Michael Che b-lines towards the mic wearing an all-black ensemble and a hat, emphasizing the shadows drawn on his face from the spotlight. But despite looking a little beat-down from the cold he had, audience members were laughing at each punch-line the New York native slung at them.

Che, who said never went to college, quickly began satirizing college-life and began telling the audience members a story about his friend who went to college for $80,000 for an English degree,  a language he learned for free. Adding to the roast, Che’s friend now teaches English which Che compared the career-move as a pyramid scheme.

Moving fairly quickly from the light-hearted jokes, Che was not afraid to bring up racial tensions to his set.  At one point, Che talked about how American he can be but also how anti-American he is when around near other, more strongly-affirmed patriots.  Adding on to how when he listens to the National Anthem, he thinks he’s listening to a song from R Kelly, the R&B singer indicted for two sex trafficking charges.

For a majority of his set, Che continues on the inequality Black people face in the U.S. citing that fairly recently has noticed more black people are being properly diagnosed for mental illness, something he’s happy to see improve.

Hitting the last comedy beats of his performance, Che looks out onto the crowd a briefly takes a moment to thank the audience.

“It’s a privilege to be here with you guys,” Che said.

Also touching on race was DJ and comedian Cipha Sounds who used his DJ skills to better gauge the audience.  Once he realized he was performing to a largely white audience, Sounds quickly changed the song to Oasis’ “Wonderwall,” remixed with club sirens as he continued to hype up the already singing crowd.

As the song reaches the chorus, Sounds cuts in between the lyrics, and said “and what does Donald Trump want to build,” to which the audience replied back, “Wonderwall.” Later on the show, Sounds tells a vignette on when he passed up an opportunity to sign rapper Drake to the record label he worked for. As the audience “ooo” him about the apparent mistake he made, he replied in his defense that back in 2007, Drake was a child actor from Toronto, Canada, a place where rappers didn’t typically come from.

Following Sounds was comedian, Rosebud Baker, who came on ready to joke about her 5-year relationship that ended recently. In her set, she talked about despite not believing in marriage prior, she does now and vows to never stay in a relationship for that long without gaining 50% of what the other person owns.

SUNY ESF student, Destiny Santos-Ferrer said of the three comedians she gravitated to Baker the most, as she had more relatable content. Santos-Ferrer also said the night as a whole was a success.

“It’s a great night to be here. Everybody seemed to be really engaged. People kept screaming and cheering, a lot of heckling but in a good way,”  said Santos-Ferrer.

Published on September 14, 2019 at 8:49 pm