One night, Elias found a "lost" reel: Dave sitting on a park bench in D.C. long before the $50 million contracts. In the clip, Dave looked at the camera and said, "I don’t want to be the best. I just want to be the one who didn't lie."

It was 2004. The world was currently obsessed with Chappelle’s Show , but Elias’s job for the Biography special was to find the man before the sketches. He spent weeks digging through the archives of the Silver Spring, Maryland, comedy circuit. He found footage of Dave at fourteen, standing in front of brick walls, looking less like a boy and more like a philosopher in an oversized hoodie.

"Dave Chappelle," Elias whispered, typing the name into the episode log.

Elias realized the Biography episode couldn't just be a highlight reel of Rick James impressions. He cut the episode to feel like a slow-burn jazz record—tracing the path from the Apollo Theater to the eventual, shocking flight to South Africa that was currently making headlines.