Possibly you assume you already know 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 situation is soft-spoken and delicate. His demeanor is straightforward; he’s fast to snicker. (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 possibly 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 after we converse, he’s simply put one in every of his sons down for a nap.
One factor is definite: Cannon isn’t slowing down. As we speak, on the helm of a media empire that features a number of podcasts and tv reveals, he’s one in every of a small variety of actors who’ve efficiently navigated the transition from a standard 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 celebrity creator, with greater than one million subscribers on YouTube and a whole bunch 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 kind of private pinnacle, a media success story that’s on the intersection of his non-public 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 fulfillment as a teen.
“Actually, what sort of acquired 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 form of my model of comedy and my model of leisure within the ‘90s,” Cannon tells SUCCESS®. “So, to see that form of come full circle and it truly 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 form of like second nature for me.”
Ranging from scratch
Within the leisure enterprise, it’s famously all about who you already know.
Cannon didn’t develop up with the connections usually required for Hollywood superstardom. He was raised primarily by his paternal grandparents in a public housing growth 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 outdated when he acquired 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 forged of the hit sketch present All That in its fifth season. The Nickelodeon sequence, which was like Saturday Evening Reside for youths, was a staple of the community’s programming for near a decade, and Cannon, for the entire foolish characters he performed, took it extraordinarily severely. “I used to be a teen on the time, coming from my neighborhood like, ‘I’d do something to rise up out of right here. Give me a costume; 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 awesome entertainer, however he had the aptitude for laborious work and the mindset of an awesome 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 Alternative Awards and Black Reel Awards—and Love Don’t Value a Factor. Then, there was Wild ‘N Out—half sketch comedy, half rap battle, half improvised sport 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 pals [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 individuals can hear voices like Katt Williams, and Kevin Hart, and Pete Davidson, and Mikey Day and Matt Rife.’”
Cannon felt sure that he had successful on his palms, 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, acquired my pals 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 concept, I wouldn’t have been in a position to personal Wild ‘N Out to this present day,” Cannon says.
Retaining 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 concept, Cannon causes. It simply means it would take slightly extra laborious work to make it occur. His record of present inventive endeavors is lengthy and contains 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 company focus on far-ranging subjects, from the jail system to homeschooling to hip-hop; and Nick Cannon’s Huge Drive, a Tubi present that finds him hopping within the automotive and using 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 recommended each other?”
Cannon connects to Counsel Tradition on a private degree: “Being somebody who has been on the chopping block many occasions, I’ve at all times simply recognized that, as a substitute of attempting to cancel each other, if we might counsel each other, I feel there could 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 dialogue, however he additionally will get to offer different individuals a platform they won’t 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 gifted and hungry younger individuals their first alternatives.
“We get to curate this younger leisure house,” he says. “One among 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 retaining it open for everyone.”
A balancing act
If the thought of internet hosting a number of podcasts and TV reveals whereas additionally working your personal media firm feels like a variety of work, nicely, it’s. And whereas Cannon is at some extent in his profession the place he may coast, doing the occasional film or TV present and in any other case quietly gathering 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 form of makes a lot sense… all of the issues individuals say I can’t do, I’m like, ‘Effectively, 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 children—Monroe, Moroccan, Golden, Highly effective, Zion, Zillion, Zen, Legendary, Onyx, Rise, Lovely and Halo—he has a lot 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 every of his daughters from college.
However being a mum or dad has given him a sense of objective even larger than probably the most thrilling leisure alternatives.
“Possibly 10 years in the past, I used to be form of like—I used to be searching for a brand new problem. I used to be searching for 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 children. No matter their goals and aspirations are, I’m simply attempting to feed into that and spend money on them as a lot as I presumably can.”
And for those who’re questioning how he presumably balances all of his leisure tasks with elevating a dozen children… Effectively, he says, it takes multiple calendar. “It’s time administration; it’s vitality administration. No matter I put my vitality in the direction of, I’ll discover the time. I feel 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 move all the way down to all of his children.
“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 few of the outdated methods of doing issues in Hollywood, and success is one thing you possibly can 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 may be 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 yr, with a renewed emphasis on well being and wellness. The road of NCredible Meals merchandise will embrace NCredible Vitality, an all-natural, zero-sugar vitality 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 every of my different jobs,” he laughs.
It’s all in keeping with Cannon’s perception that something could be achieved 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 informed him again within the early 2000s that the little present he dreamt up in order that his pals 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 can 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 acquired 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 Might/June 2025 situation of SUCCESS journal. Picture by Nick Onken.
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