2014 was a huge year for comedian Hannibal Buress. He co-starred in the summer comedy movie Neighbors alongside Seth Rogan and Zac Efron, plays Lincoln on the fantastic Comedy Central show Broad City, co-hosts Adult Swim’s highly addictive and insane Eric Andre Show and he’s in the middle of his national stand up comedy tour, The Comedy Camisado Tour [where he's found himself in the headlines for calling Bill Cosby a rapist during his set]. Buress is no longer the up-and-comer, he’s a full-fledged star. XXL spoke to Buress—before the Cosby dustup—about his distinct conversational style of comedic delivery, working on The Eric Andre Show, future projects and his hip-hop dreams. —Emmanuel C.M.

XXL: How’s The Eric Andre Show? It's season number three now.
Hannibal Buress: It’s been cool. It’s been a lot of fun. We’re in our third season now. The show has a real specific fan base but it’s a good size fan base and it's been growing over the past few years. It’s been interesting just to see who the fans of the show are and bring different guests on. It’s been great to be able to do something for three seasons and get better at it. I’m still learning. Just getting better and being on camera and learning how to be funny on television.

Unique fan base is very right. How do y’all come up with skits? How did you even think of the show?
Eric has had the idea for a while. He was doing live incarnations of the show probably in 2008 or 2009 maybe. He had an idea to have his own talk show. I think at the live versions he had other people doing the co-host spot. So when he wanted to shoot a pilot, he asked me if I wanted—we shot a pilot and asked me if I wanted to do it. I didn’t really know much about it but I tried it out. And it took a while before it got to Adult Swim; at least a year. Then it ended up getting picked up and it was kind of cool.

How do you guys pick the guests?
Sometimes we get some people to do the show because they’re fans. Some people that I worked with before do the show. Then there are some people who are booked by our talent booking department. That’s where the majority of the guests come from. A small percentage of them come from [who] me and Eric worked with before.

Do you have a favorite segment?
There’s a bunch of good ones, especially this new season. Jimmy Kimmel was real cool, Seth Rogan. We had a porn star. This season we definitely got a lot more high profile guests. I’m excited, man. Last season when we had Questlove was pretty amazing. When we had T-Pain, Mel B from The Spice Girls. She was really good. I think she watched the show and kind of got what is going on. She was game for whatever.

When did you and Eric first meet?
2006 in New York, just through stand up and shows.

How have you grown as a stand up comedian?
You just get better over time. That’s the goal with any performing artist. If you keep doing it, just the pure repetition, you’ll just get better. But I think over time I have become more reflective with my stand up and more personal. Earlier on I would just make early observations or just trying to pick out different things—which I still do to a certain extent. Now a lot of it is more personal. I’m telling way more stories than I would be telling six years ago. I may have a seven-minute story in a set. Or in my last special I ended with two stories that connected for about twelve minutes together. That’s the type of thing. I’m doing longer form stuff. It's more comfortable on stage and I’ve got a decent fan base and it’s easier to work. You still got to put in work and be good on stage but it’s easier to work when you're working in front of your fans.

How’s being on Broad City? That show is really popular
It's good, people are saying it's dope a lot. It started out as a web series and they had me do an episode where I played a guy dating Ilana [Glazer]. Then when they got the pilot deal they asked me if I wanted to reprise that role a little bit and I did it and it really hit. It’s connecting with people a lot. It’s been an awesome show; it has a real cool style to it. It's shot in New York; it’s like the city is the character of the show also. But it really is. Like, a lot of cool sets we shot in, it’s a good vibe, the music, and people find it funny. It’s been cool to work on it and it’s been real big in my stand up. A lot of people watch that show and it kind of boosted my stand up. So it's been good and I’m happy for the girls.

You’re in the middle of this huge tour.
I just finished the first leg of the tour; I did Indianapolis, Cleveland and Detroit and did a college in Cincinnati. The first couple shows I had to have my paper to take to the stage so I know what’s going on. It’s a lot of new material to remember. But everything has been good. It’s been good crowds. It's nice to do. This is the biggest road [tour] I ever had on my own and it's been a lot of fun. Still more dates to go.

Do you have career moment?
I don’t know if there’s anything individually but it’s been a lot of cool things. I opened up at Madison Square Garden with Aziz [Ansari]. To do stand up at the Garden where the Knicks play and lot of concert events [happen], that was amazing to do. [On the] Oddball Tour we would do stand up for something like 10,000 to 20,000 people all summer. Last year I did a commercial with Kevin Durant and I’m a huge basketball fan so to work with him was cool. Neighbors was this year and that was a big movie. It's been a lot of cool things, I just can't pinpoint one.

I remember you coming into the office with Chance The Rapper and you were in that video ["NaNa"] last year. Anything y’all have planned?
No, not that I know of. Chance is killing it, man, it’s been cool to see how big his fan base has grown. I’ve been to a few shows of his over the past year and some change and he has a dedicated fan base, man. I seen him at Bonnaroo at his 2 a.m. set and thousands of people were out there. I’m happy for him.

What other Chicago artists are dope?
You got Vic Mensa doing his thing, Tree doing his thing, a lot of cats. Right now what I’m listening to is Flying Lotus’ [new] album. That shit is real smooth; it’s a good album. It’s a good album to write to and do shit to. Some music I listen to you can't write to it. You can’t write to “Tuesday.” But that Lotus album is good and inspiring, man.

Are you doing any more voice over work?
Yeah man, I got a few coming up. I got Angry Birds coming up and I got one called B.O.O.: Bureau Of Otherworldly Operations with Seth Rogan and I got this Untitled Pet Project. That’s literally what it’s called. And Louis C.K. and Kevin Hart, they all doing voices in that. That’s all coming out in 2016. I’m excited.

What is one thing you want to do in a near future that you never done before?
I want to buy a house. I want to move and get out my place. My place sucks.

You live in NYC, right?
[Laughs] Yeah, I live in Williamsburg. My place doesn’t suck but I just want an upgrade. I want to release a mixtape. I need to do my mixtaape. I got the people to help me. I got a bunch of producer friends and some rapper friends. I want to get a mixtape out in the next year.

Related: Danny Brown And Hannibal Buress Ask The Hard Questions – XXL Issue 149
Chance The Rapper Drops The Video For “NaNa” (Dir. by Hannibal Buress)
Method Man Performs At Knitting Factory With Hannibal Buress In Brooklyn

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