When the comedian sings “I Believe I Can Fly” and pretends to piss into the audience, he’s evoking a horrifying, surreal hypothetical scenario, but one that’s ultimately on the side of the comedy angels. If showed you that video of him peeing on that girl and scored it to ‘I Believe I Can Fly,’ you’d be torn.” The whole bit has that razor-edged, Richard Pryor–George Carlin audacity that we want from somebody like Chappelle, even as it sums up the fitfully glorious ruin that is Chappelle circa 2017–2018.
And he also wrote ‘I Believe I Can Fly.’ Same guy, same lifetime. In one of the bits, Chappelle segues from a long riff on the recent sexual-misconduct scandals and announces, “We must never forget that R. Both occur in the closing hour, titled The Bird Revelation.
Photo: Mathieu Bitton/Dave Chappelleĭave Chappelle has two new stand-up specials out, and the two best descriptions of them come from the specials themselves.
