Aziz Ansari, who stars as Tom in NBC's "Parks and Recreation" and appears in this summer's "Funny People," released his first stand-up comedy album "Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening" Tuesday. The comedian from South Carolina started performing stand-up while going to college at New York University.
Comedy nerds may have already heard some of his earlier material on his 9-minute track from 2006's "Invite Them Up" stand-up compilation pulled from a performance at a show hosted by Eugene Mirman in the East Village.
The opening track of his new album, "Gay Rights," is a perfect scene-setter for what the listener is about to hear: an album of great observational comedy often heightened to absurdity.
Throughout the album, Ansari touches on the peculiar figures of speech he encountered while growing up in the South, bizarre transactions on Craigslist and parents who trust strangers a little too much.
On the track "Harassing Harris On Facebook," Ansari recounts an experience where he successfully trolled a Facebook group for one of his younger cousin's history classes. By doing so, Ansari accomplishes something in a comedy performance that is already difficult enough in a conversation, relating a funny thing seen on the Internet to an audience without finishing the story with, "I guess you had to be there."
Six minutes of the album are devoted to Ansari's close encounters with rapper Kanye West.
West invites Ansari to a club and then back to West's house for an after-party. Ansari offers an inside look to those interested in what the egomaniacal rapper is like when he's not rushing an awards show stage.
The last ten minutes of the album consist of Ansari doing material as his Raaaaaaaandy (with eight A's) character from Judd Apatow's "Funny People."
Before the filming of the movie, for a part that required him to be onscreen for about 5 minutes, Ansari developed a set of material specifically for the comic he's characterized in interviews as "what Soulja Boy would be like if he did stand-up."
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