Donnell M. Rawlings (born December 6, 1968) is an American comedian, actor, and radio host.[1] He is best known as a cast member on the Comedy Central sketch comedy TV series Chappelle's Show and the HBO drama The Wire.
Rawlings is most notable for frequently appearing in sketches on Chappelle's Show and hosting the third season along with Charlie Murphy. His catchphrase on the show was "I'm rich, biaaaaatch!" (which is played at the end of every episode as part of Dave Chappelle's vanity card) as well as frequently adding "Son!" at the end of each sentence.
He demonstrated his rudimentary knowledge of Korean, which he learned in the Air Force, in the sketches "Player Hater's Ball" and "The Time Haters", the latter of which was featured in the "Failures" episode. Rawlings reprised his role as the hater "Beautiful", known for wearing a Jheri curl and a suit similar to ones that Little Richard wore. In the sketches, he responded to the comments of Korean hater "Mr. Roboto" with insults in Korean. He reprised the role of Beautiful on Chappelle's episode of Saturday Night Live.[4]
On Heavy.com, Rawlings starred in a series of sketch comedy clips portraying his character Ashy Larry, from Chappelle's Show, called "From Ashy to Classy". Ashy Larry dreamed of how his life would be if he were classy and dreams up a character who he calls Ashford Lawrence, a supposed reporter for heavy.com. Ashy Larry would go to different high-class establishments posing as a reporter, where eventually his girl would appear and pull him out at the end of each clip.
Other work
Rawlings also made appearances on HBO drama series The Corner, playing Bread the dope fiend next to Fat Curt and The Wire, playing Damien Lavelle 'Day-Day' Price, an ex-convict who is hired as a legislative aide and driver for corrupt state senator Clay Davis. Price's character appears unrefined on several occasions, contemplating heists in public and stating things in court such as "Y'all tryin' to 'criminate me" while on the stand. Davis is played by fellow Chappelle's Show co-star Isiah Whitlock, Jr.
Rawlings appears in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 and in a cameo appearance in the music video for Jim Jones' "We Fly High" (Ballin' Remix). He was a regular on The Ricki Lake Show mostly as a judge on various challenge episodes.
In the summer of 2007, Rawlings was featured on the cover of the one-year anniversary issue of Beyond Race magazine. Rawlings was removed from his morning show post at Power 105's Ed Lover Show with Egypt and Ashy for a controversial comment he made during the aftermath of the Don Imus controversy, responding to Ed Lover's comment "That's a cheap black man, Nickel-Black" with "that's a Jewish black guy."[5][6]
In 2011, Rawlings appeared on the MTV2 show Guy Code which he has done two seasons, as well as the show Hip Hop Squares. He is also the judge for a Guy Codespin-off, Guy Court.
He also appeared on the April 23, 2014 episode of the Dr. Zoe Today show discussing his recent appearances with MTV and his comedy work.[8]
In 2015, he guest starred as an angel that took Jesus' divinity during his time of doubt in the "A Very Special Christmas in Compton" episode of Black Jesus.
Rawlings voices the barber Dez in the 2020 Pixar movie Soul.
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