No matter how big you get, you still gotta walk through the kitchen," Chris Rock says as he navigates the bowels of the Pala Casino, outside San Diego. He arrives backstage just as his opening act and longtime friend, Mario Joyner, pushes through the door, applause echoing in his wake.

"It's a weird one," Joyner warns. " The lights are really bright, and you gotta walk through the audience."

Rock stretches his arms out, and his road manager slips a black leather jacket over his shoulders. Rock doesn't say a word. He rarely does. On the road, he is contemplative and aloof, preferring the ear buds of his iPod to human interaction, even when heavy hitters such as Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler show up backstage. Though he may be tired of comparisons to his mentor, Eddie Murphy, Rock, in his leather jacket, black pants and a pencil-thin mustache, looks like a thinner, less bling version of Murphy on his 1987 Raw tour.

Rock's own Black Ambition tour is just weeks away from its climax: The Washington, D.C., taping of his fourth HBO special, Never Scared, his long-awaited return to stand-up comedy after a four-year Hollywood onslaught. These specials have become Rock's equivalent of a discography, each new release spawning dozens of jokes that will be committed to memory like song lyrics by tens of thousands of fans.

Despite appearing in eight films since his last HBO special (including his directing debut, Head of State), Rock has yet to earn a name for himself as a box-office moneymaker or even a critical favorite. His forte remains the stage, where he makes eliciting an hour and a half of constant laughter seem effortless. He offers few jokes, per se, just a constant stream of witty, intelligent observations on celebrities, politics, race, culture and marriage that few others in a position of cultural power seem to be making.

"People got into this whole hate-the-French thing," he declaims as he paces the stage at the Pala Casino. "The United States, we're the biggest, most powerful country in the world. Why would France help us out in a war against little-ass Iraq? Would you help Mike Tyson beat up Urkel?"

Two weeks later, Rock is sitting alone in his room at the Ritz-Carlton in Philadelphia, relaxing before a show. Though in San Diego he warmed up for his performance with Jay-Z, today his iPod is blasting Fiona Apple. A news broadcast plays silently on the television set. When a headline about investigators finding images of alleged child pornography at Pee-wee Herman's house scrolls across the screen, Rock shakes his head. "One of the funniest guys who ever lived," he says with a sigh.

When a golf tournament begins, Rock reaches for the remote control and switches channels. "In case you say I was watching golf," he explains. He lands on a Mike Myers movie and settles back on the couch, nestling a BlackBerry PDA in his lap.

You know, people always turn to rap and sports as ways out of the ghetto. But no one talks about stand-up comedy as a way out.

I know. You never hear people saying, "Good thing I'm telling these jokes, or else I'd be robbing somebody." That's funny. I just might do that on tonight's show. At the end of the day, comedy is still, like, some nerd shit. It involves connecting with people and paying attention. It's like everything you don't want to do in school.

Didn't you try to get into rap?

I have demo tapes. Somewhere there is a Chris Rock rap demo. I grew up in the middle of rap: Grandmaster Flash, Kurtis Blow, the Treacherous 3 and the Crash Crew battle. But my aspirations died early.

Do a lot of rappers ask you to do skits on their albums?

All the time. I did something for Ice Cube a few years ago. I think ahead. If I want this guy for my album, I'll do something. I told Dre I would do anything for him. He's talking about doing the Detox album. I'll write a whole sketch for that. But you don't want to do too many of those. Rap timetables are the worst. You end up waiting for hours.

Yeah, Tupac was notorious for that.

I remember the last time I saw Tupac. It was after the MTV Video Music Awards [in 1996]. I had just done Bring the Pain. And at the last minute, MTV called me up to present. I wasn't quite big enough to host yet. So I get up onstage, I present some award, I try a couple jokes, and then I see Suge Knight in the audience. I said, "Hey, Suge, don't kill me." And the audience laughs, right? There was that kind of tension. And later on, remember, they had the afterparty at Bryant Park?

I'll never forget that party. Tupac was walking around with this parade of thugs carrying Death Row signs and posters.

Yeah, it was a weird night. First, Eric B. comes up to me. He goes, "Yo, man, I don't know if you should have done that joke about Suge, man." He's like, "The spot is hot right now." It was Eric B., man -- the original thug life. Eric B. is from around my old way. Eric B. was driving a Rolls-Royce before he ever put out a record. That's all I've got to say. With rims. Nobody else was even talking about rims. My man was gangsta. And he's telling me this. Then Hammer comes up and tells me the same thing: "Yo, man, don't mess with Suge." And Hammer is gangsta, man. Have you ever been around Hammer?

Are you serious? Hammer?

Hammer ain't no punk, man. Hammer is more gangsta than all these guys. He rolls with the hardest crew, because it's a combination of jail guys and military guys, because Hammer was in the Navy or some shit. When those motherfuckers rolled up, you fucking listened. Then Tupac comes up to me. And he says, "Hey, man, that was kinda funny what you did." He shook my hand, and he had really clammy hands. Like he soaked them in Camay or some shit. And he said, "I saw you on HBO, saying that 'niggers and black people' shit." He had half a smirk. I got the feeling that Pac was a minute away from punching me.

His voice had a tone of menace to it?

Yeah, but because I roll by myself and I don't wear gold or nothing, it keeps me out of a lot of trouble. Whereas if I rolled like Eddie Murphy '88 -- if I had the shades and the leather and ten guys and a diamond ring over my gloves -- I'd be getting into fights.

Literally three days after that MTV party, Tupac was shot.

