We were in the thick of the holiday season when suddenly, LaKeith Stanfield became a trending topic on Twitter. The Judas & the Black Messiah actor had been in a Clubhouse room that was set up for men to give their best sexually-driven moans in hopes of winning the cash prize of $300. Listeners were surprised to hear the applauded actor on the other end, but someone screen-recorded the moment and shared it with the world. LaKeith ended up taking home the win and now he's explaining the ordeal to Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay on their podcast, Higher Learning.
"I signed up for the app, and it's a really interesting, fun, cool app," he said. "[It] addicts you right away because you're able to communicate in a new way. So, there were top rooms at the top of the queue, and as you go down, the rooms get lower. The first room, one of the first rooms I saw was the moan room. So, I go into the moan room and I realize this is a bunch of guys who are moaning in a room." Van and Rachel began to laugh. "That was exactly my reaction!"
"The funniest thing I've ever seen. It's great. I've got to get in on this," the actor continued. "So, what I do is, I go on Google and I type in 'male moan,' and on YouTube, a video pops up that has a guy moaning." Stanfield said he listened to a few options but they didn't "sound right." In the end, he decided to take one of the sounds and pass it off as himself.
"I go into the room and I try to sound as soft as I can, like the moan guy in the video sounds," said LaKeith. "So, that way, when I play the moan it sounds seamless. I went in there, I'm playing a character. I'm essentially doing what I do, which is perform. I go in there and I'm like, 'You guys ready.' For a $300 cash prize by the way, which I actually won, but I go in there and set the tone and play the moan." He thought it was funny and left the room but before he knew it, the screen-recording of the moment was trending on social media.
"I was like wow, this is crazy," he added as the hosts laughed. "It was a fun time." Check out the clip from his interview below.