Possibly you assume you understand Nick Cannon.
The 44-year-old actor, comic, musician and entrepreneur has been a presence on our TV screens since he was a boisterous teenager on Nickelodeon’s All That within the late ’90s, and he’s been a tabloid headline fixture since not lengthy after that.
However the Cannon who sits down with SUCCESS® for our leisure problem is soft-spoken and mild. His demeanor is straightforward; he’s fast to snort. (OK, that half you most likely may have guessed.) Possibly that’s as a result of years of laborious work within the leisure trade have taught him when it’s OK to be quiet or perhaps he doesn’t have as a lot to show at this level, a long time into the profession he constructed out of skinny air. Maybe it’s as a result of once we converse, he’s simply put one in all his sons down for a nap.
One factor is for certain: Cannon will not be slowing down. Right this moment, on the helm of a media empire that features a number of podcasts and tv reveals, he’s one in all a small variety of actors who’ve efficiently navigated the transition from a conventional leisure and media financial system to search out success within the digital house. He’s nonetheless an actor and entertainer—he’s been the host of The Masked Singer since 2019—however he’s additionally a famous person creator, with greater than 1,000,000 subscribers on YouTube and tons of of hundreds of followers throughout his different platforms watching and listening as he sits down with Suge Knight, TikTok-famous hip-hop duo Flyana Boss or Mike Tyson.
For Cannon, this present period is a form of private pinnacle, a media success story that’s on the intersection of his personal life, his inventive life and his entrepreneurial mindset. However whereas he sees the digital media house as the way forward for leisure, in a humorous means, it’s additionally a return to the leisure ecosystem the place he first hustled for achievement as a youngster.
“Actually, what sort of received me on was I used to be a child with a camcorder, a child [who] would go do interviews and man-on-the-street stuff. That was type of my fashion of comedy and my fashion of leisure within the ‘90s,” Cannon tells SUCCESS®. “So, to see that type of come full circle and it really grow to be a real enterprise right this moment with all of the creators and influencers, it’s like—wow. I’ve been doing this all my life, and it’s type of like second nature for me.”
Ranging from scratch
Within the leisure enterprise, it’s famously all about who you understand.
Cannon didn’t develop up with the connections sometimes required for Hollywood superstardom. He was raised primarily by his paternal grandparents in a public housing improvement in southeast San Diego, California, the place gang tradition was prevalent and expertise scouts weren’t. However the future star was motivated from a younger age—and he was humorous. He was 11 years previous when he received his first gig, performing stand-up comedy on his dad’s cable-access program.
He was nonetheless a teen when he was added to the solid of the hit sketch present All That throughout its fifth season. The Nickelodeon sequence, which was like Saturday Night time Dwell for youths, was a staple of the community’s programming for near a decade, and Cannon, for all the foolish characters he performed, took it extraordinarily critically. “I used to be a youngster on the time, coming from my neighborhood like, ‘I’d do something to rise up out of right here. Give me a gown; I’ll put it on! I ain’t scared. Is there a test that comes with it? Let’s go!’” he recalled in a 2014 oral historical past of the present.
The younger actor had the center and spirit of an amazing entertainer, however he had the aptitude for laborious work and the mindset of an amazing entrepreneur. His time on All That (and The Nick Cannon Present, though short-lived) led to starring roles in movies Drumline—for which Cannon’s breakthrough efficiency was nominated for MTV Film Awards, Teen Selection Awards and Black Reel Awards—and Love Don’t Price a Factor. Then, there was Wild ‘N Out—half sketch comedy, half rap battle, half improvised recreation present and all from the thoughts of 1 Nick Cannon.
“Once I began the present, I used to be a younger child trying to discover a place to voice my perspective and opinion in a comedic means, and I had so many associates [who] didn’t even have the chance that I had,” he remembers. “So, I used to be like, ‘Oh, let me open this door. Let me create this stage so folks can hear voices like Katt Williams, and Kevin Hart, and Pete Davidson, and Mikey Day and Matt Rife.’”
Cannon felt sure that he had a success on his fingers, however MTV executives heard “hip-hop improv comedy present” and weren’t so positive. “They didn’t get it. They didn’t perceive it,” he says. “So, I actually invested in myself, took my very own cash, rented a comedy membership, rented some cameras, received my associates collectively and shot the pilot episode of Wild ‘N Out.” It wasn’t the normal means of doing issues, however it labored. “And if I’d have gone the normal route, allow them to make a pilot, and them pay for it and develop an thought, I wouldn’t have been capable of personal Wild ‘N Out to at the present time,” Cannon says.
Preserving doorways open
This has been his playbook since he was younger—together with his reveals and together with his music. Listening to “no” doesn’t make it a nasty thought, Cannon causes. It simply means it would take somewhat extra laborious work to make it occur. His listing of present inventive endeavors is lengthy and consists of The Every day Cannon, a radio present on which he typically highlights up-and-coming music and comedy expertise; audio and video podcast Cannon’s Class, on which visitors focus on far-ranging subjects, from the jail system to homeschooling to hip-hop; and Nick Cannon’s Large Drive, a Tubi present that finds him hopping within the automotive and driving together with everybody from Snoop Dogg to Rita Ora.
