Dave Chappelle’s Comeback Doesn’t Include His Most Awful ‘Fans’

By Jamilah King Jun 25, 2014

Jesse David Fox of Vulture on Dave Chappelle’s triumphant return to the stage in New York City and the diversity of his adoring fans:

When I enter, I’m instantly and surprisingly overwhelmed with emotion. With a jazz trio called Supa Lowery Bros at the top of the stairs, playing an instrumental version of Kendrick Lamar’s oddly appropriate "Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe," I’m taken by how incredibly eclectic and buzzing the crowd is. I’m not exaggerating when I say it is the most diverse room I’ve ever been in. It looks like the streets of New York City were moved inside. It looks like the cast ofOrange Is the New Black if it were half male and everyone were allowed to wear their cutest outfits (and not just because I eventually sat two seats down from Natasha Lyonne). A young Asian guy wearing a hat with the New Yorker logo on it stands in line in front of a white guy in a Twiztid hat, an Indian guy in a suit, an African-American skater in a Obey hat, and a woman in dreads who was talking to a woman with a feather in her hair. This is why Chappelle’s run of ten shows needed to be here, at Radio City. It’s big enough that I could see how wide-reaching his fan base is, but not so big (like Madison Square Garden would’ve been) that we turned into a faceless blob just moving in and out of passageways. With the band now playing a jazzed-up version of a Kanye West song, it is all reminiscent of Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, Chappelle’s 2006 concert documentary, which the comedian called the "best day of my career."

He’s back, Fox writes, and he’s finally in control.