In black comedy, as in hip-hop, there is always a need to know who’s king. Redd Foxx had it at one point, followed by Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor, who begat Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence, who begat Chris Rock. The self-declared Kings of Comedy (Bernie Mac, Steve Harvey, etc.) entered into a brief rule that was more like a parliament than a monarchy. Finally, there was Dave Chappelle, who wisely abdicated his throne in favor of his sanity. For now, Katt Williams hasn’t quite risen to the throne, but with his knockout HBO Comedy Special, he’s proven to be more than just a court jester.

For Williams, who first came to acclaim playing “Money Mike” in Friday After Next, this performance is the perfect outlet for his frank but folksy humor. And a sold-out Atlanta Civic Center makes him feel like royalty in his adopted hometown, even down to the fellow celebrities who comes to check out the show (amongst others, Andre 3000, Da Brat and Lil’ Jon, in an unnecessary cameo right in the middle of the show.)

Williams covers similar terrain as other black comics (weed, race relations, relationships), but because of his unique personality, manages to spin fresh takes on these tried topics. On women with no sense of worth: “You done got with a nigga talking about, ‘You done messed up my self-esteem.’ Bitch, it’s called self esteem! How I’mma fuck up how you feel about you?” He talks about his love of marijuana and tries to convince us that it’s not a drug. “No one ever OD’s on marijuana. You might think he’s dead, but he’s not dead. He’ll wake up in thirty minutes hungry enough to eat up everything in your house.”

Like Moms Mabley before him, Williams is so much of a character himself that many of his jokes are funny due to his sheer ridiculousness. (In addition to his omnipresent perm, dude wears a green velvet suit jacket and rips off jokes with the manic energy of a chihuahua. And he’s 5’5”.) But for all the pimp bravado he musters, Williams drops some astute sociopolitical observations: “If you don’t believe America is gangsta then tell me this: What color is the Iraqi uniform?…. We’re not killing their army, we killin’ them. We over there killing niggas in sweat suits, tank tops and a cowboy hat.”

But he saves his real gold for our pop culture obsessions, most notably celebrity. After a hilarious bit on meeting stars like DMX, Omarion and Shaquille O’Neal, he begins a star-making incineration of Michael Jackson and his alleged child abuse. “Don’t nobody say the same shit about you for twenty gotdamn years… If somebody calls you a crackhead for twenty years, you smoking crack.” Also: “Nigga showed up to press conferences with Emmanuel Lewis sittin on his lap and we saying, ‘Aw, that’s cute.’ Forgetting that Emmanuel Lewis was 26 gotdamn years old at the time.” He blazes Mike. It’s horrible. And probably the funniest and truest words on television in 2006.