Not a day after dropping his new special on Comedy Central, Hannibal Buress celebrated his 31st birthday at the Knitting Factory last night. Sure, his actual birthday was last month — but whatever, it was an excuse to bring his weekly front-bar showcase into the Knit’s spacious back room for a proper rager promising a “VERY special” musical guest.
Throughout the show the evening’s stand-ups — Kurt Metzger, “Lil Rel” Howery, and Michael Che, the SNL writer whose colleague Sasheer Zamata was in attendance — had to contend with a couple of photographers in the front row whose unwelcome interjections led Buress to warn them they’d soon find themselves at the Commodore across the street.
Metzger sulked about having to live with “my roommate Steve” (not a euphemism) in Washington Heights; Che, who grew up on the Lower East Side, drew some oohs of disbelief when he revealed he had recently moved from Queens to Battery Park City, where he has a great view of white people jogging. (Buress, by the way, is also thinking of leaving his Williamsburg perch: he recently told Neal Brennan and Moshe Kasher, on “The Champs” podcast, that he was “deciding whether I want to buy a house in LA or a shitty apartment in New York.”)
The highlight of the show was either Buress’s half-formed rap about going wild, aka going “Dennis Rodman in North Korea,” or big, baudy Bridget Everett abusing/serenading an audience member and then sitting on his face. At least, those were the highlights until the mystery musical guest came on. Just weeks after Raekwon showed up at Sweet Chick, Method Man took the stage to spit Wu Tang songs — including “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” in honor of Ol’ Dirty Bastard — to a few hundred people.
We were one of the folks obnoxiously holding up their iPhones instead of throwing their hands up, hence the footage herewith. With apologies for the video quality, here’s the encore: Method Man roping Buress into “Rapper’s Delight.”