Wednesday 14 October 2009

TRACY MORGAN – LIFE, LOVE & LUST (URBANWORKS)


TRACY MORGAN – LIFE, LOVE & LUST (URBANWORKS)

I have to admit that this stand-up DVD and album is a few years old now but thanks to his performance in 30 Rock Tracy Morgan has now gained worldwide exposure with his scene stealing moments and with some further investigation I managed to uncover this true gem of a stand-up comedy performance.

Released as a DVD but coming with a bonus audio CD of the show this is by far the best and funniest example of the stand-up art form I have seen this year.

Obviously a great black stand-up comedian is always going to be compared to Richard Pryor and there are definitely some moments that come straight out of his legacy but as with a lot of modern comedy the real strength comes in his invention with crassness. With this he has that great assertive delivery that snaps and bites just on the right side of sounding aggressive.

As an individual Morgan is a very endearing and mysterious person. A person widely known for wrestling with various demons his deliver contains a lot of confessional material and streams anecdotes for which a hyperbolic measure feels almost impossible.

Listened to through headphones on public transport this is embarrassingly laugh out loud stuff. Delivered in a seemingly purposely dumb manner Tracy picks apart peoples tiny foibles with a distinct lack of bashfulness but never is humility a casualty in the piece.

When Michael Jackson passed away earlier this year it felt scarily apt to be listening to Morgan’s run down of his situation on “Don’t Be Like Mike” and how the guy probably just need “a plate” and some family compassion. Of course Tracy also acts how he would happily boast of being sucked off on the spinning teacups by Michael to his homeboys but that is beside the point.

His admissions of porn preferences and sexual acts (“I like to eat the pussy until I burp”) is both enlightening and levelling as he points out flaws and hypocrisies on both sides of the fence in the war of the sexes.

After a couple of sharp and revealing family anecdotes about relatives tooting cocaine and his cousin Jimmy (“Negative Ass Jimmy”) being in a wheelchair but earning no sympathy in the process, the most genuinely funny material arrives in his observations regarding superheroes. Or rather more to the point why there are no black superheroes. After quickly dismissing the Hulk as just being “some drunk white dude” and revealing that Robin “wanna fuck Batman up” Morgan leaves the listener with a whole new perspective on the Marvel Universe.

It all comes together at the end with a bit too much information on the subject of love revenge (“Monique”) and Tracy Morgan fully earns his stripes as a scary talent housed in a scary human being. Off the back of SNL and 30 Rock though the world knew this already.

Even if it isn’t, it feels fearless.

Thesaurus moment: jocular.

Tracy Morgan
UrbanWorks

No comments: