders and creating characters such as the militant talk-show host, Nat X. He left the show in 1993 and wrote his first HBO special, 'Big Ass Jokes' as well as co-writing and starring in CB4, a hip-hop rockumentary very much in the same vein as This Is Spinal Tap. "This Is Spinal Rap", said many clever, clever critics. Aside from performing live, he continues to write films, the most recent of which being Down To Earth and he's also written a book, Rock This!, part autobiographical and part a collection of his comedy routines.
He won an Emmy award for his work covering the 1996 political conventions on Politically Incorrect (shared with the rest of the cast) and his second HBO special, Bring The Pain earned him a further two Emmys to his ever-expanding collection. He's also been cited as being the next Richard Pryor, the next Eddie Murphy and even the next Lenny Bruce although, at least as far as 'the next Bill Hicks' goes, his advertising work for 1-800-COLLECT and Nike makes his position on the Artistic Roll Call debatable.
discography
1999: Bigger & Blacker
1997: Roll With The New
1991: Born Suspect
filmography
2002: Bad Company - Jake Hayes / Kevin Pope
2001: Pootie Tang
2001: Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back - Chaka Luther King
2001: Osmosis Jones - voice of Osmosis Jones
2001: Down to Earth - Lance Barton
2000: Nurse Betty - Wesley
2000: Whatever Happened to Micheal Ray? - Narrator
1999: Dogma - Rufus
1998: Lethal Weapon 4 - Lee Butters
1998: Doctor Dolittle - voice of Rodney
1997: Beverly Hills Ninja - Joey
1996: Sgt. Bilko - Lieutenant Oster
1995: The Immortals - Deke Anthony
1995: Panther - Yuck Mouth
1993: CB4 - Albert
1992: Boomerang - Bony T
1991: New Jack City - Pookie
1988: I'm Gonna Git You Sucka - Rib Joint Customer
1987: Beverly Hills Cop II - Parking Valet
with thanks to a massive list of fan-sites each responsible for filling in the gaps in my research and, of course, the internet movie database for checking the accuracy of his filmography.