One time, in Oakland, Suge Knight had to drag Williams away from the mic, dispatching the rapper Too $hort to apologize on the comedian’s behalf for having disparaged the city to its face. Unprovoked, he'd challenge front-row ticketholders to fights. In 2009, Williams sparked a bizarre, prolonged feud with Steve Harvey, thus embroiling several other comedians, most notably Jamie Foxx, who, in a radio interview, said, “Katt Williams hasn’t written a new joke in two years.”Īt this point in his career, Williams had launched himself into an unfortunate trend of disappointing his live audiences. In short, unfortunate order, Williams succumbed to what many spectators assumed was some volatile mix of narcotics and hubris. That's the blackest possible filmography. In a single year, Williams appeared in Norbit, Epic Movie, The Perfect Holiday, and Larry the Cable Guy's Christmas Spectacular, all while co-starring in the first (and only) season of MTV’s sketch comedy series, Short Circuitz, hosted by Nick Cannon. After that Money Mike persona took off.”įor a while, about ten years ago-following Dave Chappelle’s great escape from his own fame-America’s three biggest, black comedians were Katt Williams, Jamie Foxx, and Monique, who all parlayed their stand-up comedy success into ubiquitous Hollywood casting. “Before he made Friday After Next” in 2002, Luenell recalls, “Katt didn’t even have any front teeth. HBO produced the latter special, in which Williams, wearing the greenest suit you ever saw, debuts as the vulgar deacon of Dipset a loudmouth, Macho Man Randy Savage-ass leprechaun in a pimp's gleaming regalia. There was Live, filmed in Cincinnati, and then The Pimp Chronicles Pt. In his breakout year, 2006, Williams released two stand-up comedy specials within a month of each other. “Some of us know how the fuck that feels,” Williams shouts. In his bit about the attack, Williams adopts the tiger Tatiana’s perspective, getting down on his belly, and crawling through the motions of assertion, self-doubt, and then rebellion. Such empathy resounds in one of Williams’ more famous bits-from his 2009 stand-up comedy special, It's Pimpin' Pimpin'-about a famous, fatal tiger rampage at the San Francisco zoo. “I stand on the stage, and I make people laugh for an hour and a half.” “I go where people are hurting,” Williams said. Three years later, with the boycott still on, Williams had scheduled a September 2004 performance in Cincinnati, his hometown. In a radio interview that he later incorporated as footage in Live, Williams defended his tour date, and his profession, as civic obligation. Cincinnati's history created a volatile atmosphere, and Timothy Thomas’ death set off three days of civil unrest.”įollowing Thomas’ death, the local Black United Front declared an indefinite boycott of the city’s live entertainment venues. “On April, 7, 2001,” the white text reads, “a Cincinnati police officer shot and killed an unarmed 19 year old African American in the Over-the Rhine District. Katt Williams' debut stand-up comedy special, Live, released in 2006, opens with black, silent acknowledgement of a young man’s death. “There’s always an opportunity to be a scoundrel. Williams, 44, says golf is his timeless, standard excuse to assemble his closest confidants. “Golf is a game with morals,” he says. On stage, and here at Gaylord Springs, Williams comes accompanied by several friends and peers, including the comedians Red Grant, Ashima Franklin, and Curry, who, tonight, will open for Williams’ headline set. In Nashville, Williams is on the tenth stop of a hundred-city tour for his latest stand-up comedy special, Conspiracy Theory. Lena Smith warns our photographer: “You never seen black people on a golf course before.” Until a young woman named Lena Smith-Katt Williams’ longtime stylist-blasts into the apparel shop and starts causing happy commotion. She's snatching golf shoes from the walls and jackets from the racks. Even the comedian Mark Curry, the earliest riser among us, is just now renting his clubs for the day.

At the Gaylord Springs Golf Links in Nashville, Tennessee, the comedian Katt Williams is three hours late to his 10 a.m.

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