In early February, Netflix posted a "teaser" video simply titled "Tamborine." There wasn't much to it; in a dark room, a bunch of tamborines were being played, with the viewer being told that something was "coming soon" while asking "would you play?" Since its release, there have been a number of theories regarding WTF it meant (ranging from a fifth season of Arrested Development to the finale of Sense8), but today, it has been announced that "Tamborine" is actually the title of Chris Rock's Netflix special, which drops on Valentine's Day.
Tamborine marks the first stand-up special from Rock in a decade; his last was Kill the Messenger, the 2008 HBO special that netted him his second Emmy (his first being for The Chris Rock Show), and comes at a pivotal time for America. Think about it: at the time of Kill the Messenger, we'd been on the brink of our first Black president. Obama's served his two terms, and we're now one year deep into Trump's term. For Rock, who gained acclaim for his takes on social and political issues, there's no doubt a healthy batch of content there for him to sink his teeth into.
Rock's Tamborine was directed by Bo Burnham (who also directed Jerrod Carmichael's 2017 HBO special, 8) and was filmed at New York's Brooklyn Academy of Music. With Tamborine dropping just days before Black Panther in the same week of the unveiling of the Obamas' Smithsonian portraits, this is shaping up to be one of the greatest Black History Months of all time.
