His father named him Tracy in honor of a platoon mate and friend who shipped off to Vietnam with him and was killed in action days later.

[3] Morgan married his girlfriend Sabina that year and dropped out of high school just four credits short of his diploma to care for his ailing father.

[3] Living on welfare, Morgan sold crack cocaine with limited success,[8] but began earning money performing comedy on the streets[3] after his best friend was murdered.

The character sold various items from the "hood", always greeting people with his trademark "What's happ'n, chief?," and had a pet dog he dressed as a rapper.

Morgan was also a regular cast member on Uptown Comedy Club, a sketch-comedy show filmed in Harlem that aired for two seasons, from 1992 to 1994.

Morgan's regular characters included the kindly but deluded vagrant Woodrow; outspoken apartment maintenance man Dominican Lou; lusty Astronaut Jones whose shorts skits ended with blunt sexual propositions towards beautiful extraterrestrial ladies; and Safari Planet host Brian Fellow who was enthusiastic but deeply ignorant about animals.

Morgan's celebrity impressions on SNL included Della Reese, Harry Belafonte, Maya Angelou and Little Richard.

He can be heard as Spoonie Luv on the Comedy Central program Crank Yankers and as Woof in the animated series Where My Dogs At?.

Morgan acted in commercials for NFL 2K, NBA 2K, and NHL 2K, co-starring with Warren Sapp, Ben Wallace and Jeremy Roenick.

[16][17] Morgan has listed Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball, Jackie Gleason, Martin Lawrence, Eddie Murphy, and Richard Pryor as among his primary comedic influences.

[21][22] In September 2011, on the red carpet at the Emmy Awards, Morgan announced he and model Megan Wollover had become engaged six months earlier in San Francisco.

[citation needed] Morgan admitted that he initially did not take his diabetes seriously but later realized the care for it would end up being a matter of life and death.

[29] In August 2023, Morgan responded to a comment about his healthy appearance during an episode of Today with Hoda & Jenna by disclosing that he was using semaglutide.

Morgan appeared on National Public Radio's Fresh Air hosted by Terry Gross, at times becoming very emotional about his former life in a New York ghetto.

Just after 1:00 am the vehicle was traveling northbound on the New Jersey Turnpike near Cranbury, when it was struck from behind by a Walmart tractor-trailer,[31] causing a chain reaction crash.

[35] On June 20, 2014, Morgan was released from the hospital and was transferred to a rehabilitation facility to continue recovering from the injuries sustained during the crash.

The complaint alleges Roper dozed off and hit Morgan's limousine after swerving to avoid slowed traffic ahead of him.

[33][39][40] In September 2014, Walmart in court papers cast partial blame on Morgan and the other victims for not wearing seat belts, a claim both Morgan and his counsel denied, noting that the driver who caused the crash had been charged with vehicular homicide and that the police report stated that seat belts were not an issue in the case.

[50] Morgan's 2017 Netflix standup special Staying Alive joked about Walmart and the lawsuit, while detailing his hospitalization, rehab and recovery.

Unfortunately, Tracy's comments reflect negatively on both 30 Rock and NBC – two very all-inclusive and diverse organizations – and we have made it clear to him that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated."

"[53] In 2012, Morgan's mother, Alicia Warden, said her Youngstown, Ohio, home was on the verge of foreclosure as a result of being laid off from her job the previous year.

[55] In June 2019, Morgan was involved in a minor collision in his newly purchased Bugatti Veyron, and he was captured on video tapping on the other driver's window and yelling, "Bitch, get out of the car".