DeRay Davis stands up to painful situations with humor

Anyone can talk about drugs, violence, poverty, family dysfunction. But DeRay Davis is funny when he does it.

"My mother was on drugs as I was growing up. I had to find a lighter side of it," says Davis, who performs this weekend at the Pittsburgh Improv. "Believe me, it wasn't funny then."

In one bit, he jokes about his mother being too broke to buy her children Christmas presents. Instead, she tried to pretend that she'd never heard of Santa Claus. The other neighborhood kids were just pulling their leg, she told DeRay and his siblings.

That was his way of hinting at his mother's drug problems. He spoke more frankly about it on "Shaq & Cedric the Entertainer Present the All Star Comedy Jam," which came out on DVD last year.

He became a comedian when he heckled a comic who was performing in a local club. The comedian challenged him to do better. Davis, who'd performed as a rapper, transferred those skills to standup.

"I just went onstage and stared talking about my family. They didn't appreciate it."

Do they appreciate it now that he's living the showbiz life in Los Angeles?

"Are you kidding me?" he says. "I'm scared to answer the phone! I rarely get a general hello. There's always a clause in there."

He describes his education as "street school. No college. Five years of high school." He says he was married at 19 and divorced at 21.

"It felt like eight years," he says.

He scored his career breakthrough at the Laffapalooza Festival in Atlanta. He moved to the West Coast and eventually landed a small but memorable role in "Barbershop," the 2002 comedy starring Ice Cube and Cedric the Entertainer.

Since then, he's appeared in films like "Frankenhood" and the remake of "The Fog." He also contributed comic skits to the Kanye West recordings "Late Registration" and "College Dropout."

His onstage persona is that of the motor-mouthed hustler adopted by many black comedians. But while he uses plenty of ghetto-centric profanity, there are actual jokes beneath the swagger.

Davis says he hopes to land a role in the movie "Abduction," which shoots in Pittsburgh in July. The film stars Taylor Lautner ("Twilight") as a disaffected teen who discovers that the people he thinks are his parents actually kidnapped him when he was a baby. John Singleton, who will direct, also will direct Davis in his own concert film, which will be shot in Chicago.

Additional Information:

DeRay Davis

When: 8 p.m. Thursday; 8 and 10 p.m. Friday; 7 and 9 p.m. Saturday and 7 p.m. Sunday

Admission: $17-$20

Where: Pittsburgh Improv, Waterfront, Downtown

Details: 412-462-5233