Baron Vaughn & Open Mike Eagle On 'The New Negroes'

(CBS Local)-- Baron Vaughn and Open Mike Eagle have been friends for a long time and Los Angeles is an important place in the context of their relationship.

It is where they started performing together and these performances would eventually lead to the creation of their new Comedy Central show "The New Negroes." Vaughn's specialty is comedy and Eagle's area of expertise is music and together the two have an interesting way of entertaining an audience.

"He is a world class stand-up comic," said Open Mike Eagle in an interview with CBS Local. "It's not always easy to stand up there and riff with him. Some of the best comics in the country are coming on stage and killing it. It was a great opportunity for me to escape from the doldrums of independent rap music."

The new stand-up and music series will feature household names such as Method Man and Tone Bell, while Vaughn and Eagle will also introduce a bunch of brand new black comedians. The guys are excited about the opportunity to amplify old and new voices.

"There's so many places to see comedy now," said Baron Vaughn. "You could say you are oversaturated in a way. To have a destination and a one stop shop to see a bunch of different kinds of comedians was always the goal.  So to take comedians that have been doing it for 5, 10, 15 years that aren't household names and give them the spotlight for a couple of minutes to do their thing is always good."

Vaughn said booking comedians for the show wasn't an issue. There were 24 total slots and they went through 1,000 people. Both Vaughn and Eagle know how cutthroat the entertainment business can be and recognize how hard you have to work when no one is watching.

"I've done shows when there's like seven people," said Eagle. "Four of the other seven people were also people on the show. That was in Athens, Georgia in 2013. I did a college show last year. The show was supposed to be on a patio and then it started raining. They moved the show inside to the student center where people were studying."

"I got you beat," said Vaughn. "I can't remember exactly what college it was, but it was a college show. Any college that books you has the authority to cancel the show. This college did not. There will literally two people in the audience 15 minutes after the show started."

The duo has come a long way since those moments. "The New Negroes" premieres Friday at 11pm EST/PST on Comedy Central.