INGLEWOOD, California—Given a live global platform Saturday night by Netflix, Katt Williams closed out an electric hour of comedy punctuated by multiple audio/visual cues with a call for the United States to pay out reparations for enslaving generations of Black Americans, and citing our eager willingness to fund other nations such as Ukraine right now as proof of concept.
“It is now time for Black people in America to get paid reparations for everything that them and their ancestors have been through in American history,” Williams declared in front of 6,000 in attendance at YouTube Theater in Inglewood, California, plus upward of millions more watching live on Netflix. “Why now, Katt? Thanks for asking, white friends. I’ll tell you why now. And understand white friends, I don’t speak for all Black people. But I do speak for all n—rs. And you are not supposed to know the difference.”
Williams continued: “The time is now. And understand, white friends. I know you’re thinking, no seriously, Katt, why now? I’ll tell you why. And these are the facts. We just gave $100 billion to the Ukraine. And God bless the Ukrainians. But off the record? We don’t know them n—-rs like that! You could’ve gave that money to Black people. The fuck? We done gave them all that money. The truth is they over there getting their ass whooped over there. You coulda gave that money to the Black people of Los Angeles, and they’d have went over there and whooped their ass in two weeks. Look. It looks like reparations is for Black people. But it’s not. It’s for you, white friend. It’s for you. It’s going to help us, but it’s for you. Sure, every Black person going to wake up with $20 million in the bank. So the fuck what? It’s for you, white friends. You think American been great before? Wait til we got a country full of rich n—rs. This fitting to be the greatest country in the world, bitch!”
The comedian also hoped to persuade more conservative white Americans to support reparations by appealing to their baser instincts.
“White friend, don’t you want to get slavery behind you? You never had a slave in your motherfucking life. Get this past you. You pay them reparations, racism is dead. Get it past you, white friends,” Williams concluded. “Here’s what they won’t tell you, white friends. You pay them reparations, you can say n—r any time you want to, do you hear me?”
Katt Williams: Woke Foke, just the second stand-up special streamed live globally by Netflix after last year’s Chris Rock: Selective Outrage, was one of the centerpiece events of the second-ever Netflix Is a Joke Fest, happening through the first 12 days and nights of May across Los Angeles. Williams had several comedians warm up the audience in the two hours leading up to livestream, and he opened by expressing his gratitude at how far he’d come since his early years. “It was ’99 and the 2000s and I was in this Inglewood at the Hollywood Park Casino for $100 a week, and God brought me 24 Kobe years later, bam! Live. Right here in motherfucking Inglewood. God really is the greatest.”
Part of what drew Netflix to picking Williams for their next live special was his three-hour performance on retired footballer Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast, which has racked up more than 68 million views since premiering Jan. 3 on YouTube. The comedian made sure to shout that out early in his hour, too: “I tried to be incog-Negro but thanks to Shannon Sharpe’s loudmouth ass, the gig is up. Everybody knows I’ll tell. But I don’t do no snitching! Y’all know my job. In my spare time I infiltrate the Illuminati. Look for their secrets. Run back. Tell y’all. And they’d kill me if they could, but I’m too fast, and the Lord keep blessing me.”
Although Williams did name-check many entertainers and politicians in the hour—among them, Nick Cannon, Robert De Niro, Jamie Foxx, Da Brat, Trick Daddy, Tory Lanez, Lizzo, Sharon Osbourne, P. Diddy, Wayne Brady, Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—none of it rose to quite the same salacious level as the fires he stoked in January.
For example, lampooning the FBI’s non-investigation into a bag of cocaine found inside the White House, Williams showed a giant photo of a baggie labeled “Hunter’s Blow” to suggest the true culprit, then added: “Hunter on crack. Joe asleep. The only person really working at the White house behind the scenes is Joe Biden’s German Shepherd named Commander.” He then showed a photo of the president with his pooch, while joking about how many Secret Service agents Commander Biden had bitten.
And while Williams did take a crack at the trend of celebrities abusing Ozempic to lose weight, his zinger that “They said Oprah took so much that Gayle lost 12 pounds” had nowhere near as much sting as Mo’Nique’s almost 20 minutes of barbs had for Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King, none of which were broadcast or streamed outside of the venue.
“I’m too god damn old to be scared of these motherfuckers!” Mo’Nique exclaimed after calling out both Winfrey and Tyler Perry, reigniting her feud with both of them that had dated back to her work with them on her Oscar-winning portrayal in the 2009 film, Precious. “And people keep saying: ‘Mo’Nique, why do you keep fucking with Oprah Winfrey?’ Because she fucked with me. That bitch rung my doorbell. I didn’t ring her motherfucking doorbell. That raggedy stank-ass bitch rang my motherfucking doorbell, and I answered that bitch.”
Mo’Nique performs at “Katt Williams: Woke Foke” for Netflix is a Joke Festival.
Clifton Prescod/Netflix
Mo’Nique went on to describe Winfrey as a woman who “crossed the goddamn track to Whiteville” who needs “a good piece of Black dick” to be brought back to her racial senses. After asking for potential volunteers from the audience, Mo’Nique clarified, “now if you fuck Oprah you must fuck Gayle. It’s a package.” But mentioning King only served to launch the comedian into a rant alleging that King smells, hoping audiences would “hashtag that” as “#StaleGayleWashYourTail.”
“And you’re looking at me, like, Mo’Nique, that is mean. No bitch, it is the motherfucking truth, and I will say it out loud so she will wash her ass moving forward and don’t nobody else have to experience that stinky shit. Y’all heard Snoop Doog. Funky dog head bitch!”