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No one would dispute that HBO’s Def Comedy Jam ushered in a golden era for African-American comedy, helping launch Dave Chappelle, Chris Tucker and Bernie Mac, among others. But the Russell Simmons–produced showcase (which aired from 1992 to 1997, and was revived in 2006) also created a prototype for what audiences expected black comics to be: raunchy and in-your-face, yet not so left-of-center or conservative as to come across as weird or “white.”
Consider this weekend’s Black Comedy Experiment, a three-day showcase of diverse and eccentric humorists at the Tank in Tribeca, an antidote to a decade and a half of DCJ conditioning. In addition to Souled Out, a collective of clean-language NYC stand-up vets who initially bonded over their outcast status during the original DCJ era, performers include Onion editor and political satirist Baratunde Thurston, and Desiree Burch, an alt-comedy diva best known locally as the host of Galapagos’s dirty-lit reading series, Smut. Queer comics Keith Price and Robin Cloud bring provocative solo shows entitled Ebony Chunky Love Part 2: Heartaches and Hard-Ons and Bag of Bitches, respectively. “The diversity within the black community got glossed over [during the DCJ era] because everything was supposed to be all hard and urban,” says Souled Out’s Leighann Lord. “Richard Pryor was great, but there’s also Bill Cosby and Flip Wilson.”
Created and programmed by Bed-Stuy’s Elon James White, the Black Comedy Experiment is an outgrowth of the Black Comedy Project, a web forum White and fellow comic Baron Vaughn established last year. “I used to catch flak from people saying, ‘Oh you’re just kinda black,’ and I didn’t understand it, [but] then I’d talk to other comics like Baron and he’d say, ‘I get the same thing,’ ” says White, who also founded Shades of Black, a traveling, Brooklyn-based showcase with a similar mission. “People [talked] about it after a show, but no one was putting it out there. So we decided to create something that would start a discussion among comics nationwide, and then see what’s the next step.”
When the opportunity came to bring that next step—this week’s showcase—to fruition, White (whose Web address is elonjamesisnotwhite.com) didn’t have to look far: Many acts he wanted to highlight were already posting commentary to the Black Comedy Project site.
While White and Vaughn say the response to the Black Comedy Project has been overwhelmingly positive, their movement hasn’t been without detractors. “Certain black comics have suggested we’re doing this to create our own hype because we’re not funny and can’t own up to it,” laughs Vaughn, a Shades of Black regular who debuts his one-man show Mystery Up at Negro Creek Saturday.
White is quick to explain that he means to provide an alternative to the brand of comedy put forth on DCJ and BET, not a condemnation of it. “It’s not like, ‘Eww, I wouldn’t do Def Jam’—all of us would do it in a heartbeat,” White says. “Why wouldn’t you? It was great—so many faces you’d have never known about were suddenly in America’s homes. What we’re saying is, ‘Why can’t there also be such a thing as a black Andy Kaufman?’ ”
The Black Comedy Experiment happens Thu 28–Sat 1.
