Hannibal Buress Turns 30 – 2.4.13
My dude Hannibal Buress turned 30 years old yesterday and decided to throw a party at the Knitting Factory. Last time I was there was for the premiere of Hannibal’s Comedy Central special Animal Furnace. This time there was less comedy and much more hip hop. The night started out with hip hop legend Prince Paul DJing. After that things got real weird with Hip Hop Karaoke NYC taking over. I am not a big karaoke fan but when I do it I am always tempted to do some old school hip hop classic but I have seen people fail miserably when trying to do songs they think they know every word of. Now try that while holding the lyrics in your hand instead of timed out on a screen and you are in for a disaster. It was a pretty amazing train wreck although some people certainly stood out.
Halfway through the hilarious hip hop karaoke Hot 97’s Cipha Sounds showed up. He was DJing after the karaoke but he rolled in with Action Bronson and Questlove. Quest very begrudgingly did a song at Hannibal’s insistance and he kept slowing down the track. “This is why I am a drummer. I stopped trying to rap 20 years ago.” It was pretty epic. Action Bronson enjoyed himself a bit more and did two songs including A Tribe Called Quest’s Scenario with Cipha, Hannibal and Hannibal’s insane cousin Percy. As you can see if you click that link it was epic.
After that Cipha Sounds DJ’d and although he properly killed it the crowd began to thin out as you might expect at 1am on a Monday night but the jobless people who stuck it out were in for a rare treat. Hannibal really upped the weirdness game of his 30th birthday and did a 15 minute version of his 70 second “Gibberish Rap” and invited Mario, Alvin of the Chipmonks fame and Spongebob Squarepants to join him. It was in the top 10 most surreal moments of my life. Oh, did I mention the ballet dancers? Yeah, that too. It was a supremely weird and awesome way to end the night.
Ps. I gave Hannibal a $5 Arch Card for his birthday. Never say I am not a good friend.
