Hannibal Buress Recalls His Awkward Encounter With Jay Z and Beyoncé in New Series 'Storyville'

It's awkward but also hilarious.

View this video on YouTube

youtu.be

We can’t even imagine how it would feel to get scolded by Jay Z and Beyoncé. Especially if it was face-to-face in front of a bunch of strangers. Would you cry in embarrassment? Snap back in anger? Or simply take it? Comedian Hannibal Buress chose the latter.

Buress recounted his awkward encounter with the power couple in a new animated series called Storyville, which premieres this Friday on the TBS app. He recalls hitting up Jay’s 40/40 club last summer, where he met up with his friends Vic Mensa and Chance the Rapper. He admits he was initially uncomfortable in the setting, as he prefers dive bars over swanky industry parties, but became more relaxed after a few drinks. But then, Jay and Bey showed up.

“Everybody goes crazy. The whole energy—I’ve never seen anything like that, where the whole vibe just changed. People went crazy,” he said. “[…] At one point, they start posing for pictures, all four them posing: Chance, Jay Z, Beyoncé, and Vic.”

Buress wanted to capture the moment too, so he pulled out his phone and took his own photo.

“Jay Z’s pointing at me and he says, ‘Be cool,’” the comedian recalled.

Buress insisted he would never just pull out his phone and take a picture of people who were just hanging out but he figured since they were already posing, it wouldn’t be out of line to take a photo.

“This is a situation where the club is too loud to say what you really want to say,” Buress said. “I wanted to be like, ‘Nah, I don’t’ want to be cool. This is a great picture. It’s two friends of mine from Chicago that are doing well; they’re hanging out with you—one of the biggest rappers in the world—and your wife—one of the biggest stars in the world … I’m not gonna be cool.’

“But I couldn’t say that because it was too loud,” Buress said. “It would’ve been weird to yell at Jay Z. I just took it.”

You can watch the full video, premiering at Complex, above.

Storyville is part of a new collaboration between TBS and New York-based content and media organization Mass Appeal.

The six-episode series will also be distributed on Facebook Watch-Original Show page, TBS.com, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. The project was created and produced by Mass Appeal in partnership with Okayplayer.  

Latest in Music