Kel Mitchell dishes on ‘Good Burger 2’ with Jalen Rose
27.04.2023 - 04:55
/ nypost.com
Kel Mitchell as a young teen, when he and his partner in crime, Kenan Thompson, were introduced to the public on Nickelodeon’s “All That.”The hit show was sketch comedy, a theme song by TLC and performances from top hip-hop artists. And it was a dream for Kel, who grew up on the South Side of Chicago rapping and doing graffiti.“These are people that just a year ago I was just listening to on a CTA bus,” he told me on this week’s “Renaissance Man” of “All That’s” musical guests. “And now I’m chillin [with them].
And they were giving me advice. It definitely was like, ‘Yo, this is amazing right now.'” Of course, returning to his Chicago homestead after production was humbling.“I remember my parents, when I came back home, was like, ‘Take out the garbage.’ That’s why I love my family,” Kel told me. They kept him grounded as his star was rising.
He was raised by good stock. Both of his parents are now retired, but his mother was a teacher and his father was a psychologist. They knew they had a class clown on their hands, so they packed his schedule with anything they could find.
Boy Scouts, the church and, later, acting.“They tried everything when I was a kid. And I mean, I did every activity you could possibly think of. But acting is the one that stuck with me.
Shout out to ETA Creative Arts Foundation … They sent me to the theater in our community where we used to watch plays and they had a summer program. And when I stepped into that theater, that’s when I was like, ‘Yo, this is it. This is what I want to be doing,'” he said, adding, “It was just a positive thing to do.”And then there was also the church, where he was a fixture.