Chappelle’s Marathon Set @ Chicago’s HOB ft/ Talib Kweli & Frederic Yonnet

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There’s a scene in Dave Chappelle‘s film “Block Party,” where he says, “Every comic wants to be a musician. Every musician thinks they’re funny.”  Well, fans who were lucky enough to score tickets to either of Dave Chappelle’s two sold-out sets at the House of Blues in Chicago on Sunday got both comedy, music and more!

During the first show, DJ Talib Kweli opened the show followed by a 1.5 hour comedy set which Time Out Chicago described as “a virtuoso display of freestyle riffing that started with Chappelle telling the audience that he had nothing new to say. But in truth, this was a brilliant comedic mind unleashing itself.” 

Chappelle later brought French urban jazz harmonicist Frédéric Yonnet — accompanied by Chicago’s own keyboardist Larry “The Fingers” Hanks, and Washington, DC’s Dennis “Slippity Slappity” Turner on bass and “Biscut” Bynum on drums.  What resulted was an amazing mix of comedic and musical improvisation during which Chappelle bantered with the band, often using them as the soundtrack to his jokes. At one point, Chappelle commented he was so “baller” that he travelled by hot air balloon. Not missing a beat, the band played what Chappelle described as “baller” music as he demonstrated parking and walking away from his hot air balloon. The visual accompanied with music was hilarious!

Chappelle went on to describe meeting Yonnet in the Mississippi Delta at a “harmonica-off” (who knew, right?), where Yonnet had to compete against the devil for his soul. Prompted by Chappelle, Yonnet played the song that not only won his soul “back from the devil” but, judging from the audiences reaction, also won new fans in Chicago!

Chappelle took the stage for the late set at 1:15am Monday morning and ended at 3:50am —  only after House of Blues management threatened to pull the plug, cutting short Chappelle rendition of Jay-Z & Kanye West – “Niggas In Paris,” another hilarious moment.

Chappelle’s stop through Chicago was part of a cross country motocycle trip which included short-notice comedy stops in several cities including Memphis, Little Rock, Austin, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Portland, and Minneapolis.  Yonnet, who accompanied Chappelle on portions of the  motocycle ride, added his musical genius to the shows in San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Chicago.

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