Sneaky jokes and Tupac tongue-twisters: Catching up with Hannibal Buress

Some might think Hannibal Buress is a quitter.

He left Saturday Night Live after a year, after just one of his sketches aired. He quit writing for 30 Rock after six months. He failed to graduate from Southern Illinois University.

Talking to him, though, it’s clear he’s no slouch. He's just been in the wrong hustle. He’s said before he didn’t see himself as a television writer, and that he likes writing for himself. Now, that's what he's doing — but it's work.

“Doing my own tour, I’m the one that has to sell all of the tickets, I have to work, I gotta wake up in the morning and call you … no disrespect,” he tells City Paper of his Comedy Camisado tour, which kicked off Oct.10 in Indiana and swings through Philly this Thursday at The Troc. [Tickets are still available for the 10:30 p.m. show.]

No disrespect taken, but he has had some pretty lame questions lobbed at him by interviewers in the past. He tweeted recently that one interviewer asked him, “So ... why are you touring?” and another’s asked if his father is disappointed in him for being a comedian instead of a war general, as is his namesake.

“Camisado,” by the way, Buress explained on a recent visit to “Conan” on TBS, means a military attack that occurs at night; a surprise attack.

“I’m sneaking up on people with my jokes,” he said. “A joke that starts out about fresh-pressed juice might turn into something about anal sex ... Camisado!”

Just shortly after performing across the country with The Oddball Festival — which had on the ticket big-time comics like Louis C.K., Amy Schumer and Sarah Silverman — and opening for Aziz Ansari on his tour stop at the Wells Fargo Center in late September, Buress is returning to the Philly area all on his own. 

As ever, he’s bewildered by aspects of life here.

“I had never seen people park in the middle of the street [Broad] until I got to Philly. When you’re that packed, it’s time for people to go to the suburbs, time to go to Jersey,” he says. “But I don’t really get a real feel of the city when I’m doing comedy. It’s a skewed version.”

When it comes to comparing shorter set times on big tours like Oddball to his own hour-plus long shows, what’s more difficult? After all, a shorter set means less time to connect with an audience or make an impression.

“Doing 20-minute sets, that’s nothing at this point. When you’re developing a new hour [of material], you just have to be disciplined, you look at it as a job,” he says. "Doing an hour, you really get to delve into a topic."

“I’m still figuring out the show. I'll be talking a lot about sports," Buress continues, then pauses. “I might have a yoga portion in the show.”

Buress talks a bit about his writing process and his experience working in TV (on 30 Rock, he was also one of the recurring homeless guys who once yelled at Jenna and Paul L’Astname to “Get a room, whatever that is!”).

“There’s a flash drive of all my SNL sketches that I wrote that didn’t make it, just because an idea didn’t work for a particular situation. Some standup that I write even now, onstage I realize it’s not working, it might be a bit that works better as a visual or with music,” he says. Buress has been known to incorporate live DJs into his sets at The Knitting Factory, too, because he’s found that some mixed media helps support the bits.

“There was a dumb bit that I did the other day, just doing tongue twisters in the tone of Tupac’s ‘Gangsta Party,'" he says, “I tried it on stage but it didn’t work at all. I thought it would work better in a video, if it did it with that instrumental, or played Pac first. I was thinking up in the shower how to fix it.”

While he was mum on the details of something he’s got “cooking up” that people should stay tuned about, he did talk about his role as love interest Lincoln on Broad City — season two debuts in January, and stars Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson visit the Troc on Nov. 5 for a sold out show of Broad City Live. 

“Lincoln still gets to occasionally have sex with Ilana, so that’s dope,” he says. “I contribute a little bit, I help with some of the scripts, I send them notes, I’m able to improvise on set. It’s a great show because you’re able to try stuff.”

Now that he’s so busy and making a name for himself — take that, anonymous shitty landlord who once texted him that no one even knows who he is — he has less time to host his usual standup show in Brooklyn every week, at The Knitting Factory. Asked about that show and the lineups, he says that he’s had some big names come on — Dave Chappelle, Aziz, Louis — but also newer comics.

Would he give the newer comics any heard-learned, in-depth advice backed by years of experience, writing for two hit shows and touring alongside some of the biggest names in comedy?

In keeping with Buress’ dry, straightforward style, well, not really.

“I’d just tell people … don’t bomb.” 

$28 | Wed., Oct. 22, 10:30 p.m. (8:30 show sold out), Trocadero, 1003 Arch St., thetroc.com.