Lister was best known as Deebo from "Friday". Deebo was the neighborhood bully and antagonist to Ice Cube's character, Craig Jones. He reprised the role in the film's sequel, "Next Friday", but did not appear in the third film of the series, "Friday After Next". He did, however, appear in Cube's director debut The Players Club. He also played the role of Obodo in Mario Van Peebles' "Posse" (1993), along with Tone Loc. Lister had numerous guest appearances on TV series, including playing Klaang, the first Klingon ever to make contact with humans, in the of "". He co-starred in a two-part episode of the courtroom series "Matlock" as Mr. Matlock's in-prison bodyguard. He also appeared in season 7 episode 09 of "In the Heat of the Night".