Mike Epps
Foxwoods Resort and Casino
Ledyard, Conn.
Jan. 20, 2024
Kat Williams set the Black comedy world ablaze a few weeks ago during his interview with Shannon Sharpe, when he aired the dirty laundry of several famous comedians. Not only was it hilarious in its own right, but it meant a challenge had been issued. Would the rest of the Black comedy community rise to be as impactful as Williams had already been only two weeks into 2024?
So I was eager to see Mike Epps perform at Foxwoods Casino over the weekend. Williams didn’t say anything negative about Epps during his interview. In fact, he didn’t mention him at all, a fact that Epps took (mock) offense to.
“I was insulted that the nigga didn’t insult me!” he said to laughs and applause. “I said, ‘Nigga, I need some press too!’ I started to send the nigga some shit about me!”
And with that, we were off to the races.
Everyone thinks they’re funny. Many people actually are. Then you see a professional like Mike Epps, and you see that there’s a whole different level to comedy. Epps has been performing for nearly 30 years, and his expertise is evident. Obviously his jokes were funny, but there were other, more subtle techniques that he used to heighten the performance.
One of those techniques was his stage presence. Epps moved around the stage in a way that used the full space to add extra zing to his performance. He danced across the stage when he came out. He leaned into the crowd when he wanted to make a strong point or deliver the punchline more forcefully. He retreated when he told stories where he was in the wrong.
It sounds like a small thing, but many comedians fall into the habit of either standing still and simply reciting jokes, or pacing back and forth on stage with no sense of purpose. Both betray nervousness that performers understandably feel, but Epps clearly has conquered those feelings and his show is all the better for it.
Another way Epps distinguished himself was his crowd work. Comedians often speak with the crowd during their shows to set up a joke or fish for material. For Epps, it was an effortless extension of his show, not a key part of it. Epps made fun of the crowd, but it felt like he was inviting them in with jokes instead of tearing them down.
If there was one negative about the show, it’s that it was shorter than I anticipated. Showtime was at 8 p.m., but the show began almost 40 minutes late. And still we were out of the theater before 10.
Epps may have been taking a quality over quantity approach, because the material was laugh-out- loud funny and not a single joke missed the mark. There just wasn’t a lot of it.
There was also a lack of cohesion to the jokes. Epps has never been as narratively focused as other comedians. That’s not a knock on him, just an acknowledgement of different styles. But what he does display in his Netflix specials is a great ability to weave jokes into a whole that makes his set feel like a puzzle being completed. This show felt more like he was still sorting out the pieces as opposed to putting them together. I got the impression that this was a practice run for the next Netflix special that will inevitably arrive.
Ultimately, I laughed from start to finish. It was a great night, and I’m looking forward to reliving it whenever that Netflix special hits the airwaves.
NEXT
Foxwoods hosts Extreme on Jan. 26th
Jamil heads to the Stowe House to find out what was in Harriet’s medicine cabinet.