After which there’s Counsel Tradition, the Cannon-hosted psychological well being podcast and present that asks, “What if, as a substitute of attempting to cancel each other, we endorsed each other?”
Cannon connects to Counsel Tradition on a private stage: “Being somebody who has been on the chopping block many instances, I’ve at all times simply identified that, as a substitute of attempting to cancel each other, if we’d counsel each other, I believe there can be a lot atonement,” he chuckles. “I actually sit in that house as if I’m sitting on my therapist’s sofa, being as candid and as weak.”
However like all of his leisure tasks, it’s a win-win: Not solely does Cannon have full inventive management over the content material, themes and subjects of debate, however he additionally will get to provide different folks a platform they may not in any other case have. Now that he’s in his 40s, the previous teen sensation says one of the vital rewarding issues is giving different proficient and hungry younger folks their first alternatives.
“We get to curate this younger leisure house,” he says. “Certainly one of my presents is to have the ability to acknowledge different peoples’ presents and to be that man to say, ‘Hey, this particular person’s subsequent. This particular person deserves a chance,’” he says.
“If I’m a gatekeeper, I’m the one man holding the gate open,” he continues. “I’m protecting it open for everyone.”
A balancing act
If the concept of internet hosting a number of podcasts and TV reveals whereas additionally operating your personal media firm seems like lots of work, nicely, it’s. And whereas Cannon is at a degree in his profession the place he may coast, doing the occasional film or TV present and in any other case quietly amassing royalty checks, that’s by no means been a mindset that feels snug for him.
“Once I sit with my therapist, he calls me a machete juggler,” he laughs. “It type of makes a lot sense… all of the issues folks say I can’t do, I’m like, ‘Properly, watch me. Imma present you. Throw me yet one more machete.’”
Even fatherhood, he grins, is one thing he approaches in a “machete-juggler sort of means.” With 12 youngsters—Monroe, Moroccan, Golden, Highly effective, Zion, Zillion, Zen, Legendary, Onyx, Rise, Lovely and Halo—he has loads to maintain him busy as a mum or dad. He put his son down for a nap simply earlier than our name, and in a short time, he’ll go choose up one in all his daughters from faculty.
However being a mum or dad has given him a sense of goal even higher than probably the most thrilling leisure alternatives.
“Possibly 10 years in the past, I used to be type of like—I used to be in search of a brand new problem. I used to be in search of one thing else to intrigue me and encourage me,” he says. “Now, I don’t need to look, as a result of it’s proper there in all my youngsters. No matter their desires and aspirations are, I’m simply attempting to feed into that and put money into them as a lot as I probably can.”
And for those who’re questioning how he probably balances all of his leisure tasks with elevating a dozen youngsters… Properly, he says, it takes a couple of calendar. “It’s time administration; it’s power administration. No matter I put my power in direction of, I’ll discover the time. I believe it’s actually the place my ardour lies,” he explains.
“Idealistic optimism”
Cannon says he’s extra mature than he’s ever been—fatherhood helps with that. However, in some ways, he’s nonetheless the wide-eyed child he was within the early 2000s, filled with a youthful exuberance that spills out into his life and work. He explains that he has an “idealistic optimism” that issues will occur for you for those who work laborious to determine it out, and that’s an ethos he hopes he’ll cross all the way down to all of his youngsters.
“I don’t assume that the entrepreneurial spirit has been extra alive than it’s proper now,” Cannon says, his eyes glowing.
He signifies that broadly—the truth that any younger particular person can file a humorous video and add it to Instagram or YouTube in moments has upended a number of the previous methods of doing issues in Hollywood, and success is one thing you may attain out and seize for your self now greater than ever. You don’t even need to have a camcorder the best way Cannon did, as a future star doing man-on-the-street-style interviews; only a smartphone will do.
However he is also referring to himself, particularly. Not content material to easily run a media firm, the ever-enterprising Cannon’s NCredible model is moving into a brand new house this 12 months, with a renewed emphasis on well being and wellness. The road of NCredible Meals merchandise will embrace NCredible Power, an all-natural, zero-sugar power drink made with pure caffeine.
“I simply actually, most likely within the final 5 years, dove into that world in such an actual means…. That’s an area that folks don’t know I’m concerned in: I’m an herbalist for one in all my different jobs,” he laughs.
It’s all in keeping with Cannon’s perception that something will be completed with sufficient laborious work and dedication, as long as you don’t let anybody sway you out of your targets. He noticed it firsthand with Wild ‘N Out, the scrappy upstart present no tv executives understood at first. Now airing on VH1, the present wrapped its twenty first season in 2024.
Cannon shakes his head, smiling. Should you’d have advised him again within the early 2000s that the little present he dreamt up in order that his associates had a spot to inform jokes and rap collectively would nonetheless be round 20-plus years later, he most likely wouldn’t have believed you. However, because it seems, he had a trailblazing imaginative and prescient in what you would accomplish by casting individuals who had been viral sensations however had little or no tv publicity.
Trying again on it now, “The trajectory wasn’t linear by any means,” he says, explaining how he received the place he’s right this moment. “However I’m so grateful for it. I’m so grateful for each journey, for each lesson.”
This text seems within the Could/June 2025 problem of SUCCESS journal. Photograph by Nick Onken.
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