Legendary comic and actor Martin Lawrence’s “Y’all Know What It Is!” tour was at State Farm Arena on Friday night. The show was the only scheduled date in Atlanta and Lawrence did not disappoint.
“Atlanta, thank y’all for always supporting me,” Lawrence said.
From the looks of things from section 107, the show was sold out. By the sound of the crowd when Lwrence took the stage at 9:10 p.m., the show was going to be a love fest for the former star of the “Martin” show and dozens of films, including “House Party” and the hit trilogy “Bad Boys”.
During Lawrence’s 45-minute set, he talked about a lot of things: getting older, frequent trips to the bathroom to urinate, doing two sold-out shoes in Saudi Arabia, Will Smith smacking Chris Rock, and Diddy, though he didn’t mention him by name. Instead, Lawrence asked the crowd, “Who needs that much baby oil?”
Among the many topics of conversation Friday night, nothing garnered Lawrence’s interest like talking about sex. If there’s a percentage of his Atlanta set that I had to guess was about sex, I would guess 85%. From farting while in bed to oral sex, there was little Lawrence didn’t make fun of. He had the crowd in the palm of his hands from start to finish.
The many characters that made “Martin” the cult classic that it is today decades after going off-air found their way into his act as well. From Roscoe to Old Otis, Lawrence took a few minutes to run through some of his favorite characters during the set.
Photo by Kerri Phox/The Atlanta Voice
He also took time to talk about the efforts by the current Presidential administration to take Black History out of school curriculums.
“It’s Black History Month for me every day,” Lawrence said.
Nothing was off limits for Lawrence during the show: ugly people, ugly babies, Brazilian Butt Lifts, cancel culture, the aforementioned fart jokes, and Amazon.
“Wouldn’t it be cool if you could send an ass whuppin’ through Amazon?” he asked. “Like, next-day delivery.”
Chico Bean and Ms. Pat were the opening acts on Friday night and both had hilarious sets. Both Chico Bean and Ms. Pat have gained a lot of fans for their work on television shows (“Wildin N’ Out” and the “Ms. Pat Show”, so the crowd was extremely receptive to their jokes.
Photo by Kerri Phox/The Atlanta Voice
The star of the night however was Benji Brown, the M.C. for the evening. Every minute Brown was on stage was funny. Brown came on stage at 8:10 p.m. and by the time he was introducing Chico Bean at 8:30 p.m. he could barely be heard due to how loud the applause was.
“Who got paid today?” he asked. “Payday is a special holiday.”
Brown joked that it is hard to sleep on what he called “payday eve.”
Whatever he is getting paid on this tour he needs to get a raise.
“Y’all Know What It Is!” will be in Savannah at EnMarket Arena on Saturday, Mar. 8 before leaving Georgia and making stops in Chicago, Milwaukee, Norfolk, Virginia, Bossier City, Louisiana, North Little Rock, Arkansas, and two shows at the Mystic Lake Casino Hotel in Prior Lake, Minnesota.