What's weird is, a week after that, I had to go to L.A. to do videos. And everywhere I went people were like, "Yo, man, you shouldn't have said that shit about Suge." I've never seen people fear a guy so much in my life. It was like the whole world had become high school. And these were gangstas -- not just punks like me. That guy made some great records, though. Suge Knight's name is on some of the best records ever.

I remember interviewing Snoop Dogg right after he left Death Row, and he had no bodyguards, no security, nothing. He'd recorded this song about how Suge Knight was responsible for Tupac's death. And he wasn't scared.

The weirdest thing about being really successful is that you are kind of ready to die. Especially now that I've got kids. I mean, I want to live. Don't get me wrong. But I'm not in fear of dying. I've made my mark. Death is the enemy of my family -- of my wife and my daughters. But to me as an artist, it's actually my friend.

You've never really had a major scandal. You wouldn't be a good subject for an "E! True Hollywood Story."

If you really look, there are a couple of things. But I put a lot of my demons in the show. I tell people onstage, "Hey, I've been high. I've done some fucked-up shit." And I'll suffer for the fucked-up shit I did. It's all on me. When you present yourself as someone who is perfect, then, yeah, you are going to have problems. But I'm here to tell ya, I'm not above getting caught in a hotel room with Salma Hayek. I hope it doesn't happen, but if it does, I don't think my fans would be shocked. Of course, my wife would kill me.

Is there a pound of weed in my bag? Hey, I don't know, but I'm not going to say there isn't. I'm not going to sit here and say I've never done coke or anything.

How about crack? So many of your jokes and characters revolve around crack.

Basically, whatever was going on when you started getting laid will stick with you for the rest of your life. So crack was just a big part of my life, between my friends selling it or girls I used to like getting hooked on it. White people had the Internet; the ghetto had crack. It's weird, too. Crack and the VCR and the portable hand-held camera -- all this shit came out at the same time.

And how are they connected for you?

That whole being able to tape shit came out around the same time as crack. So you saw all these weird images of guy's mothers blowing people on video for some crack. Or you go over to your friend's house and there's a porno tape of a girl you used to date blowing eight guys. That's crack. I have never been to war, but I survived that shit. I lost friends and family members. The whole neighborhood was kinda on crack. Especially living in Bed-Stuy [in Brooklyn], man.

And at the same time, in the end, what does this produce? Gangsta rap. This is one of the things that goes into the misogyny of rap. You see all these young guys with this weird, distorted view of women, because these women they used to hold on a pedestal are now doing all this nasty shit. That's how you get N.W.A; that's how you get a record like A Bitch Is a Bitch; that's how you get Tupac saying crazy shit on record.

So did you ever try it?

The closest I ever got to doing crack was selling crack. Me and a friend of mine, we took these jobs at a camp just to get money. We were going to get paid a thousand or two thousand at the end of the summer and then take that money and buy some crack to sell. But of course he got hooked on crack before we could go out and do it. And then right after that, God brought comedy in my life.

I wonder what would have happened if you had started selling it?

Who knows what would have happened. I would have been dumb to have done it. I'm not saying, "If it wasn't for comedy, I'd be selling crack." But I remember sitting with my friends, cutting up coke like it was yesterday: cocaine, lactose, vitamin B12. Cook it up -- crack. I am so lucky I never tried crack. The most I did was put some coke on my tongue.

What gave you the strength and the resources to avoid it?

I don't know if it was the strength and the resources. One of my brothers was an abuser of . . . things. So he kind of saved my life, by his example. People always get mad at athletes for getting high? I'm happy for every one. Dwight Gooden saved my life; Darryl Strawberry saved my life. Because they always get punished. It's not like they get caught doing drugs and they get a raise.

Watching you perform the last few shows, it's amazing how you skate right on the line of what is acceptable and what isn't. What's controversial is that I've probably argued both sides of every subject. I can argue for or against everything.

When you were doing the Janet Jackson bit in your show, you decided to come down against her. What's the other side?

On one hand, you are crazy to whip out a titty on a Sunday afternoon. On the other hand, there are jet fighters flying over the stadium and people are cheering, "Hey, go murder more people." This titty, we can't have this -- but murdering jets, now that's all right.

I'm surprised by the near-apathy of popular artists to what's going on in the world right now.

Can you believe there is no Rage Against the Machine? There is no Public Enemy? There's no Arrested Development? No one is talking about anything. Nobody young gives a fuck. The only people that even mention that there is a fucking war are, like, me and Al Franken? It's a fucking sad time for art. Art is dead, man.

Especially since now the right song can make a difference before the election and maybe put a catchphrase in people's heads.

There is not one record on the radio that reflects anything that is going on, except for the guy, what's his name? McGraw? Chesnutt? Toby Keith, I mean. I don't agree with those guys. But I respect them, because at least they're fucking dealing with what's going on -- in their own crazy right-wing way.

We've got AIDS, SARS and all this shit going on. All these dead dolphins rolled up on some beach the other day. We are at fucking war, people are fucking broke, mothers are killing their kids, and the welfare thing is going on. And everyone is singing, "Everybody in the club getting tipsy." It's fucking insane.

I would guess you aren't pro-Bush, then.

I'm just not for war. Whoever the president is, I have an open mind when they come in. In my lifetime, no matter who is president, Harlem is Harlem and Compton is Compton.

I noticed you repeat yourself a lot onstage. You'll say a phrase six or seven times.

I probably got that from preachers. But also, if I gloss over the setup, it could be combustible. Especially when I get into racial dynamics. If you've got the nerve to be a rich nigger onstage, complaining about the plight of your people, everybody is like, "Fuck you, you are doing good" -- like I shouldn't care about my people because I can buy ten pairs of sneakers.

(April 7, 2004)