Keegan-Michael Key was born in Southfield, Michigan and raised in Detroit. He was adopted as a child by a black father and a white mother. In 1989, he graduated from Shrine Catholic High School in Royal Oak, Michigan. Key attended the University of Detroit Mercy as an undergraduate and earned his Master of Fine Arts in Theater at Pennsylvania State University. While at The University of Detroit Mercy, he was a brother of Phi Kappa Theta.

Elisa Key (8 June 2018 - present)

Trivia

Co-founder of the Planet Ant Theater in Hamtramck, Michigan, with Ryan Carlson, Margaret Exner, Joshua Funk, Nancy Hayden, and Mikey Brown.
Attended Shrine Catholic High School in Royal Oak, MI.
He was awarded the 2002 Joseph Jefferson Award for Actor in a Revue for "Holy War, Batman! or the Yellow Cab of Courage" at the Second City Theatre in Chicago, Illinois.
He was awarded the 2003 Joseph Jefferson Award for Actor in a Revue for "Curious George Goes to War" at the Second City Theatre in Chicago, Illinois.
He was nominated for a 2003 Joseph Jefferson Award for Actor in a Revue for "Pants on Fire" at the Second City Theatre in Chicago, Illinois.
He was nominated for a 2004 Joseph Jefferson Award for Actor in a Principal Role in a Musical for "The Second City's Romeo & Juliet Musical" at the Second City Theatre in Chicago, Illinois.
He is a graduate of the University of Detroit - Mercy (undergraduate) and earned a Master of Fine Arts at the Pennsylvania State University School of Theatre.
A longtime veteran of the Second City comedy troupe, first in his native Detroit and then in the venerated halls of Second City Chicago.
His birth father is African-American and his birth mother is Caucasian. He was adopted as a child. His adoptive parents are also African-American and Caucasian.
Both he and partner Jordan Peele were dramatically featured in a series of comic-photo examples of fictional employees demonstrating "The Saintly Way to Succeed" in a cover story and lengthy article with that title in the March 31, 2013 issue of The New York Magazine.

Our show is not based on huge characters. There are characters in our show; whether or not they reoccur is based on the audience. MADtv (1995) was a formula - our show doesn't have one,. We try to incorporate the shows. We're not trying to be cool here. We're trying to be funny. If you watch the beginning of certain shows, you notice that they're trying too hard to be hipsters and be cool. We're like, 'Why are you trying to be a badass?' We realize that we're nerds. Our goal in life is to get the laughs.
I was a special-needs child. It was like, 'Here's a kid with no arm. Here's a blind kid. Here is a biracial kid. Let's take the blind one.' So because I'm high yellow, I'm special needs, which means I would dominate at the Special Olympics.
In regard to our show(Key and Peele), some people ask me sometimes ''What is the greatest thing that can happen to your show?'' I said the greatest thing that can happen to my show, is that a kid watches something on whatever the equivalent of YouTube is 75 years from now and goes ''Why is this funny? I don't understand this.'' (Meaning that hopefully Americans will have solved the racism issues in the near future and thus kids won't understand the shows humor on racism issues.)