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Most comics talk about government incompetence from the outside looking in, but Robert Powell arrived on stage with a master’s degree in political science and years spent on Louisiana state payrolls. When he talks about public officials, it carries the dry weariness of someone who had to sit through their staff meetings before deciding the club circuit was cleaner work.

Filmed before a live audience in Los Angeles for Russell Simmons’s All Def Digital banner, the 2016 showcase was directed by Royale Watkins and released on NBC’s short-lived streaming platform Seeso. At twenty-four minutes, it captures Powell right as his club reputation was translating to the screen. That same year, he earned a slot in the Just For Laughs New Faces showcase and taped a set for HBO’s All Def Comedy, two years before Donald Glover cast him as the barber Bibby on Atlanta.

On stage, Powell leans into a relaxed southern cadence that works as camouflage for meaner punchlines. He walks through the 2016 presidential election cycle with casual disbelief, touches on modern dating fatigue, and offers an unsparing recap of Life of Pi that questions why anyone trusted a teenager on a boat with a Bengal tiger.