Stand Up is Back at ‘Cuse: Jay Pharoah & Matteo Lane

By Shelby Rodger

While the wind was gusting upwards of 40 mph Friday night, an eager crowd of students sat in Syracuse University’s Goldstein Auditorium as comedian Jay Pharoah strutted onto the stage. The first thing he shouted after reaching the mic was, “I’m so happy right now, y’all. I found out last week my girlfriend is having a baby!” 

The entire audience clapped and hollered upon hearing the good news—until Pharoah grabbed the mic again and said, “Me, Rihanna, and A$AP are gonna be real friends!”

Longtime friend of Pharoah and emcee AJ Foster did a short stand up set at the start of the show to warm up the crowd. Originally from Utica, Foster garnered his first laugh by joking about how he knew the audience didn’t care about him at all. 

“I’m like the ad you gotta watch on YouTube, except you can’t skip me after the first five seconds,” he said. 

Foster then introduced the first of the show’s two headlining comedians Matteo Lane.

Lane sashayed to the mic and immediately captured the crowd by waving and blurting, “Hey, what’s up guys, I’m obviously gay!”

The TikTok famous comedian, opera singer, and oil painter began his set with a series of jokes about the popular video game Fortnite, calling it the gay version of Call of Duty. Lane then talked about his favorite cooking shows, starting with “The Great British Bake Off.” He described it as “a bunch of people in their early 100’s cooking in a field,” and when the audience cackled at this, he smiled and asked, “Can we all go to brunch?”

Perhaps the best moment of his set was when he asked the reporters in the front row what they want to do after college. One girl answered, “I want to do magazine journalism.” Lane’s response, “Do magazines still exist?” He also didn’t understand when students shouted “Newhouse!” as the reason people come to Syracuse. 

“A new house?” he asked. “People didn’t like their old house so they came for a new one? What is this, Little House on the Prairie?”

Lane’s buzzing personality and engagement with the crowd seamlessly lead into Pharoah’s 45-minute headlining set. As soon as he hit the stage, Pharoah had the crowd revved up. Throughout his first college show since the start of the pandemic, he cycled through all his best impersonations—including Barack Obama, Eddie Murphy, and a hilariously accurate Joe Biden reenactment. Several audience members kept asking him to do Kanye, whom Pharoah is famous for impersonating while a cast member on SNL.

“Kanye is cool. He’s a little obsessed, but he’s cool,” Pharoah said while cleverly dodging the questions some students threw at him. He then criticized Kanye’s current beef with rapper Kid Cudi and comedian Pete Davidson by exclaiming, “What are you, six?!”

The highlight of Pharoah’s set was when he showed off his improv skills by interacting with the two ASL interpreters on stage. During his Obama impression, he nudged one interpreter to see if he missed the former president. Pharoah later asked if he felt awkward having to sign jokes about himself. After a couple prods, the interpreter nodded and said, “Yes.” Pharoah jumped in excitement. 

“I made him break!” He exclaimed as the crowd laughed. “I just wanted to hear you talk!”