Reggie Watts

If you’ve never seen the comedian, songwriter, storyteller, and self-described disinformationist Reggie Watts live, this question is entirely natural: What will Watts do? He, after all, has done so much. After growing up a punk in Great Falls, Montana, Watts toured with Wayne Horvitz’s band while starting groups of his own. But the early viral culture of the post-millennial internet soon found Watts, an electronics whiz who could sequence complex a cappella beats and turn them into surrealistic and often-ribald songs that demanded to be shared. He toured with Devo, got on television with Comedy Bang! Bang! while becoming a hub of the growing comedy underground, and eventually became the bandleader for The Late Late Show with James Corden. Wildly musical and weirdly funny, sharp in his politics but kind in his approach, Watts is the kind of person to make you wonder how any one person can hold so much talent.

Which means that the answer to that question—what will Watts do?—becomes impossible to say. Watts is an improviser in the great comedic and jazz traditions, walking onstage each night to a keyboard, a sequencer, and a setting that he responds to in real time. His sets volley among whatever his interests happen to be and whatever he harnesses from the audience. He will make absurdist animal noises one moment and slip into operatic renditions of ‘90s hits the next, drop into convincing foreign accents and then slide into a Southerner’s yarn about getting lost in the woods. But he will probably do none of that. Watts’ sets are predictable only for their variety and entertainment, the qualities that have made him a star beyond easy definition.