Mike Epps: Funny As Ish Comedy Tour

Outside of Mike Epps’s hilarious supporting role as the asshat manchild Day-Day in Next Friday, you’d be hard-pressed to find any memorable setup-punch jokes in the Indianapolis native’s quarter-century run as a stand-up comedian. Instead, he’s built a fine career on the mainstream urban comedy circuit by shirking conventional joke-writing techniques and building most of his seemingly freestyle sets around roasting audience members, ranting and raunching, and generally wilding out. Unfortunately, this offhand style has hatched newer comedians such as Wild ‘N Out cast member DC Young Fly—the youngest act on Epps’s Funny as Ish tour—and gave him the idea that it’s OK to fill his routines with juvenile “You so ugly” bits. Expect him to be laughing at his own jokes, because, let’s face it, you probably won’t be, until seasoned laugh artists Earthquake, Lavell Crawford, and Sommore hit the stage and show us how to finesse the funny. —Eric Tullis