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Joke Telling Business

Earthquake

Netflix · 2025 · 45 min

A veteran comedian brings straightforward, old-school joke writing to Atlanta.

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Comedians who treat the stage like a soapbox, a therapy session, or a campaign trail are currently clogging up the stand-up landscape. Earthquake is having none of it. On stage at Atlanta’s Buckhead Theatre, he sets his terms immediately: he is there to deliver punchlines, not lessons, sermons, or public relations strategies. The set focuses on the mechanical strength of traditional joke-writing, tackling the absurdity of celebrity scandals, middle-aged domesticity, and the practical challenges of a health scare with the booming, gravelly voice of a comic who has spent thirty years perfecting his timing.

Filmed on May 28, 2025, and released on Netflix on September 30, Joke Telling Business is the comedian’s first hour-long release on the platform. It serves as a direct follow-up to his widely praised 2022 half-hour set under the Chappelle’s Home Team banner, which reintroduced his commanding style to a broader streaming audience. Directed by Stan Lathan, the 45-minute set leans heavily into his perspective on marriage following his recent wedding earlier in the summer, alongside a public service announcement urging Black men to get colonoscopies. By returning to Atlanta, the city where he originally built his reputation on the club circuit in the 1990s, he keeps the energy local and intimate, showing a veteran performer completely in control of his crowd.

The set list

6 bits

  1. Divorce and the Los Angeles fires

    Jokes about friends asking if his home survived the January fires, wishing the flames had taken it instead because 'divorce took my house' to give him the justice the courts did not

  2. Unhoused white people in Portland

    Observes seeing unhoused white people on the street and noting that despite their state, their privilege means they only need a shower and a suit to become his supervisor by tomorrow

  3. R. Kelly and Sean 'Diddy' Combs scandals

    Mounts an unorthodox rationale comparing R. Kelly and Sean Combs, claiming he will never face similar troubles because he paid for everything

  4. LeBron James getting his son Bronny on the Lakers

    Defends LeBron's nepotism as exemplary fatherhood, drawing comparisons to supporting his own son through college

  5. The 2024 election and white privilege

    Analyzes the failure of expected voting coalitions to beat Donald Trump, remarking that in America an unqualified white man does not exist because 'his pigmentation is his qualification'

  6. Active shooter on his son's college campus

    Reacts to hearing there was a campus shooter located in the library by feeling unbothered because he knew his son would never be found in a library, punctuating the story with 'these ain't jokes'

How it plays

Tone
Raunchy, irreverent, bold, and unfiltered
On stage
Blunt, unapologetic, and confident veteran comic who rejects overly earnest or artsy comedy in favor of hard-hitting jokes, comparing himself to McDonald's selling hamburgers
Pace
Dynamic, high-energy, and fast-paced performance
About
Celebrity scandals, Aging and surviving into golden years, Love, marriage, and divorce, Race and white privilege, Parenthood and fatherhood, Modern politics

What the critics said

Praised by critics as an unfiltered, punchline-heavy set that showcases Earthquake's sharp wit and unyielding commitment to traditional joke-craft over modern confessional naturalism, though noted by some viewers as feeling more like a loose live set than a tightly structured narrative hour

In the room: An intimate, electric room at Buckhead Theatre where laughs often collided with hesitations over boundary-pushing material

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: uatl.com, imdb.com, latestnetflix.com, decider.com, vulture.com, rottentomatoes.com, iheart.com.

Backstory

Filmed in Atlanta, which he considers his 'comedy home' and where he co-founded the Uptown Comedy Corner in the 1990s. The special also serves as Earthquake's critique of contemporary standup moving away from traditional joke-telling

Details

Released
Taped
Buckhead Theatre, Atlanta
Runtime
45 min
Where
Netflix
Director
Stan Lathan
Honors
Vulture's The Best Comedy Specials and Funniest Stand-Up of 2025 (Ranked #9)
Topics
Before
(Practice) The Secret Files Of Earthquake (2022)

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