Reggie Watts

This is how a Reggie Watts show unfolds: sporting a truly remarkable Afro, the bearish comic and musician ambles onto a stage containing several microphones, a couple keyboards and an onstage mixing board. He uses the microphones for offbeat non-sequitur jokes delivered in a variety of accents, the keyboards for songs ranging from surreal comic experiments to surprisingly straightforward pop tunes, and the mixer to sample and loop his voice into intricate hip-hop beats. His best shows, he often claims, are 100% improvised. Born in Germany to an American military officer (a cousin of author Alice Walker) and a French mother, Watts got his start in the 1990s as the leader of popular Seattle neo-soul band Maktub; much like British alternative-comedy legend Billy Connolly -- who started as a folksinger who told jokes while he tuned his banjo -- Watts eventually discovered that his between-song stage banter was overshadowing his music. Also like Connolly, Watts is a championship-level swearer, a talent he shows off in the gleefully rude song "Fuck Shit Stack," which combines genuinely funky human-beatbox loops with a savage deconstruction of hip-hop clichés worthy of Jacques Derrida. Watts was already gaining underground-comedy buzz at hipster clubs like New York's (Le) Poisson Rouge when Conan O'Brien offered him the opening slot on 2010's highly-promoted Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television tour. Maintaining his musical career as his comedy profile rises, Watts also sings with the DFA Records-associated band Tippy Toes, featuring members of LCD Soundsystem and Hercules and Love Affair.