dope black voice actors who brought your childhood to life: kevin michael richardson

Last week, we explored how Cree Summer brought some of our favorite characters from childhood to life, and the week before we honored Phil LaMarr for voicing characters like Samurai Jack and Static Shock. We continue our series on dope Black voice actors with Kevin Michael Richardson, whose voice acting credits are even more extensive, and whose influence on our young imaginations might just be unmatched.

Richardson’s deep and powerful voice lends itself to being cast to play villains, and in 1995, he obtained his first voice role as Mayor Tilton on the animated TV version of The Mask.

Since then, he’s continued to bring big personalities to the small and large screens, including Captain Gantu in Lilo & Stitch and its franchise, Goro in Mortal Kombat, Crunch Bandicoot in the Crash Bandicoot games, Tartarus from Halo 2, Chairman Drek in Ratchet & Clank, Doctor Payne and others on The Proud Family, Dark Laser on The Fairly OddParents, and that’s just a small sample of his work!

In 2004, he also became the first African-American to voice the Joker in the Kids WB animated series, The Batman, a role for which he was twice nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in a Children’s Series. He often plays characters based on comedian Bill Cosby, such as on Family Guy (“Brian Does Hollywood”), and as Cosby himself on The Boondocks.

Amazing!