May 23, 2013 — vol. 48, no 42
'Dat boy funny'
Comedian Roland Powell—aka Lil Duval a Jacksonville, Florida native who took his name form the county he’s from—has appeared on BET’s “Comic View,” opened for a number of comedians and is most known for a skit called the “Stalker’s Anthem” a remake of Musiq Soulchild’s “Just Friends.”
After performing at the Oakland Bay Area Competition in 2001, Lil Duval was invited to perform on the Budweiser tour featuring Cedric the Entertainer and four other comedians. Later, he performed on the television special “Cedric the Entertainer: Starting Lineup.”
Clearly, Lil Duval has his own brand of comedy as evidenced by his Twitter page and tonight’s appearance at the Wilbur Theater.
His You Tube videos cover a range of topics from rap to skinny jeans and “The Hood State of the Union” with fellow comedian Charlamange.
Being funny comes easy to Duval. He says he just goes hard and hopes people laugh. There’s no testing of material.
“I just get on stage,” he says. “It wasn’t nothing to it. The stage is where I test my material. You can do all the practicing in front of a mirror that you want to, but if y’all don’t laugh then what? It’s not like rappers who get to go in a studio and lay it down until it’s perfect.”
In 2003, he released a comedy DVD “Dat Boy Funny,” which featured several upcoming comedians performing colorful sketch pieces and parodies mocking certain events in pop culture.
The next year, Duval became a regular featured performer for three seasons of BET’s ComicView. He released another DVD in 2005 “Put Your Hands on Me.”
“(The DVD’s) are just something I decided to do,” he explained. “I just shot a whole bunch of skits and everybody liked it.”
In addition to comedy, Duval is a music head who loves to sing and rap, but admits those skills are not his strong suits. Though he may not have the vocal chops to sing ballads, he has enough talent to make audiences chuckle with his original songs.
“I do what works,” he says. “I love music, but I ain’t good at it. I mean, don’t get it twisted, I can fool y’all into thinking I can sing. I can make it sound good. But I respect music enough to not really do it.”
He also respects comedy. “…[It’s] is all I’ve been doing, my whole life,” he said. “I was always funny by nature. Besides, as long as people keep messing up, I’m going to keep on learning and using that material.”
