Can I Be Me?

Jay Pharoah built his early career on being other people, making his name on Saturday Night Live with precise vocal mimicry of Barack Obama and Jay-Z. The title of his 2015 Showtime hour, Can I Be Me?, sets up an expectation that he is stepping out from behind the voices. He doesn’t fully abandon them, but he figures out how to use them as structural tools rather than standalone acts. Instead of standing at the mic and delivering an isolated impression, he slides into character for just a few seconds to punch up a narrative.

Filmed at The Cutting Room in New York City between his fifth and sixth seasons on SNL, the set maps his technical skills onto club comedy. He uses Chris Rock’s cadence to explain the behavior of old men while recounting his teenage years washing dishes at Golden Corral. Later, he channels a Gollum and Smeagol split-personality argument to describe the specific paranoia of eating weed cookies. Pharoah frequently drops into voices like Dikembe Mutombo or Dave Chappelle just long enough to swat away a joke or act out a quick reaction before returning to his own perspective.