D'Militant
He built his act on starting arguments the audience couldn't win.
1 special · 1993
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When Darryl Littleton went up as D’Militant, he delivered jokes like he was daring the room to disagree with him. He didn’t pace or use big act-outs to win the crowd over. He stood firmly at the mic stand and laid out his arguments about race and politics with a flat, irritated cadence. If a crowd tightened up during a premise about historical injustice, he didn’t offer a silly punchline to relieve the tension. He leaned forward, repeated the premise, and forced the audience to sit in the awkwardness until they broke.
Specials
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Def Comedy Jam (S3E4) with Bill Hill, Chriss Charles & 1 more
Four working comics deliver rapid-fire club sets in a 1993 HBO showcase.
HBO · 30 min
On stage
He passed away in 2021, but he remains a foundational figure for the comics who came up through the club circuit in the nineties and two-thousands. He was the writer other headliners kept on speed dial when they needed a harder punchline, quietly shaping the acts of D.L. Hughley and Katt Williams. He spent his later years working as a historian, documenting the lineage of Black standup so the industry couldn’t erase the people who built it.
When you watch his television sets from the nineties, the material still feels surprisingly combative. He was most effective when he let his genuine annoyance drive a bit, pointing out double standards with dry, irritated logic. The drawback to his rigid stage persona was that he sometimes sacrificed a laugh to make a point, letting the comedy club feel a bit like a city council meeting. He was fine with the room getting quiet if he felt the joke was right.
Offstage, Littleton wrote the book Black Comedians on Black Comedy. He spent his life making sure standup was treated as a serious historical record.
At a glance
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