The show then begins with Sinbad as Memphis performing
with a good band that includes saxophone, trumpet, and female vocalists. It’s
not allowed to go on for long. During the first song, Sinbad as Memphis stops
the show. To make the transition from Memphis to Sinbad, he simply takes off
his hat. He tosses it into the audience, then immediately tells security to
retrieve it, which is great. (And we see the security guy take it back.) Sinbad
explains, “They ain’t cheap.”
He then begins by talking about the state of things in
Detroit, and racism, but makes a point that it’s more about class now than
race. “Rich people hate poor people,
whatever color they are.”
He quickly moves into gender relations. It’s territory
that’s well covered, of course, but Sinbad puts his own bright spin on it, and
his energy helps sell it as well. He mentions how women will lose interest in a
man over little details, like his shoes. Men, of course, are different. “Men don’t walk away from nothing. Men do not
walk away from any woman. You know how crazy a woman gotta be for us to let her
go?”
There is some wonderful stuff about teachers dating
students, and he interacts with his audience about it. And when talking about
teenagers, he directly addresses a teenager in the audience, putting him on the
spot, sure, but in a gentle way. There’s quite a lot of nice stuff on teachers,
and he talks to an audience member who teachers at a private school. He asks
her what the biggest problem is there, and she says the parents think they own
the teachers. “Oh, they think they own
you? Because they do.” And then he takes on the persona of a parent: “If I spend forty thousand dollars a year,
oh, he’s going to pass. Because the check cleared.”
I love that he makes fun of the kindergarten graduation
ceremonies they hold these days. I just learned about those recently because of
my niece and nephew, and they’re completely bloody ridiculous. Sinbad says: “When I was coming up, you just went on to
first grade, wasn’t nobody talking about it. As a matter of fact, you’re
supposed to go. Who flunks kindergarten? Who doesn’t make it? We’re going to
have to hold Timmy back.”
He turns to religion near the end, and the band comes
back on to do two short religious songs. He then introduces the band, which I
suppose is a nice gesture but completely unnecessary, as this is a comedy
special and the band played for only a few minutes. Also, this is by far the
weakest section of the performance. It’s odd to end on such a weak note. I
would have cut all the stuff with the band – at the beginning and end.
But other than that, it’s an enjoyable performance, and I
laughed out loud quite a bit. Plus, you can’t help but like the guy. He seems
like a genuinely good and decent person, and that comes across well in his
comedy, in his subjects, his presentation, and particularly in the way he
interacts with audience members. On the back of the DVD it says, “An event for the whole family,” and it’s
certainly a show that parents can watch with their children.
Sinbad: Make Me
Wanna Holla was released on DVD on June 17, 2014.
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