[10] After establishing himself as a sociopolitical comedian and community activist based in San Francisco, Bell became a founding member of the comedy collective Laughter Against the Machine and has been featured in a number of prominent podcasts and publications, such as WTF with Marc Maron, Citizen Radio, and Current TV's The War Room with Jennifer Granholm, on which Bell was a regular correspondent.

[11] His first stand-up comedy TV special, Semi-Prominent Negro, premiered on Showtime on April 29, 2016,[16] and on September 30, 2016, his third full-length album with the same title, was released on Kill Rock Stars.

[19] The show, produced by Chris Rock, provided observational comedy and commentary on social and political issues in addition to celebrity interviews.

[28] Since November 2014, Bell has co-hosted the Earwolf-produced podcast Denzel Washington Is The Greatest Actor Of All Time Period with comedian and writer Kevin Avery.

[29] In addition to reviewing the films of Denzel Washington one by one, the podcast has also featured interviews with prominent actors, filmmakers, musicians, and comedians including Spike Lee,[30] Ava DuVernay,[31] Jesse Williams,[32] Issa Rae,[33] and Ryan Coogler.

[4] The podcast explores American politics and elections with a comedic approach, and includes interviews with activists, journalists, and scholars such as Ian Haney López, Robert Reich, and Pramila Jayapal.

In May 2017, he published his first book, The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6'4, African American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama's Boy, Dad, and Stand-Up Comedian.

Bell sits on the advisory boards of Race Forward, a racial justice think tank (formerly known as the Applied Research Center), and Hollaback!, an anti-harassment organization.

[40] Bell reported online that an employee of the cafe told him to "scram", or words to that effect, while he was talking to his white wife and her friends at one of its outdoor tables.

[40] He had approached the women from the outside casually dressed (e.g., wearing a knit cap), and the employee, a waitress, assumed he was "selling something," which Bell took as code for "homeless.

[41] After the April 2018 arrests of two black men at a Starbucks gained media attention, Bell renewed his criticism of the Elmwood Cafe.